Expression data from endothelial cells isolated from IL-33 knock-out and wildtype rats

Endothelial cells form the innermost layer of vessel walls and their activation is important for the recruitment of white blood cells to inflammatory lesions and for the formation of new blood vessels. Endothelial expression of IL-33 is prominent in human, guinea pig and rat, while is almost absent in the mouse. We have therefore generated IL-33-deficient rats, a more suitable animal model than the commonly laboratory mouse, to address a knowledge gap in the IL-33 research field by providing an in vivo model system that closely reflects the IL-33 expression in human. We performed here gene-level expression profiling of the endothelial cells isolated from IL-33 knock-out rat dermal blood vessesl and looked for the role of endogenous IL-33 in regulating the endothelial cell phenotype. Endothelial cells from three IL-33 knock-out and three wildtype rats were isolated for RNA extraction and hybridization on Affymetrix microarray. We sought to obtain pure, single cell population of blood vessel endothelial cells by magnetic activated cell sorting-based method (MACS), with sequential depletion of CD45 positive and Lyve-1 positive cells, and positive isolation of CD31 positive cells.