Bulk RNA-seq on unstimulated and LPS-stimulated human macrophages

The goal of this experiment is to profile LPS-stimulated transcriptome changes in human macrophages. Human whole blood was from the Sanofi in-house blood donor service that is approved by the local ethics committee and all blood donors signed informed consent. Human peripheral blood monocytes were isolated from anonymous donors' prefinal blood using Ficoll density centrifugation, followed by magnetic separation with positive selection (CD14 MicroBeads, Miltenyi Biotec). Monocytes were differentiated into macrophages by culturing in macrophage serum-free medium (Life Technologies) containing 50 ng/ml recombinant human macrophage colony-stimulating factor (Immunotools) for 5 days. Following differentiation, cells were cultured in RPMI 1640 medium supplemented with 10% heat inactivated fetal bovine serum (Thermo Fisher) and maintained at 37°C in a 5% CO2/air environment. Macrophages were stimulated with 50 ng/ml lipopolysaccharides from Escherichia coli O111:B4 (Sigma) for 24 hours. Overall design: RNA isolated from unstimulated and LPS-stimulated human macrophages from 4 blood donors (n = 4 for unstimulated, n = 4 for LPS-stimulated)