Identifying type 1 diabetes candidate genes by DNA microarray analysis of islet-specific CD4+ T cells

Type 1 diabetes (T1D) is a T cell-mediated autoimmune disease resulting from the destruction of insulin-producing pancreatic beta cells and is fatal unless treated with insulin. During the last four decades, multiple insulin-dependent diabetes (Idd) susceptibility/resistance loci that regulate T1D development have been identified in humans and non-obese diabetic (NOD) mice, an established animal model for T1D. However, the exact mechanisms by which these loci confer diabetes risk and the identity of the causative genes remain largely elusive. To identify genes and molecular mechanisms that control the function of diabetogenic T cells, we conducted DNA microarray analysis in islet-specific CD4+ T cells from BDC2.5 TCR transgenic NOD mice that contain the Idd9 locus from T1D-susceptible NOD mice or T1D-resistant C57BL/10 mice. Here we describe in detail the contents and analyses for these gene expression data associated with our previous study [1]. Gene expression data are available at the Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) repository from the National Center for Biotechnology Information (accession number GSE64674)