Gene expression profiling in NK cells of patients infected with Leishmania mexicana

The aim of this study was to identify differences in the NK-cell response towards Leishmania mexicana lipophosphoglycan (LPG) between patients with localized (LCL) and diffuse (DCL) cutaneous leishmaniasis through gene expression profiling, in an attempt to pinpoint alterations in the signaling pathways responsible for the NK-cell dysfunction in patients with DCL. To determine the gene expression profiling in non stimulated and LPG-stimulated NK cells we include samples of controls, LCL and DCL patients. We performed microarrays (Human Gene 1.0 ST, Affymetrix) to identify differentially expressed transcripts between non stimulated and LPG-stimulated NK cells between controls, LCL and DCL samples. Human NK cells from controls, LCL and DCL patients were divided in two conditions: non stimulated and LPG-stimulated (6h) cells, different number of biological replicates were analyzed: four replicates for controls, two replicates for LCL and 3 replicates for DCL patients samples with a total of 18 microarrays.