Omics Analyses of NOWAC Post-genome Cohort

For all 388 women in the clinical cohort, blood samples were collected as part of the NOWAC Post-genome cohort as described previously [10 (link)]. In a subset of these samples, i.e. approximately 100 samples, a series of omics analyses have already been carried out. For details on the laboratory methods, please refer to S1 Appendix. Briefly, mRNA gene expression profiles were analyzed from PAXgene blood RNA samples by Illumina HumanHT-12 Expression BeadChip microarrays (Illumina, Inc. San Diego, CA, USA). The analyses were carried out by a certified Illuimna service provider, the Genomics Core Facility (GCF), Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim, Norway. For plasma metabolomics, a liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) based kit “AbsoluteIDQ p180” (Biocrates Life Sciences, Innsbruck, Austria) was used for quantification of up to 188 metabolites. The Swedish Metabolomics Centre in Umeå, Sweden carried out the analyses. Extraction and profiling of miRNA in plasma were performed by Exiqon Services (Vedbaek, Denmark). Total RNA was extracted using the mirCURY^™ RNA isolation kit, and a PCR-based panel of 372 probes was used for miRNA profiling (miRCURY LNA^™ Universal RT microRNA PCR Human panel I, Qiagen, Hilden, Germany). See S1 Appendix for detailed information on the analyses of blood samples.