Cues from the local microenvironment influence the differentiation state of T cells, resulting in a diverse array of functions. Transcription factors (TFs) control the differentiation of cells; understanding how and which TFs regulate CD8+ T cell differentiation could improve the outcome of CD8+ T cell-based therapies and help to uncover yet-unknown biology behind fundamental processes.

In this preprint (not peer reviewed), Chung et al. generate a transcriptional atlas of CD8+ T cell differentiation states by integrating transcriptomic and epigenomic data. This effort led to the identification of both TFs that are associated with one T cell differentiation state and TFs that regulate more than one T cell state. Their pipeline recapitulated some known TFs (such as TCF1) but also revealed previously unreported TFs in T cells (for example, JDP2, ZSCAN20 and ZFP324 for terminally exhausted CD8+ T cells (TEXterm cells)).