Cross-platform transcriptomic profiling of the response to recombinant human erythropoietin

Abstract RNA-seq has matured and become an important tool for studying RNA biology. Here we compared two RNA-seq (Illumina sequencing by synthesis and MGI DNBSEQ™) and two microarray platforms (Illumina Expression BeadChip and GeneChip™ Human Transcriptome Array 2.0) in healthy individuals administered recombinant human erythropoietin for transcriptome-wide quantification of differential gene expression. The results show that total RNA sequencing combined with DNB-seq produced a multitude of genes of biological relevance and significance in response to recombinant human erythropoietin, in contrast to other platforms. Through data triangulation linking genes to functions, genes representing the processes of erythropoiesis as well as non-erythropoietic functions of erythropoietin were unveiled. This study provides a knowledge base of genes characterising the responses to recombinant human erythropoietin through cross-platform comparison and validation.