Description
Bruton's tyrosine kinase (Btk) is important for B lymphocyte development. To identify genes that are differentially expressed in primary B cells lacking functional Btk, splenocytes from X-linked immunodeficiency (Xid), Btk knockout (KO) and immunocompetent CBA mice, were used in microarrays containing more than 12,000 genes and expressed sequence tags (ESTs). We found 4515 transcripts expressed in duplicate experiments in all three strains. Out of these, 38 were differentially expressed genes (21 up-regulated >2 fold and 17 down-regulated <-2 fold) between CBA and Btk defective mice. Ten out of these genes were selected and quantitative Real-Time PCR was conducted for validation and further investigation. Real-Time experiments correlated nicely with the microarray data.