The Extracellular RNA Quality Control (exRNAQC) study (phase 2)

The use of blood-based extracellular RNA (exRNA) as clinical biomarker requires the implementation of a validated procedure for sample collection, processing and profiling. So far, no study has systematically addressed the pre-analytical variables affecting transcriptome analysis of exRNAs. In the first phase of the exRNAQC study, we evaluated 10 blood collection tubes, 3 time points between blood draw and downstream processing, and 8 RNA purification methods using the supplier-specified minimum and maximum biofluid input volumes. The impact of these pre-analytics is assessed by deep transcriptome profiling of both small and messenger RNA from healthy donors' plasma or serum. In this second phase, we assessed interactions between blood collection tubes, time points and purification methods. More project info on bioRxiv (manuscript title: Performance of RNA purification kits and blood collection tubes in the Extracellular RNA Quality Control (exRNAQC) study) and https://oncornalab.ugent.be/project/exrnaqc/EGA study EGAS00001006499