Effect of acute pyrvinium pamoate treatment on gene expression of CD4+ T cells during early activation.

Treatment of T cells with pyrvinium pamoate (PP) early during their activation blocks mitochondrial biogenesis and results in reduced proliferation, skewed CD4+ T cell differentiation and reduced cytokine production. Therefore, to examine the role of PP treatment on mitochondria health, we performed gene expression analysis to identify differentially expressed genes in naive CD4+ T cells cultured with anti-CD3/CD28 plus PP or DMSO. Naive CD4+ T cells were activated for six hours with 2 mg/mL anti-CD3/anti-CD28 mAbs and activated for an additional one hour in the presence or absence of PP. Overall design: Three separate mice were used to isolate CD4+ T cells, and approx. 1x10^6 cells were used for each sample. DMSO (x3), 2 nM pyrvinium pamoate (x3), or 25 nM rotenone (x3) was used to examine their immediate effect on gene expression. Rotenone, which targets mitochondria, was used as an additional control.