Mechanosensing by T cells promotes a tissue-resident memory transcriptional program

Abstract

Cell migration and strategic positioning within tissues is critical for the rapid mobilization of a T cell response. T cells must remain motile in both lymphoid and nonlymphoid tissues, which vary widely in mechanical properties such as stiffness. Here we showed that activated T cells sensed mechanical cues and responded with changes in cell morphology, nuclear envelope composition and initiation of DNA repair to protect their genomic material from force-mediated damage. Increased mechanical input also drove the transcriptional reprogramming of activated T cells, including changes in many of the core genes shared by tissue-resident memory T cells across diverse tissues, by modulating the expression of the tissue-resident memory T cell-associated transcription factors Klf2, Runx3 and Hic1. Thus, mechanosensing by activated T cells impacted T cell fate, promoting a transcriptional program associated with tissue residency. Mandl and colleagues show that increased mechanical input drives transcriptional changes associated with a core tissue-resident program in activated CD8+ T cells.