Effect of Ndrg3-deficiency on gene expression by CD8SP thymocytes

The objective of this study was to determine gene expression changes that occur as a result of Ndrg3-deficiency in mature CD8+ thymocytes. Our research has revealed that conditional ablation of Ndrg3 in the T cell lineage causes a significant loss of naive CD8+ T cells, and in order to determine the basis for this defect, we isolated mature, CD8 single-positive thymocytes from control and knockout mice, and subjected them to RNA-seq analysis to identify genes that were dysregulated in the absence of Ndrg3. CD8SP TCRb+MHCIhi thymocytes were isolated by fluorescence-activated cell sorting (FACS) from control and Ndrg3 conditional knockout mice. Total RNA was subsequently extracted from the sorted cells, and subjected to RNA-seq analysis to determine gene expression changes between control and conditional knockout groups. Four biological replicates were performed per group.