Description
Glucocorticoids are first-line agents for the treatment of many eosinophil-associated disorders. However, their mechanism of action in this group of disorders remains poorly understood, including the well-known clinical observation that glucocorticoids at therapeutic doses lead to profound, transient eosinopenia within hours of administration. To gain an unbiased, genome-wide view of the early transcriptional effects of glucocorticoids on human eosinophils in vivo, and torelate them to the kinetics of glucocorticoid-induced eosinopenia, RNA sequencing was performed on purified blood eosinophils obtained before and 30, 60, and 120 minutes after administration of a single dose of oral prednisone (1 mg/kg) to healthy subjects with hypereosinophilia (hypereosinophilia of unknown significance). Overall design: Three subjects with hypereosinophilia of unknown significance were each given a single dose of oral prednisone, 1 mg/kg. Whole blood was collected before and 30 minutes, 1 hour, and 2 hours after prednisone administration. Eosinophils were purified from each peripheral blood sample. Total RNA was obtained from purified eosinophils and subject to library preparation and high-throughput sequencing.