Microarray Analysis of Murine IEL Subsets

Mouse small intestine intraepithelial lymphocytes (IEL) that express a ab TCR and CD8aa homodimers are an enigmatic T cell subset, as their specificity and in vivo function remain to be defined. To gain insight into the nature of these cells, we performed global gene expression profiling using microarray analysis, combined with PCR and flow cytometry to determine the level of expression of selected genes. Using these methods, TCR ab+ CD8aa IEL were compared to their TCR ab+ CD8b+ and TCR gd+ counterparts. Keywords: Cell type comparison In this study, the three IEL populations were isolated by cell sorting from a pool of IELs from 20 mice. RNA from each IEL subset was used to probe one microarray. A replicate experiment was performed on a seperate occasion using a new pool of 20 mice and three additional microarrays were used.