RNA-seq of murine cytotoxic T lymphocytes unstimulated and stimulated with anti-CD3 for 10, 20, 40 and 60 minutes

We wished to examine early transcriptional changes that occur after TCR engagement in CD8+ cytotoxic T lymphocytes (CTLs). To this end, we differentiated effector CTLs from OTI TCR transgenic mice for 7 days in vitro and then stimulated them with anti-CD3 for various times before lysing for RNA-seq. Results demonstrated significant transcriptional changes starting from 20 minutes. After 60 minutes, upregulated genes were most enriched for cytokines and transcriptional machinery.