design: first strand cDNA synthesis was performed using Superscript III reverse transcriptase and Illuminas TruSeq Stranded mRNA Sample Prep Kit. Poly-A containing mRNA molecules were isolated using poly-T oligo attached magnetic beads. During the second elution of the poly-A RNA, the RNA was fragmented and primed for cDNA synthesis. Synthesis of the second strand of cDNA was followed by indexed adapter ligation. qPCR was performed on the cDNA libraries. The TruSeq libraries were run with a targeted 75 million reads in the case of non-globin depleted blood and 50 million reads in the case of globin depleted blood or non-blood tissues. The raw sequences were aligned to the genome against the Gencode Genome Reference Consortium Build 38 (GRCh38) using the STAR aligner based on the TOPMed Genotype-Tissue Expression (GTEx) RNA-Seq analysis pipeline