Gene expression variation in horse placental and fetal tissue, and resting and stimulated horse lymphocytes [Agilent-018932]

We undertook gene expression microarray experiments to identify genes that are differentially expressed in different placental and fetal tissue, and resting and Pokeweed Mitogen (PWM) stimulated horse lymphocytes. Conceptus tissues were dissected to obtain chorionic girdle, chorion, and fetal tissue. Freshly isolated horse peripheral blood lymphocytes were split and harvested immediately, or stimulated with PWM and harvested over a five day period. These experiments utilized a custom Agilent horse array designed in house that featured >14,000 probes on an 8x15k array format. Several genes were selected from the results for validation by quantitative real-time PCR. QPCR results matched the microarray results very closely. Four Day 33-35 chorionic girdle RNAs were compared to matching chorion RNAs, and fetal tissue from two of the conceptuses. Gene expression in resting lymphocytes was compared to gene expression in PWM treated lymphocytes.