Gene expression in NKR-P1B+ versus Ly49s3+ rat NK cells

Two major subsets of rat natural killer (NK) cells can be distinguished based on their expression of either the Ly49s3 or the NKR-P1B lectin-like receptor. Ly49s3+ NK cells, but not NKR-P1B+ NK cells, express a wide range of Ly49 receptors. Here, we performed a global gene expression profiling of sorted, single-positive NKR-P1B+ or Ly49s3+ splenic NK cells in order to get an overview of differences in expressed genes between the NKR-P1B+ and Ly49s3+ NK cell subsets. NKR-P1B or Ly49s3 single-positive NK cells were sorted by flow cytometry from NK-enriched mononuclear cells from rat spleens. 9 rats of the PVG.7b strain aged 8-12 weeks were used. Total RNA was harvested by Tri Reagent extraction, and subjected to microarray analysis (Affymetrix Rat Genome 230 2.0 Array).