In TCR-stimulated T-cells, N-ras regulates specific genes and signal transduction pathways

ABSTRACT: It has been recently shown that N-ras plays a preferential role in immune cell development and function; specifically: N-ras, but not H-ras or K-ras, could be activated at and signal from the Golgi membrane of immune cells following a low level TCR stimulus. The goal of our studies was to test the hypothesis that N-ras and H-ras played distinct roles in immune cells at the level of the transcriptome. First, we showed via mRNA expression profiling that there were over four hundred genes that were uniquely differentially regulated either by N-ras or H-ras, which provided strong evidence in favor of the hypothesis that N-ras and H-ras have distinct functions in immune cells. We next characterized the genes that were differentially regulated by N-ras in T cells following a low-level TCR stimulus. Of the large pool of candidate genes that were differentially regulated by N-ras downstream of TCR ligation, four genes were verified in qRT-PCR-based validation experiments as being differentially regulated by N-ras (Dntt, Slc9a6, Chst1, and Lars2). Finally, although there was little overlap between individual genes that were regulated by N-ras in unstimulated thymocytes and stimulated CD4+ T-cells, there was a nearly complete correspondence between the signaling pathways that were regulated by N-ras in these two immune cell types. Since we were interested primarily in genes that were differentially regulated by N-ras following a low-level TCR stimulus, our microarray data comparison was between data from TCR-stimulated, WT CD4+ T-cells and from TCR-stimulated, N-ras KO CD4+ T-cells. Genes that were differentially regulated in the comparison between stimulated N-ras KO CD4+ T-cells and unstimulated N-ras KO CD4+ T-cells, as well as those genes that were differentially regulated in the comparison between stimulated WT CD4+ T-cells and unstimulated WT CD4+ T-cells were excluded from this analysis. To determine if N-ras and H-ras regulate different sets of genes in thymocytes, a comparison was made between the set of genes that were differentially regulated by N-ras in the [WT] vs. [N-ras KO] comparison and the set of genes that were differentially regulated by H-ras in the [WT] vs. [H-ras KO] comparison.

ORGANISM(S): Mus musculus

PROVIDER: GSE45739 | GEO | 2013/04/04

SECONDARY ACCESSION(S): PRJNA196152

REPOSITORIES: GEO