Genome-wide inspection of chromosomal aberrations in microglia BV-2 cells by array-based comparative genomic hybridization

A growing body of evidence indicates that microglia, resident innate immune cells in the brain, play a role in host defense and tissue repair, and function as active contributors to neuron damage in neurodegen-erative disease. BV-2 microglial cells immortalized by a v-raf/v-MPC recombinant retrovirus (J2) have been widely used as a microglial cell model, but there are no reports about the chromosomal characteristics of this cell line such as a gain or loss in DNA copy number. In this report we conducted a genome-wide determination of chromosomal aberrations in BV-2 microglial cells using a high-throughput, oligonucleo-tide array-based comparative genomic hybridization (oaCGH) technique. A segmentation method was used to divide each chromosome into segments whose probe sequences share the same relative DNA copy number on average. The genomic location of each segment was determined using the mouse genome database (UCSC mm8, NCBI Build 36). Chromosome 4 was found to have the largest gain which located in the region of chr4: 3377972-111570775, and chromosome 3 had the largest loss segment missing from the region of chr3: 3445973-86952997. Segments possessing more DNA copies than normal by one copy (average of log₂ ratios in segment >0.585) were observed in chromosomes 4 and 19 while segments having less DNA copies by one copy (average of log₂ ratios <-1) were detected in chromosomes 1, 2, 11 and 13.