Transcriptional program of terminal granulocytic differentation

To characterize the transcriptional program that governs terminal granulocytic differentation in vivo, we performed comprehensive microarray analysis of human bone marrow population highly enriched for promyelocytes, myelocytes / metamyelocytes and neotrophils. Bone marrow and peripheral blood samples were collected from healthy individuals in parallel. Cell populations representing successive stages of terminal granulocytic differentation were isolated from human bone marrow samples by 2-layer density gradient centrifugation, neutrophils were collected from peripheral blood using 1-layer density gradient centrifugation. All populations were depleted of nongranulocytic cells by immunomagnetic sorting.