RNA-seq of human CD8low and CD8high cytotoxic T lymphocytes upon in vitro starvation. RNA-seq of human CD8low and CD8high cytotoxic T lymphocytes upon in vitro starvation

The mechanistic target of rapamycin (mTOR) signaling, which is an essential metabolic pathway that influences T cell differentiation, can be limited under conditions of metabolic stress e.g. during the cell starvation. As we observed reduced CD8 expression upon cell starvation in vitro, we sorted human cytotoxic T lymphocytes derived from six donors into low CD8 expression and high CD8 expressing T lymphocytes using flow cytometry. Their transcriptome was analyzed in order to investigate the two CD8 subsets. Our data suggests a functional diversity of CD8low and CD8high T cells with regard to cytotoxic effector function that might be useful to study these cells also in tumor sections or under conditions when cytotoxic T cells need to adapt to a changing microenvironment. Overall design: mRNA profiling of purified and FACS sorted human CD8low and CD8high cytotoxic T lymphocytes after 40h of in vitro starvation.

雷帕霉素靶蛋白（mechanistic target of rapamycin, mTOR）信号通路是调控T细胞分化的关键代谢通路，可在代谢应激条件（如细胞饥饿状态）下受到抑制。本研究在体外细胞饥饿实验中观察到CD8表达水平下调，遂通过流式细胞术（flow cytometry）将6名供体来源的人类细胞毒性T淋巴细胞分为CD8低表达与CD8高表达两个亚群。随后对两组细胞的转录组进行分析，以探究这两个CD8 T细胞亚群的特征。本研究数据显示，CD8low与CD8high T细胞在细胞毒性效应功能方面存在功能多样性，该发现或可用于在肿瘤组织切片中研究此类细胞，亦或为探究细胞毒性T细胞适应动态变化的微环境的相关机制提供参考。整体实验设计：对经体外饥饿处理40小时后的纯化并经FACS分选的人类CD8low、CD8high细胞毒性T淋巴细胞进行mRNA表达谱分析。