RNAseq analysis of human neutrophils from people with rheumatoid arthritis

We report gene expression profiles of blood neutrophils from (1) people newly-diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis (early RA) before commencement of disease-modifying anti-rheumatic drug therapy, (2) DMARD-refractory RA (severe RA) before commencement of anti-TNF therapy and (3) healthy controls. Overall design: Neutrophils (purity >97%) were isolated from peripheral blood by centrifugation through density-gradient reagent (Polymorphprep or Ficoll-Paque). RNA was isolated using Trizol:chloroform, cleaned up by Qiagen RNeasy kit including on-column DNase digest and sequenced on the Illumina HiSeq 2000 platform.