Expression profile of genes in cord blood (CB)-derived eosinophils

To gain inssight into eosinophil development and finction, we performed a global gene expression analysis using developing cord blood (CB) eosinophils. The CB CD34+ cells were cultured for 0, 4, 6, and 12 days. Due to difficulty in obtaining sufficient amounts of total RNA from a small number of freshly isolated CB CD34+ cells, cells pooled from five donors were used for RNA extraction. Additionally, in order to reduce donor-to-donor variation, total RNA isolated from developing cells cultured from three donors’ CB CD34+ cells was pooled in equal amounts.