Woo Seung Je, Kim Jaeryeong, Lee Hong Jo, Lee Kyung Youn, Park Kyung Je, Kim Jin-Kyoo, Kim Jin Lee, Park Byung Chul, Seo Minseok, Han Jae Yong
Department of Agricultural Biotechnology and Research Institute of Agriculture and Life Sciences, Seoul National University, Seoul, Republic of Korea.
Department of Computer and Information Science, Korea University, Sejong, Republic of Korea.
iScience. 2025 Jul 18;28(8):113144. doi: 10.1016/j.isci.2025.113144. eCollection 2025 Aug 15.
Immunological conservation across species is crucial for comparative biology. While Natural killer (NK) cells' functions are conserved in humans and mice at the single-cell level, they remain unexplored in chickens due to technical limitations. Single-cell RNA sequencing in a recombination-activating gene 1-deficient ( ) chicken model revealed two NK cell subpopulations (NK-1 and -2) in chickens, analogous to those in humans and mice. Cross-species analysis revealed that most genes exhibited distinct expression patterns within NK subsets, reflecting evolutionary divergence, though functional genes were conserved across chicken, humans, and mice. NK-1 cells exhibited conserved cytotoxic functions through immunological synapses and activated signaling pathways, while NK-2 cells exhibited conserved immune-regulatory functions via cytokine production. Transcription factors related to NK cells' terminal and early maturation were upregulated in NK-1 and NK-2 cells, respectively. These findings highlight evolutionarily conserved immune mechanisms, establishing chickens as potential avian models for translational research in developing treatments against infectious diseases.
物种间的免疫保守性对于比较生物学至关重要。虽然自然杀伤（NK）细胞的功能在人类和小鼠的单细胞水平上是保守的，但由于技术限制，它们在鸡中仍未得到探索。在重组激活基因1缺陷（ ）鸡模型中的单细胞RNA测序揭示了鸡中的两个NK细胞亚群（NK-1和-2），类似于人类和小鼠中的亚群。跨物种分析表明，尽管功能基因在鸡、人类和小鼠中是保守的，但大多数基因在NK亚群中表现出不同的表达模式，反映了进化差异。NK-1细胞通过免疫突触表现出保守的细胞毒性功能并激活信号通路，而NK-2细胞通过细胞因子产生表现出保守的免疫调节功能。与NK细胞终末和早期成熟相关的转录因子分别在NK-1和NK-2细胞中上调。这些发现突出了进化上保守的免疫机制，使鸡成为开发针对传染病治疗方法的转化研究的潜在禽类模型。
