Next-Generation Sequencing of ruptured atherosclerotic plaques

Atherosclerosis is a chronic inflammatory disease with high prevalence and mortality. The stability of atherosclerotic plaques is the main reason for the clinical events. Identifying the key genes which play key roles in the stability of atherosclerotic plaques is crucial to prevent the clinical manifestations. In the present study, 5 stable and 5 unstable human atherosclerotic plaques were obtained by carotid endarterectomy. The samples were used for the whole transcriptome sequencing (RNA-seq) by the Next-Generation Sequencing using the Illumina HiSeq. After quality control, more than 168 466 008 clean reads were identified with more than 96.57% been mapped to the reference genome. Totally, 20025 mRNAs, 31751 lncRNAs, and 12131 circRNAs were identified.