Gene expression profiles of age-associated clonal expansions of CD8 memory T cells

Many aged individuals develop monoclonal expansions of CD8 T cells. These expansions are derived from a CD8 memory T cell that outcompetes neighboring CD8 T cells. The molecular alterations within clonal expansions that confer this competitive advantage relative to other CD8 T cells remains unknown. These microarray experiments were designed to identify genes differentially expressed in age-associated expansions of CD8 memory T cells relative to polyclonal CD8 memory T cells found in the same aged mice. Subsequent analysis of these data identified two major types of clonal expansions, distinguished by expression level of integrin a4 mRNA and protein. Based on this classification, Expansion_rep1 belongs to the integrin a4 high subtype of clonal expansions. In contrast, reps 2, 4, and 5 belong to the integrin a4 low subtype of clonal expansions. Given the divergent biological properties of these two subtypes of clonal expansions, we have focused genes differentially expressed between Expansion_rep 2, 4, and 5 and their paired PolyclonalAged samples. Keywords: Cell type comparison of gene expression A total of 8 samples were analyzed for gene expression using the Affymetrix mouse genome 430 2.0 microarray platform. The experimental samples of interest were age-associated clonal expansions of CD8 memory T cells. We purified four clonal expansions from four independent, aged mice (indicated as "Expansion" rep1 2, 3, 4). For each clonal expansion of CD8 memory T cells that was purified, there was a paired control in which polyclonal CD8 memory T cells were harvested from the same aged mouse (denoted as "PolyclonalAged" rep1, 2, 3, 4). These paired samples allow one to consider gene expression changes from mice which have undergone the same age-associated changes in biology. The predominant comparison this study focused on was changes in gene expression between age-associated clonal expansions of CD8 memory T cells and their paired, polyclonal CD8 memory T cells. A total of 4 of these pairs were collected.