Temporal expression profile of primary CD4+ T cell activation

Little is known about the global transcriptional program underlying CD4+ T-cell activation. Using DNA microarrays and Q-RT-PCR, we examined the transcriptional profile of human CD4+ T-cell activation. The goal of this study was to identify genes involved in the various facets of human CD4+ T-cell activation. Keywords: time course CD4+ T cells isolated from peripheral blood were cultured with CD3, CD28, with or without IL-2 to induce T-cell activation. At each timepoint, cells were harvested and frozen for RNA isolation. Three biological replicate experiments were analyzed and approximately one-half of the samples from each experiment were technically replicated. Hybridizations were performed in a reference design with all samples labeled with Cy3 and a reference thymus total RNA labeled with Cy5.