Expression data from control, aged and activated neutrophils in mouse blood. Mus musculus

Neutrophils provide immune protection against pathogens but also may promote tissue injury in inflammatory diseases. Although neutrophils are generally considered as a relatively homogeneous population, evidence for heterogeneity is emerging. Under steady-state conditions, neutrophil heterogeneity may arise from ageing and the replenishment by newly released neutrophils from the bone marrow. We used microarray to globally analyze gene expression in aged neutrophils and characterize the inflammatory programs that are activated during the aging process in the circulation. Overall design: Control, aged and activated neutrophils were sorted directly from mouse blood for RNA extraction and hybridization on Affymetrix microarrays. We transfused whole blood and harvested donor neutrophils marked by the CD45.1 allele 6h later to derive neutrophils that had truly aged in vivo. Sorted neutrophils were compared to control donor neutrophils that had been transferred for only 10 min. Additionally, we harvested circulating neutrophils from TNF-α treated mice for comparison with neutrophils activated by systemic inflammation.

中性粒细胞（Neutrophils）可介导针对病原体的免疫防御，却也可能在炎症性疾病中加重组织损伤。尽管中性粒细胞通常被视为相对均一的细胞群体，但有关其异质性的研究证据正日益增多。在稳态条件下，中性粒细胞的异质性可能源于细胞衰老以及骨髓中新释中性粒细胞的补充作用。本研究采用微阵列（microarray）技术对衰老中性粒细胞的基因表达进行全基因组分析，并对循环系统中细胞衰老过程激活的炎症程序进行表征。实验设计概述：我们直接从小鼠血液中分选对照组、衰老组与活化组中性粒细胞，用于RNA提取并在Affymetrix微阵列上进行杂交。我们对小鼠输注全血，并于6小时后收获以CD45.1等位基因标记的供体中性粒细胞，以获取在体内真正完成衰老进程的中性粒细胞；将此类分选得到的细胞与仅转移10分钟的对照供体中性粒细胞进行比对。此外，我们从经肿瘤坏死因子-α（TNF-α, Tumor Necrosis Factor-α）处理的小鼠体内获取循环中性粒细胞，与经全身性炎症活化的中性粒细胞进行对照比较。