Differential transcription in cell sorted paired TLR9hi and TLR9lo CLL samples

This study set out to establish whether sub-populations of chronic lymphocytic leukaemia (CLL) cells, with different expression of cell surface TLR9 expression, have altered gene transcription signatiures. Primary CLL cells were labelled with fluorescence-tagged antibodies recognising CD5, CD19 and TLR9. Tumour sub-populations were identified by co-expression of CD5 and CD19 together with TLR9hi or TLR9lo expression. CD5+/CD19+/TLR9hi and CD5+/CD19+/TLR9lo fractions were high speed cell sorted using a FACSMelody cell sorter. RNA was the extracted using a Qiagen RNeasy kit followed by RNA-sequencing. Anyalysis revealed that TLR9hi CLL cells showed gene set enrichment for pathways involved in immune cell activation, cell-cell adhesion and leukeocyte migration.