Circadian transcriptional profiling of peritoneal macrophages

In the immune system various parameters and immune functions are controlled by the circadian system. To investigate molecular mechanisms that link the circadian clock and the immune system we analyzed the transcriptom of peritoneal macrophages from mice collected in a time course for two consecutive days. We found that more than 8% of expressed genes are under circadian control including many important regulators in pathogen recognition, signal transduction and cytokine secretion. Peritoneal macrophages from mice kept in constant conditions were isolated in 4 h intervalls over a period of 48 h. RNA of CD11b sorted cells was extracted, pooled from 3 mice per time point and used for microarray analysis.