1J. Ollila, 2,3M. Vihinen
1Faculty of Biosciences, Division of Biochemistry, P.O. Box 56, FI-00014 University of Helsinki, Finland, 2Institute of Medical Technology, FI-33014 University of Tampere, Finland, 3Research Unit, Tampere University Hospital, FI-33520 Tampere, Finland
The responses of B cells to foreign molecules depend on the highly regulated production of hundreds of proteins. B cell differentiation is a complex process that requires the ordered expression of a large number of genes. The fate of B cell after B cell receptor (BCR) activation depends on e.g. the strength and the length of the signal. We have investigated BCR stimulated Ramos cells to explore genome-wide expression patterns in differentiating human B cells. We measured changes in transcript levels over several days using cDNA microarrays. ~1500 genes were significantly over- or underexpressed at one or more time points. The expression profiles of genes related to different pathways important for maturation and/or differentiation were studied in detail. We correlated gene expression for apoptosis, cell cycle and B cell receptor signalling to metabolic and signalling pathways in the Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) Pathway database. We will present how the expression levels of pathway related genes are correlated and regulated.
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