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Increasing Gene Discovery and Coverage Using RNA-Seq of Globin RNA Reduced Porcine Blood Samples
BMC Genomics
  • Igseo Choi, United States Department of Agriculture
  • Hua Bao, University of Alberta
  • Arun Kommadath, University of Alberta
  • Afshin Hosseini, University of Alberta
  • Xu Sun, University of Alberta
  • Yan Meng, University of Alberta
  • Paul Stothard, University of Alberta
  • Graham S. Plastow, University of Alberta
  • Christopher K. Tuggle, Iowa State University
  • James M Reecy, Iowa State University
  • Eric R. Fritz-Waters, Iowa State University
  • Samuel M. Abrams, United States Department of Agriculture
  • Joan K. Lunney, United States Department of Agriculture
  • LeLuo Guan, University of Alberta
Document Type
Article
Publication Version
Published Version
Publication Date
1-1-2014
DOI
10.1186/1471-2164-15-954
Abstract

Transcriptome analysis of porcine whole blood has several applications, which include deciphering genetic mechanisms for host responses to viral infection and vaccination. The abundance of alpha- and beta-globin transcripts in blood, however, impedes the ability to cost-effectively detect transcripts of low abundance. Although protocols exist for reduction of globin transcripts from human and mouse/rat blood, preliminary work demonstrated these are not useful for porcine blood Globin Reduction (GR). Our objectives were to develop a porcine specific GR protocol and to evaluate the GR effects on gene discovery and sequence read coverage in RNA-sequencing (RNA-seq) experiments. A GR protocol for porcine blood samples was developed using RNase H with antisense oligonucleotides specifically targeting porcine hemoglobin alpha (HBA) and beta (HBB) mRNAs. Whole blood samples (n = 12) collected in Tempus tubes were used for evaluating the efficacy and effects of GR on RNA-seq. The HBA and HBB mRNA transcripts comprised an average of 46.1% of the mapped reads in pre-GR samples, but those reads reduced to an average of 8.9% in post-GR samples. Differential gene expression analysis showed that the expression level of 11,046 genes were increased, whereas 34 genes, excluding HBA and HBB, showed decreased expression after GR (FDR <0.05). An additional 815 genes were detected only in post-GR samples. Our porcine specific GR primers and protocol minimize the number of reads of globin transcripts in whole blood samples and provides increased coverage as well as accuracy and reproducibility of transcriptome analysis. Increased detection of low abundance mRNAs will ensure that studies relying on transcriptome analyses do not miss information that may be vital to the success of the study.

Comments

This article is from BMC Genomics 15: 954, doi:10.1186/1471-2164-15-954.

Rights
Works produced by employees of the U.S. Government as part of their official duties are not copyrighted within the U.S. The content of this document is not copyrighted.
Language
en
File Format
application/pdf
Citation Information
Igseo Choi, Hua Bao, Arun Kommadath, Afshin Hosseini, et al.. "Increasing Gene Discovery and Coverage Using RNA-Seq of Globin RNA Reduced Porcine Blood Samples" BMC Genomics Vol. 15 (2014) p. 1 - 10
Available at: http://works.bepress.com/james_reecy/72/