Notch signaling promotes enhanced BATF activity to induce SLEC differentiation. (A) Overlap between DEGs from available WT versus BATF cKO (Tsao et al., 2022) and WT versus Notch1/2 cKO (this paper) CD8⁺ T cells were determined while conserving the directionality of the data. (B) Overlap between Notch DARs (this paper) and BATF DARs (Tsao et al., 2022). (C) Overlap between Notch DARs (this paper) and available BATF binding sites obtained by chromatin immunoprecipitation with sequencing (ChIP-seq) (Tsao et al., 2022) is shown. (D) Notch WT or KO ATAC-seq tracks of genes important for CD8⁺ T cell effector differentiation or function are represented. DARs are highlighted in yellow, and BATF ChIP-seq peaks identified by Tsao et al. (2022) were also represented. (E) Naïve OT-I cells were stimulated with IL-7, IL-15, and IL-2 before transduction with an empty or bZIP-encoding defective retrovirus. Cells were adoptively transferred 2 days later, and mice were subsequently infected with Lm-OVA. On day (d) 7 after infection, spleens were collected for analysis. A fluorescent reporter (GFP) was used to trace cells that were successfully transduced. (F) Representative SLEC/MPEC plots gated on the transferred OT-I cells overexpressing BATF and compilation of SLEC, MPEC, and early effector cell (EEC) proportions. (G) Naïve OT-I cells were transduced with JUNB or c-JUN as in E. Compilation of SLEC, MPEC, and EEC proportions gated on OT-I CD8⁺ T cells. Data are from one (G) or two (F) independent experiments with a total of n = 4–8 mice per group. Repeated measures two-way ANOVA with Sidak’s multiple comparison test was used for GFP⁻ versus GFP⁺ comparisons. **P < 0.01, ***P < 0.001, ****P < 0.0001.