Profiling the immune cell gene signature of in vivo model of IBD

Identification of genes differentially expressed in inflamed and intact colon samples of TNBS treated in vivo rat model of Inflammatory Bowel Disease Overall design: To investigate the transcriptional changes between inflamed and phenotypically normal or uninflamed tissue regions along the colons, male Wistar rats were randomly divided into two groups: first group served as control (n=2; vehicle-treated hence non-colitis induced) and the second group was induced by 2,4,6-trinitrobenzene sulphonic acid (TNBS) (n=6; colitis-induced). TNBS was intracolonically administered in a volume of 0.25 ml, via an 8 cm long plastic catheter under transient ether anaesthesia. 72 hours after the treatment all animals were sacrificed, ~8cm of distal colons were removed, opened longitudinally and gently cleaned of fecal content using ice-cold physiological saline. In the case of the control group, since non-inflamed, samples were taken from random colon sections. In case of colitis-induced animals, samples were taken from inflamed colon region as well as from non-adjacent uninflamed region.