Complexity and Specificity of the Neutrophil Transcriptomes in Juvenile Idiopathic Arthritis

• Published in: Scientific reports Vol. 6; no. 1; p. 27453
• Main Authors: Hu, Zihua, Jiang, Kaiyu, Frank, Mark Barton, Chen, Yanmin, Jarvis, James N.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London Nature Publishing Group UK 07.06.2016; Nature Publishing Group
• Subjects: 38/39; 45; 631/114; 631/250/2504; Arthritis; Bioinformatics; Cluster analysis; Disease; Gene expression; Genomes; Genomics; Humanities and Social Sciences; MicroRNAs; multidisciplinary; Neutrophils; Proteins; Science
• ISSN: 2045-2322; 2045-2322
• DOI: 10.1038/srep27453

NIH projects such as ENCODE and Roadmap Epigenomics have revealed surprising complexity in the transcriptomes of mammalian cells. In this study, we explored transcriptional complexity in human neutrophils, cells generally regarded as nonspecific in their functions and responses. We studied distinct human disease phenotypes and found that, at the gene, gene isoform, and miRNA level, neutrophils exhibit considerable specificity in their transcriptomes. Thus, even cells whose responses are considered non-specific show tailoring of their transcriptional repertoire toward specific physiologic or pathologic contexts. We also found that miRNAs had a global impact on neutrophil transcriptome and are associated with innate immunity in juvenile idiopathic arthritis (JIA). These findings have important implications for our understanding of the link between genes, non-coding transcripts and disease phenotypes.