No differential gene expression for CD4+ T cells of MS patients and healthy controls

Ina S Brorson; Anna Eriksson; Ingvild S Leikfoss; Elisabeth G Celius; Pål Berg-Hansen; Lisa F Barcellos; Tone Berge; Hanne F Harbo; Steffan D Bos

doi:10.1177/2055217319856903

No differential gene expression for CD4⁺ T cells of MS patients and healthy controls

Mult Scler J Exp Transl Clin. 2019 Jun 13;5(2):2055217319856903. doi: 10.1177/2055217319856903. eCollection 2019 Apr-Jun.

Authors

Ina S Brorson^{1

2}, Anna Eriksson^{1

2}, Ingvild S Leikfoss^{1

2}, Elisabeth G Celius^{1

2}, Pål Berg-Hansen^{1

2}, Lisa F Barcellos^{3

4}, Tone Berge^{2

5}, Hanne F Harbo^{1

2}, Steffan D Bos^{1

2}

Affiliations

¹ Institute of Clinical Medicine, University of Oslo, Norway.
² Department of Neurology, Oslo University Hospital, Norway.
³ Computational Biology Graduate Group, University of California, USA.
⁴ Genetic Epidemiology and Genomics Laboratory, University of California, USA.
⁵ Institute of Mechanical, Electronics and Chemical Engineering, OsloMet - Oslo Metropolitan University, Norway.

Abstract

Background: Multiple sclerosis-associated genetic variants indicate that the adaptive immune system plays an important role in the risk of developing multiple sclerosis. It is currently not well understood how these multiple sclerosis-associated genetic variants contribute to multiple sclerosis risk. CD4⁺ T cells are suggested to be involved in multiple sclerosis disease processes.

Objective: We aim to identify CD4⁺ T cell differential gene expression between multiple sclerosis patients and healthy controls in order to understand better the role of these cells in multiple sclerosis.

Methods: We applied RNA sequencing on CD4⁺ T cells from multiple sclerosis patients and healthy controls.

Results: We did not identify significantly differentially expressed genes in CD4⁺ T cells from multiple sclerosis patients. Furthermore, pathway analyses did not identify enrichment for specific pathways in multiple sclerosis. When we investigated genes near multiple sclerosis-associated genetic variants, we did not observe significant enrichment of differentially expressed genes.

Conclusion: We conclude that CD4⁺ T cells from multiple sclerosis patients do not show significant differential gene expression. Therefore, gene expression studies of all circulating CD4⁺ T cells may not result in viable biomarkers. Gene expression studies of more specific subsets of CD4⁺ T cells remain justified to understand better which CD4⁺ T cell subsets contribute to multiple sclerosis pathology.

Keywords: CD4+ T cells; Genetics; RNA sequencing; gene expression; multiple sclerosis.