Expression of MERTK based on Multiple Sclerosis (MS) risk haplotype

Whole transcriptome RNA-seq analysis to measure group-wise RNA expression level of the MERTK gene in 3 healthy controls (known to be homozygous non-risk haplotype at MERTK gene locus) and to compare this to the group-wise RNA expression level of the MERTK gene in 5 Multiple Sclerosis-affected (MS-affected) individuals (known to be homozygous for the MS risk haplotype at the MERTK gene locus). Overall design: We sequenced the whole transcriptome of 3 healthy control samples which were all homozygous for the MS non-risk haplotype at the MERTK gene. We also did the same RNA-seq protocol on 5 MS-affected subjects that were all homozygous for the Risk haplotype at the MERTK gene. All 8 samples were sequenced evenly across 3 lanes of an Illumina HiSeq NGS machine to remove any batch-type effects that could be caused by sequencing e.g. all cases in one lane and all controls in another lane.