T cells develop in the thymus and are critical for adaptive immunity. Natural killer (NK) lymphocytes constitute an essential component of the innate immune system in tumor surveillance, reproduction and defense against microbes and viruses. Here we show that the transcription factor Bcl11b was expressed in all T cell compartments and was indispensable for T lineage development. When Bcl11b was deleted, T cells from all developmental stages acquired NK cell properties and concomitantly lost or decreased T cell–associated gene expression. These induced T-to–natural killer (ITNK) cells, which were morphologically and genetically similar to conventional NK cells, killed tumor cells in vitro and effectively prevented tumor metastasis in vivo. Therefore, ITNKs may represent a new cell source for cell-based therapies.

Somatic cells can be reprogrammed to induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) by expressing four transcription factors: Oct4, Sox2, Klf4, and c-Myc. Here we report that enhancing RA signaling by expressing RA receptors (RARs) or by RA agonists profoundly promoted reprogramming, but inhibiting it using a RAR-α dominant-negative form completely blocked it. Coexpressing Rarg (RAR-γ) and Lrh-1 (liver receptor homologue 1; Nr5a2) with the four factors greatly accelerated reprogramming so that reprogramming of mouse embryonic fibroblast cells to ground-state iPSCs requires only 4 d induction of these six factors. The six-factor combination readily reprogrammed primary human neonatal and adult fibroblast cells to exogenous factor-independent iPSCs, which resembled ground-state mouse ES cells in growth properties, gene expression, and signaling dependency. Our findings demonstrate that signaling through RARs has critical roles in molecular reprogramming and that the synergistic interaction between Rarg and Lrh1 directs reprogramming toward ground-state pluripotency. The human iPSCs described here should facilitate functional analysis of the human genome.embryonic stem cell | RAREoct | piggyBac transposition | SH-iPSC

Transcription activator-like effector nucleases (TALENs) are an approach for directed gene disruption and have been proved to be effective in various animal models. Here, we report that TALENs can induce somatic mutations in Xenopus embryos with reliably high efficiency and that such mutations are heritable through germ-line transmission. We modified the Golden Gate method for TALEN assembly to make the product suitable for RNA transcription and microinjection into Xenopus embryos. Eight pairs of TALENs were constructed to target eight Xenopus genes, and all resulted in indel mutations with high efficiencies of up to 95.7% at the targeted loci. Furthermore, mutations induced by TALENs were highly efficiently passed through the germ line to F 1 frogs. Together with simple and reliable PCR-based approaches for detecting TALEN-induced mutations, our results indicate that TALENs are an effective tool for targeted gene editing/knockout in Xenopus.genome editing | heritable mutagenesis | mutagenesis detection | reverse genetics | genome engineering A mong current animal models, Xenopus laevis and Xenopus tropicalis are classical animal models widely used in the study of embryonic development. However, because of the lack of methodologies for homologous recombination and embryonic stem cell derivation, it is difficult to perform specific gene targeting in these two models, which has impeded their use in genetic studies. Recently, site-specific gene targeting with transcription activator-like effector nucleases (TALENs) has been successfully applied in several animal models including rat, zebrafish, and Caenorhabditis elegans (1-4). Similar to zinc finger nucleases (ZFNs) (5), TALENs are engineered DNA nucleases that consist of a custom-designed DNA-binding domain and a nonspecific nuclease domain derived from Fok I endonuclease. Binding of adjacent TALENs allows dimerization of the endonuclease domains, leading to double-strand breaks at the predetermined site (6). These double-strand DNA breaks are frequently repaired through nonhomologous end joining (NHEJ) (7, 8), resulting in deletion or insertion (indel) mutations. The DNA binding specificity of TALENs, as distinct from ZFNs, is based on the transcription activator-like effectors (TALEs) from Xanthomonas plant pathogens (9, 10). The TALE proteins consist of an N-terminal translocation domain, a nuclear localization signal, and various numbers of tandem 34-aa repeats that determine the DNA binding specificity. Each repeat in the tandem array is identical except for two variable amino acid residues at positions 12 and 13 called repeat variable di-residues (RVDs), through which each repeat independently determines the targeted base (11,12). It is known that the RVDs NI, NG, HD, and NN preferentially recognize adenine (A), thymine (T), cytosine (C), and guanine (G)/adenine (A), respectively (13). With a given repeat combination, the TALE recognizes a specific target sequence predicted by this code. A pair of TALENs can then cleave doublestrand DNA between the two targ...