Butyrate alters gene expression profiles in gBT-I cells

Purpose: The aim of this study is to dissect if the microbiota-derived metabolite butyrate alters the transcriptome of antigen-activated CD8+ T cells. Methods: mRNA profiles from Ctrl and Butyrate-treated gBT-I were generated by deep sequencing, in triplicates, using Illumina GAIIx. The sequence reads that passed quality filters were analyzed at the transcript isoform level with two methods: Burrows–Wheeler Aligner (BWA) followed by ANOVA (ANOVA) and TopHat followed by Cufflinks. Results: The analysis of RNAseq data of Ctrl and Butyrate-treated gBT-I lead to ~2,000 differentially expressed genes (FDR < 0.05; fold change>2). GSEA enrichment analysis revealed enrichment of memory T cells signatures in gBT-I following butyrate-treatment (Sarkar et al., 2008). Conclusions: Our data shows that butyrate alters the transcriptome of effector CD8+ T cells, in particular their memory signature. Overall design: in vitro activated gBT-I mRNA profiles on d6 were generated by deep sequencing, in triplicate, using Illumina GAIIx.