title: The genome of polymorphonuclear neutrophils maintains normal coding sequences.
abstract: Genetic studies often use genomic DNA from whole blood cells, of which the majority are the polymorphonuclear myeloid cells. Those cells undergo dramatic change of nuclear morphology following cellular differentiation. It remains elusive if the nuclear morphological change accompanies sequence alternations from the intact genome. If such event exists, it will cause a serious problem in using such type of genomic DNA for genetic study as the sequences will not represent the intact genome in the host individuals. Using exome sequencing, we compared the coding regions between neutrophil, which is the major type of polymorphonuclear cells, and CD4+ T cell, which has an intact genome, from the same individual. The results show that exon sequences between the two cell types are essentially the same. The minor differences represented by the missed exons and base changes between the two cell types were validated to be mainly caused by experimental errors. Our study concludes that genomic DNA from whole blood cells can be safely used for genetic studies.
authors.affiliation: Department of Genetics, Cell Biology and Anatomy, University of Nebraska Medical Center, Omaha, Nebraska, United States of America.
authors.forename: Fengxia
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Xiao
authors.forename: Yeong C
authors.initials: YC
authors.lastname: Kim
authors.forename: Hongxiu
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Wen
authors.forename: Jiangtao
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Luo
authors.forename: Peixian
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.forename: Kenneth
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Cowan
authors.forename: San Ming
authors.initials: SM
authors.lastname: Wang
mesh_terms: D015496:CD4-Positive T-Lymphocytes; D002454:Cell Differentiation / Q000235:genetics; D059472:Exome / Q000235:genetics; D015894:Genome, Human; D059014:High-Throughput Nucleotide Sequencing; D006801:Humans; D022423:Myeloid Cells; D009504:Neutrophils; D016366:Open Reading Frames / Q000235:genetics*