Characterization of the molecular signature associated with the ablation of integrin α6 in IECs in the α6ΔIEC-TAM mouse model. Mus musculus

Transcriptome analysis of mRNAs extracted from the rectal mucosa of WT and α6ΔIEC-TAM mice, 15 days after tamoxifen treatment Inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD) in humans are characterized by chronic inflammation and gastrointestinal tissue damage, caused by a combination of genetic and environmental factors. We show that the specific ablation of integrin α6 in intestinal epithelial cells (IECs) results in spontaneous colorectal inflammation in mice. In order to characterize the earlier molecular signature involved in the onset of inflammation, we performed Affymetrix microarrays and compare control versus α6ΔIEC-TAM transcriptomes after tamoxifen treatment. Overall design: RNAs were prepared from rectal mucosa of 3 control mice treated with tamoxifen, 4 mutant mice treated with tamoxifen and 4 mutant mice treated with NaCl. The transcriptome analysis was performed using the Affymetrix Mouse Gene 1.0 ST arrays. Images were processed using affymetrix GeneChip® Command Console® Software (AGCC) (version 2.0) and numerical values were generated using Affymetrix Expression Console™ Software (version 1.1).