© F e r r a t a S t o r t i F o u n d a t i o ngene and miRNA expression profiles in HPC from healthy donors, and to determine whether any changes in expression signatures persist in the long-term or return to the original status.
Methods
SamplesCD34 + progenitor cells from peripheral blood of six healthy donors were collected before and at 5, 30 and 365 days after the mobilization with G-CSF (mobilization regimen: 10-15 mg/kg of G-CSF daily for 5 days). All donors were included in the transplant program of the Hematology Department of the University Hospital Virgen del Rocío (Seville, Spain). The local ethics committee of the same hospital provided institutional review boardapproval for this study, and informed consent was obtained from all donors in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki.
Isolation of hematopoietic progenitor cellsMononuclear cells were collected from all samples by density gradient centrifugation with Ficoll-Paque solution (Amersham Biosciences, Uppsala, Sweden). The CD34 + cells were isolated in an AutoMACS pro separator (Miltenyi Biotec, Bergisch Gladbach, Germany) by positive immunomagnetic selection using the CD34 MACS microbead Human Kit (Miltenyi Biotec, Bergisch Gladbach, Germany) and, after magnetic enrichment, CD34 + cells were sorted by flow cytometry. The purity of the isolated CD34 + cells was greater than 95% in all cases.
RNA extractionTotal RNA was extracted by TRIsure (Bioline, Luckenwalde, Germany) in all samples. The quality and integrity of the RNA were verified by a Bioanalyzer 2100 (Agilent Technologies, Santa Clara, CA, USA).
MicroRNA and gene expressionThe expression profiles of 384 miRNA were analyzed in all samples using TaqMan Human MicroRNA v2.0 Arrays (Applied Biosystems, Foster City, CA. USA) which were analyzed on a 7900 HT Fast Real Time Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) System (Applied Biosystems, Foster City, CA, USA). The SDS 2.3 and RQ Manager 1.2 software (both Applied Biosystems, Foster City, CA, USA) were used for the analysis. Data were normalized using the average of the endogenous small-nucleolar RNU48 and the noncoding small nuclear U6, both included in the array.The expression profile of 45,000 genes was analyzed in the same samples using the Whole Human Genome Oligo microarray kit 4x44K (Agilent Technologies, Santa Clara, CA, USA). The microarrays were scanned in a GenePix reader (Molecular Devices, Sunnyvale, CA, USA). Samples from non-mobilized CD34 + cells were used as the reference group in both types of expression analysis.The expression of significant genes was validated by quantitative real-time PCR using Quantitec Primer Assays and the Quantitec SYBR Green Kit (both from Qiagen, Hilden, Germany) in a 7900 HT Fast Real Time PCR System (Applied Biosystems, Foster City, CA, USA). Data were normalized to the housekeeping gene ACTB and the group of samples from non-mobilized CD34 + cells was used as a control. The relative gene expression levels were calculated by the 2 -ΔΔCT method.
Statistical analysisUnsupervised hierarchical clust...