SUMMARY
Inborn Errors of Metabolism (IEM) and Immunity (IEI) are Mendelian diseases in which complex phenotypes and patient rarity can limit clinical annotations. Few genes are assigned to both IEM and IEI, but immunometabolic demands suggest functional overlap is underestimated. We applied CRISPR screens to test IEM genes for immunologic roles and IEI genes for metabolic effects and found considerable crossover. Analysis of IEM showed N-linked glycosylation and the de novo hexosamine synthesis enzyme, Gfpt1 , are critical for T cell expansion and function. Interestingly, Gfpt1 -deficient T H 1 cells were more affected than T H 17 cells, which had increased Nagk for salvage UDP-GlcNAc synthesis. Screening IEI genes showed the transcription factor Bcl11b promotes CD4 + T cell mitochondrial activity and Mcl1 expression necessary to prevent metabolic stress. These data illustrate a high degree of functional overlap of IEM and IEI genes and point to potential immunometabolic mechanisms for a previously unappreciated set of these disorders.
HIGHLIGHTS
Inborn errors of immunity and metabolism have greater overlap than previously known
Gfpt1 deficiency causes an IEM but also selectively regulates T cell subset fate
Loss of Bcl11b causes a T cell deficiency IEI but also harms mitochondrial function
Many IEM may have immune defects and IEI may be driven by metabolic mechanisms
Full Text Availability
The license terms selected by the author(s) for this preprint version do not permit archiving in PMC. The full text is available from the preprint server.