Whole Blood RNA Sequencing Workflow

Patient’s whole blood was collected after overnight fasting using PAXgene™ blood RNA tubes (Applied Biosystems). Total RNAs were extracted using Mag-MAX™ for Stabilized Blood Tubes RNA Isolation Kit (Applied Biosystems). RNAs were quantified and immediately sent to the Beijing Genomics Institute (BGI) for mRNA sequencing by BGIseq-500. Clean data of at least 20M reads per sample were collected. Data quality control and gene expression analysis were done on the Galaxy and NetworkAnalyst platforms (29 (link)) using EdgeR. Log2 fold changes (Log2FC) with the false discovery rate (FDR) were calculated for differentially expressed genes (DEGs) (For details see Supplementary Materials).