title: Assessing the human immune system through blood transcriptomics.
abstract: Blood is the pipeline of the immune system. Assessing changes in transcript abundance in blood on a genome-wide scale affords a comprehensive view of the status of the immune system in health and disease. This review summarizes the work that has used this approach to identify therapeutic targets and biomarker signatures in the field of autoimmunity and infectious disease. Recent technological and methodological advances that will carry the blood transcriptome research field forward are also discussed.
authors.affiliation: Baylor Institute for Immunology Research and Baylor Research Institute, 3434 Live Oak, Dallas, TX 75204, USA. damienc@baylorhealth.edu
authors.forename: Damien
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Chaussabel
authors.forename: Virginia
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Pascual
authors.forename: Jacques
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Banchereau
mesh_terms: D001327:Autoimmune Diseases / Q000097:blood / Q000235:genetics; D015415:Biomarkers / Q000097:blood*; D003141:Communicable Diseases / Q000097:blood / Q000235:genetics; D020869:Gene Expression Profiling / Q000379:methods*; D006801:Humans; D007107:Immune System / Q000378:metabolism* / Q000473:pathology
chemical_list: D015415:Biomarkers