Global gene expression in mouse thymic tissue or lymphocytes from young or aged mice, and during induced regeneration

The thymus begins to atrophy early in life, but maintains the capacity for transient robust re-growth in response to chemical or physical androgen ablation in males. In mice, at age 5 weeks the thymus remains near peak size, while by 12 months it has atrophied by . In response to castration the thymus re-grows to approximately it's peak size after about 20 days when it begins to rapidly re-atrophy. This study contains gene expression data from affymetrix microarrays covering thymic cortical and medullary laser capture microdissected tissue as well as FACS sorted cortical and medullary lymphocytes in young and aged mice, as well as timecourse data during castration induced regrowth. 156 samples including thymus from young and aged mice C57BL/6, as well as a time course after regeneration including 18 time points from male C57BL6 mice. There are 39 samples each in 4 sample types, microdissected thymic cortical and medullary tissue, and FACS sorted thymic cortical and medullary lymphocytes. Samples were collected at 5 weeks, 12 months, and in 12 month olds at days 6 to 23 post surgical castration. Replicates are present in 5 week old (5 reps), 12 month (4), day 6 (3), day 7 (2), day 12 (3), day 16 (2), day 17 (3), and day 20 (5) post castration. Replicate numbers indicate number of replicates in each tissue/cell type.