Analysis of gene expression in human Bronchial Alveolar Lavage Cell (BAL) cell pellets

Clinical subphenotypes of asthma are characterized by pathological, cellular, and molecular heterogeneity of the airway. Gene expression profiling of airway inflammatory cells in diseased patients by microarray analysis will provide insight into the molecular heterogeneity and support the development of hypotheses of pathological mechanisms. Moderate asthmatic patients and healthy controls were participants in the Study of the Mechanisms of Asthma (MAST, clinicaltrials.gov: NCT00595153). Severe asthmatic patients were participants in the BOBCAT study (as described in Jia G JACI 2012 and Arron JR ERJ 2014). RNA (Qiagen AllPrep with on-column DNase treatment) was isolated from Bronchial Alveolar Lavage cells for gene expression microarray analysis.