| Experiment Id | GSE65617 | Series Id | E-GEOD-65617 |
| Name | Differential features of Aire-induced and Aire-independent promiscuous gene expression in thymic epithelial cells | Experiment Type | RNA-Seq |
| Study Type | WT vs. Mutant | Source | GEO |
| Curation Date | 2024-07-11 |
| description | Promiscuous gene expression (pGE) of numerous self-antigens in thymic epithelial cells (TEC) enables the elimination of self-reactive T cells. The autoimmune regulator (Aire) is the only known molecular determinant driving pGE in the thymus but the existence of Aire-independent mechanisms has been inferred. Here, we analyzed the poly(A)+ transcriptome of TEC populations by RNA-sequencing (RNA-seq) in order to reveal differential features of Aire-induced vs. -independent pGE. We report an unanticipated effect of Aire deletion on the proliferation and differentiation of cortical TEC. Moreover, the RNA-seq data reveal the breath of Aire-induced and -independent pGE in medullary TEC (mTEC) subsets and the extent of thymic peripheral tissue representation. The results suggest that Aire-induced promiscuously expressed transcripts affect several functions with far reaching biological consequences in mTEC. High-throughput characterization of TEC transcriptomes will enable progress in understanding TEC biology and the establishment of self-tolerance. The mRNA profiles of cTEC, mTEClo and mTEChi from 6-8 week-old wild type (WT) and Aire-/- (KO) mice were generated by RNA-sequencing using Illumina HiSeq2000. |
