Journal: PLoS ONE
Article Title: Commensal Bacteria Regulate Thymic Aire Expression
doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0105904
Figure Lengend Snippet: (A) Thymocytes obtained from SPF and GF mice were stained with antibodies against CD4 and CD8. Cell numbers and proportions of CD4/8 subsets were almost equal in the two mice. (B) After roughly enriching CD45 − cells by depleting CD45 + cells from whole thymic cells using AutoMACS, they were stained with anti-I-A d -FITC, CD45-APC and UEA1-biotin and then Streptavidin-PE. Circulated areas in GF and SPF mice in left panels were isolated by FACS Aria to be CD45 − I-A + cells, and they were used for real-time PCR analysis. In separate experiments using 4 GF and SPF mice each, circulated areas were further analyzed for the proportions of UEA1 + I-A + cells in CD45 − I-A + cells. The average proportions for gated UEA1 + I-A + cells in CD45 − I-A + cells from independent experiments are shown in the right panel. (C) CD45 − I-A + cells isolated as TECs from SPF and GF mice were analyzed for Aire mRNA expression by real-time PCR. Relative quantification of gene expression is shown as mean of values from triplicate samples, and the lowest Aire expression level in GF was arbitrarily set at 1. The relative gene expression level is shown for individual TECs from 4 heads each of GF and SPF mice. *P<0.05. (D) For FACS analysis of Aire experiments, enriched CD45 − depleted cells were first stained with CD45-APC and UEA1-biotin facilitated with Streptavidin-PE, and anti-I-A/I-E-Pacific Blue (to distinguish the anti-Aire reaction that was conjugated with Alexa Fluor 488). Then, for intracellular Aire staining, the cells were fixed as described in Materials and Methods and stained with Aire-A488 or control antibody. Representative FACS plots of Aire expression of SPF (black line) and GF (red line) mice are shown. Black and red dotted lines indicate isotype controls of SPF and GF mice, respectively. The mean fluorescence intensity (MFI) for Aire from three independent experiments is shown (right). *P<0.05.
Article Snippet: For flow cytometric analysis and TEC sorting, mouse monoclonal antibodies against CD8- FITC (5H10-1), CD4-PE (RM4-5), CD4-APC (RM4-5), I-A/I-E-Pacific Blue (M5/114.152), and RANKL-biotin (IK22-5) were purchased from Biolegend, CD45-APC (SB1), I-A b -FITC (AF6–120.1), and I-A d -FITC (AMS-32.1) were purchased from BD Bioscience, Aire-Alexa Fluor 488 (5H12), rat IgG2c-Alexa Fluor 488 isotype control (RTK4174), and Streptavidin-PE were purchased from eBioscience, and Ulex Europaeus Agglutinin 1-biotin (UEA1) was purchased from Vector Labs.
Techniques: Staining, Isolation, Real-time Polymerase Chain Reaction, Expressing, Fluorescence