Transcriptome profiling of porcine naive, intermediate and terminally differentiated CD8+ T cells

The aim of this study was to characterize three subsets with distinct differentiation stages within the CD8beta+ T-cell subpopulation by using high-throughput next-generation sequencing (NGS) technologies. To get a more detailed impression about the differentiation of the CD8 T cells we examined besides the direct ex vivo analyses the transcriptome changes after stimulation by using different in vitro stimuli. We followed the differentiation of naive or progenitor cells (CD8beta+CD27+CD11alow), intermediate differentiated cells (CD8beta+CD27dimCD11a+), and terminally differentiated cells (CD8beta+CD27-CD11a++).