Transcriptional profiling of human Th9 T cell clones treated with GW9662 against untreated control

To investigate the role of PPAR-? in human TH cells, transcriptional response of activated “TH9” clones to treatment with GW9662, a potent PPAR-? antagonist was assessed. “TH9” cell clones were incubated with GW9662 for 48h and activated with aCD3/2/28 for 12 h. Transcriptomic profiling was performed by bulk RNA-seq. To generate TH9 clones, Peripheral Blood Mononuclear Cells (PBMC) were isolated by Ficoll-Plaque Plus (GE Healthcare, UK) density gradient centrifugation. Human CD4+ T cells were isolated from PBMC by EasySep positive selection kit (Stemcell Technologies) according to manufacturer's instruction. Positively selected CD4+ T cells were washed with PBS and stained for subsequent TH cell subset sorting. Effector memory “TH9” cells (CXCR3-CCR8+CCR6-CCR4+) were sorted to over 90% purity according to their expression of chemokine receptors from CD45RA-CD25-CD8-CD3+ cells. Single cell “TH9” clones were directly sorted into 96well plate according to their expression of chemokine receptors (see above). Single cell clones were expanded and maintained by periodic restimulation with PHA (1 µg/ml, Sigma-Chemicals) and irradiated allogenic feeder cells (5x104/well) in culture medium.