promiscuous gene expression in the mouse thymus. Mus musculus

Gene expression in different thymic stromal cells and subsets thereof was analyzed in 6-12 week old wild type (C57BL/6) and Aire knock-out (mixed background) mice. Thymic stromal cells were purified by sequential enzymatic digestion (collagenase, collagenase/dispase and trypsin) followed by gradient centrifugation and FACS sorting. Sort criteria were as follows: dendritic cells (CD11c+, F4/80 -), macrophages (F4/80+, CD11c-), cTECs (CD45–/lo, CDR1/Ly51+, Ep-CAM+) and mTECs (CD45–/lo, CDR1/Ly51–, Ep-CAM+). mTECs of wild-type and Aire knock-out mice were further subdivided according to CD80 expression levels. For microarray analysis total RNA from thymic stromal cell samples of two independent experiments was pre-amplified and biotinylated by two rounds of cDNA synthesis and in vitro transcription. Fluorescence readings were evaluated by using Microarray Suite 5.0 software. Keywords = thymus Keywords = promiscuous gene expression Keywords = AIRE Keywords: ordered