Expression data of T, DC, and TDC sorted from spleens of naive C57BL/6 mice

TDC are an hematopoietic cell subset identified and characterized by Mirela Kuka, Ivana Munitic and Jonathan D. Ashwell (Kuka et al., 2012, Nat Commun). TDC combine dendritic cell (DC) and conventional ab T cell markers and functional properties. Such duality might render TDC particularly responsive to infectious organisms, because they can bridge innate and adaptive traits. This novel cell subset substantially differs from other known innate T cells in many ways: they undergo an antigen-specific selection process indistinguishable from classical ab cells, they can proliferate in response to cognate antigens, and they lack markers of NKT or gd T cells. The expression data found in this dataset confirm that TDC have a genetic signature distinct from that of classical DC or of conventional T cells. This distinct genetic profile identifies them as a separate cell type and raises the possibility that TDC may have functions other than those of T and DC. Three cell subsets (T, DC, and TDC) were sorted from spleens pooled from 12 naive C57BL/6 mice. Total RNA was isolated with the RNeasy Micro kit (Qiagen). Microarray gene expression was performed by the Laboratory of Molecular Technology (NCI), with Affymetrix 430 2.0 GeneChip technology after RNA was amplified with a NuGEN WT-Ovation kit (Nugen).