Gene expression profiling of wild type and CCR2-/- mice post chikungunya infection

A number of inhibitors of chemokine CCL2 and its receptor CCR2 are in development and may find application for treating a range of inflammatory conditions, including autoimmune and viral arthritides. Herein we sought to determine the effect of CCR2 deficiency on arthritis caused by an arthritogenic alphavirus, Chikungunya virus. Chikungunya virus (LR2006-OPY1) was injected subcutaneously into the hind foot of either CCR2 knockout or wild-type control mice (n=4-6). At day 0 and d7 post infection, RNA from the feet was harvested, the RNA was pooled (4-6 feet per time point per mouse strain) and gene expression analysis was performed using Mouse Gene ST arrays (Affymetrix).