Increased sensitivity of next generation sequencing-based expression profiling after globin reduction in human blood RNA

Transcriptome analysis is of great interest in clinical research, where significant differences between individuals can be translated into biomarkers of disease. Although next generation sequencing provides robust, comparable and highly informative expression profiling data, with several million of tags per blood sample, reticulocyte globin transcripts can constitute up to 76% of total mRNA compromising the detection of low abundant transcripts. We have removed globin transcripts from 6 human whole blood RNA samples with a human globin reduction kit and compared them with the same non-reduced samples using deep Serial Analysis of Gene Expression. Overall design: Comparison of 6 whole blood RNA samples versus their globin reduced counterparts