Gene expression in IL-10-deficient and wild-type mice following Citrobacter rodentium infection. Mus musculus

To further understand immune mechanims involved in regulating intestinal inflammation, we employed whole genome microarray expression profiling as a discovery platform to identify genes with the potential of regulating inflammation in the absence of IL-10. Whole colon tissue from IL-10-deficient and C57BL/6 (wild-type) mice was collected 2 weeks after Citrobacter rodentium infection and from uninfected controls. Consistent with the histological and cellular analysis, expression levels of many chemokines and cytokines involved in recruiting leukocytes and promoting inflammation were, on average, lower in IL-10 deficient compared to wild-type mice after infection. An exception to this general trend was IL-27, a cytokine with both pro- and anti-inflammatory properties. Overall design: Two weeks after Citrobacter rodentium challenge, total RNA was extracted and analyzed from whole colon tissue of infected IL-10-deficient and wild-type mice, and compared to uninfected controls. Each sample contained equal amounts of total RNA from 4-5 female mice which were pooled and used in the experiment.