Killer cell Ig-like receptor (KIR) 3DL1 downregulation enhances inhibition of type 1 diabetes by autoantigen-specific regulatory T cells

Varied genes may be responsible for the functional differences of distinct subsets of T cells. As a result, it is possible that regulatory T cells and pathogenic T cells may display a different set of gene profile regulating their functional status. To identify genes contributing to the functional role of T cells, we used microarrays to examine the global gene expression in regulatory T cells, pathogenic T cells, and control non-regulatory, non-pathogenic T cells. BDC, N79, N206 and NR206 CD4+ T cells were cultured in RPMI medium plus 5% fetal bovine serum in vitro. N206 and NR206 were used as Tregs, BDC were used as Tpath cells and N79 were used as neutral control cells . BDC, N79, N206 and NR206 were cultured for RNA extraction and hybridization on Affymetrix microarrays.