Development of gene expression signatures on immature B cell for bursal peptide BP9

To further elucidate the mechanism of BP9 on immature B cell on the broad molecular level, we have employed whole genome microarray expression profiling as a discovery platform to examine gene expression patterns during BP9 treatment in a mouse derived immature B cell WEHI231cells culture system. WEHI231 cells were treated ex vivo, and robust normalization of the data identified 2602 differentially expressed probe sets exhibiting minimum 2.0-fold changes that distinguished between BP9 and control sample. Four pathways were significantly impacted by BP9 treatment, and gene Ontology annotations show changes in the expression of molecules involved in immune, T cell, and autophagy related biological processes. Expression of seven genes (Sos1, Ccl6, Atg14, Atg12, Ube2b, Pias3 and Ifnb1) from this signature was quantified in the RNA samples by QRT-PCR, confirming low variability between the predicted response patterns. BP9 induced gene expression in WEHI231 cells were measured at 4 hours after exposure to doses of 0ug/ml and 0.01ug/ml. Two independent experiments were performed using different cells for each experiment.