Competitive Homing Assays to Study Gut-tropic T Cell Migration

The overall goal of this procedure is to compare the tissue specific migratory abilities of two or more cell subsets in the same mouse recipient, allowing the analysis of many tissues and cells in one experiment. Here we show a method for comparing the migratory abilities of in vitro generated gut tropic and control T cells in a wildtype recipient mouse. The method can be used for example, to determine the ability of gut tropic T cells to migrate to the intestine mesenteric lymph nodes, peripheral lymph nodes, and spleen.

Compared to control T cells, first gut tropic and control effector T cells must be generated in vitro. Next, the experimental and controlled T cells must be labeled with differential dyes and mixed in a one-to-one ratio. Then the cell mixture, except for a small Eloqua used for confirming the input ratio is injected into the recipient mouse.