TY - JOUR
T1 - Genome-Wide Profiling of RNA from Dried Blood Spots
T2 - Convergence with Bioinformatic Results Derived from Whole Venous Blood and Peripheral Blood Mononuclear Cells
AU - McDade, Thomas W.
AU - M. Ross, Kharah
AU - L. Fried, Ruby
AU - Arevalo, Jesusa M.G.
AU - Ma, Jeffrey
AU - Miller, Gregory E.
AU - Cole, Steve W.
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2016 Society for Biodemography and Social Biology.
PY - 2016/5/3
Y1 - 2016/5/3
N2 - 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.
AB - 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.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84976435858&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1080/19485565.2016.1185600
DO - 10.1080/19485565.2016.1185600
M3 - Journal Article
C2 - 27337553
AN - SCOPUS:84976435858
SN - 1948-5565
VL - 62
SP - 182
EP - 197
JO - Biodemography and Social Biology
JF - Biodemography and Social Biology
IS - 2
ER -