Genome-Wide Profiling of RNA from Dried Blood Spots: Convergence with Bioinformatic Results Derived from Whole Venous Blood and Peripheral Blood Mononuclear Cells

Thomas W. McDade, Kharah M. Ross, Ruby L. Fried, Jesusa M.G. Arevalo, Jeffrey Ma, Gregory E. Miller, Steve W. Cole

Research output: Contribution to journalJournal Articlepeer-review

42 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Genome-wide transcriptional profiling has emerged as a powerful tool for analyzing biological mechanisms underlying social gradients in health, but utilization in population-based studies has been hampered by logistical constraints and costs associated with venipuncture blood sampling. Dried blood spots (DBS) provide a minimally invasive, low-cost alternative to venipuncture, and in this article we evaluate how closely the substantive results from DBS transcriptional profiling correspond to those derived from parallel analyses of gold-standard venous blood samples (PAXgene whole blood and peripheral blood mononuclear cells [PBMC]). Analyses focused on differences in gene expression between African-Americans and Caucasians in a community sample of 82 healthy adults (age 18–70 years; mean 35). Across 19,679 named gene transcripts, DBS-derived values correlated r = .85 with both PAXgene and PBMC values. Results from bioinformatics analyses of gene expression derived from DBS samples were concordant with PAXgene and PBMC samples in identifying increased Type I interferon signaling and up-regulated activity of monocytes and natural killer (NK) cells in African-Americans compared to Caucasian participants. These findings demonstrate the feasibility of DBS in field-based studies of gene expression and encourage future studies of human transcriptome dynamics in larger, more representative samples than are possible with clinic- or lab-based research designs.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)182-197
Number of pages16
JournalBiodemography and Social Biology
Volume62
Issue number2
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 3 May 2016

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