Transcription profile of CD103- vs CD103+ dendritic cells derived from CX3CR1+c-kit+- bone marrow cells (M1993 M2067)

We hypothesize that under homeostatic as well as inflammatory conditions circulating monocytes and/or their bone marrow-derived progenitors might contribute to the replenishment of CD103+ and CD103- DC in lymphoid and non-lymphoid compartments. To that end, bone marrow cells from CX3CR1+/gfp C57BL/6 mice were sorted as follows: lineage negative (CD3, CD19, NK1.1, Ter119, Ly6G and CD11c) CX3CR1+c-kit+. Sorted cells were further cultured in vitro under the continuous presence of GM-CSF. lin-CX3CR1+c-kit+ bone marrow cells gave rise to CD103+ and CD103- DC in vitro. To test whether CD103 might be a suitable marker that allows the differentiation of functionally distinct DC subsets generated in vitro, CD11c+CD103+ and CD11c+CD103- DC were sorted from day 5 cultures of lin-CX3CR1+c-kit+ cells and analyzed by whole mouse genome microarrays from Agilent technologies. Compared to CD103+ DC, CD103- DC displayed a strong up-regulation of transcripts for genes involved in innate immunity, whereas those involved in costimulation were down-modulated. Our data suggest distinct functional activity of these two DC subsets. Keywords: Transcriptional profiling-Cell type comparison We compared the transcriptional profile of CD11c+CD103+ and CD11c+CD103- dendritic cells by use of Agilent Whole Mouse Genome Microarrays. Two sets of samples were generated independently as real biological replicates. The microarray analysis was performed as a dual-color experiment, including a dye-swap.