About this Research Topic

Background

The E proteins HEB, E2-2 and E2A are critical regulators of development in multiple tissue types, but they are particularly important in hematopoietic fates and functions. Equally important are the Id proteins, which serve as post-translational antagonists of E protein activity. Lymphocyte development involves waves of E protein activity alternating with Id expression, at specific checkpoints, during which the epigenetic landscape changes and different sets of genes become available. Id expression also serves early in hematopoiesis at divergence points between innate and adaptive immune cell development. Understanding how these “molecular switches” orchestrate fate determination and functional potential in immune cells is the subject of this Research Topic.

While the importance of E proteins and Id proteins in immune cell development and function has become well established, especially in the T cell and B cell lineages, there are still many outstanding questions that remain about how they achieve their functional outcomes. How E protein dimers activate different genes and direct immune cell fates and functions in different lineages is one of the most outstanding questions in the field. Moreover, many unanswered questions remain about how E and Id proteins regulate health and disease. Here we provide an update to the state of the field with articles revealing the latest advances in E and Id protein function in immune cell development and disease.

This Research Topic aims to gather a collection of articles on E proteins and Id proteins in immune cell development and function. We hope that these articles will contribute to our understanding of how E proteins and Id proteins regulate multiple layers of immunity.
The research topic welcomes the submission of Original Research, Review and Mini-Review articles, which cover, but are not limited to, the following topics:

o Interactions of E proteins with other hematopoietic regulators
o Specific roles for different E proteins in hematopoietic development
o Roles of E proteins in T cell effector and memory formation and function
o Roles of Id factors in specification of innate versus adaptive immunity
o Signaling pathways that impact Id expression and E protein activity in lymphocytes
o Structural aspects of E protein-containing complexes in immune cells
o Roles of E and Id proteins in leukemia
o E protein/Id protein functions in central and peripheral immune tolerance
o Chromatin remodeling and occupancy by E protein containing complexes
o Differential use of Id2 and Id3 in T cell differentiation
o Metabolic impacts of E protein/Id protein function during lymphocyte development


Dr. Zuniga-Pflucker is a co-founder and chair of the scientific advisory board of Notch Therapeutics. The other Topic Editors declare no potential competing interests with relation to the topic theme.

Keywords: E protein, gene regulation, immune cell development, immune system function, Id protein, basic helix-loop-helix (bHLH), transcription factors

Important note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.

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