RNAseq analysis of mouse lung transcriptome from allergic and non-allergic mice prior to and following lung Klebsiella pneumoniae infection

We have demonstrated that allergic airway inflammation (induced by an ovalbumin sensitization and aerosol challenge protocol) decreases lung bacterial burden following lung infection with Klebsiella pneumoniae. The goals of this study are to indentify novel targets that are expressed during allergic airway inflammation in this model that contribute to enhanced lung bacterial immunity. We isolated total RNA from the lungs of 4 groups of mice at both 0 hours (pre-infection) and 6 hours post-infection. WT and STAT6KO (BALB/c) mice were intraperitoneally sensitzed with alum or ovalbumin (OVA)-alum on day -18. Alum injected mice were not subsequently exposed to OVA aerosol. OVA-alum injected mice underwent aerosol sensitization on days -4, -3, -2, and -1. On day 0, four groups of mice were harvested (pre-infection). These included WT-ALUM, WT-OVA, STAT6KO-ALUM, and STAT6KO-OVA. On day 0, four groups of mice were infected with 10^4cfu of Klebsiella and then lungs were removed at 6 hours post-infection. These groups included WT-ALUM-KP, WT-OVA-KP, STAT6KO-ALUM-KP, and STAT6KO-OVA-KP. The right lung was removed for RNA isolation. Each group contained between 4 and 5 mice.