Coronary plaque sampling for omic analysis

Much of our understanding of human coronary atherosclerosis is extrapolated from studies of animal models or expired patients. 

The Liang group and their collaborators developed a coronary plaque sampling approach that could be applied broadly in live patients.  Their approach combined RNA retrieval directly from balloons used in percutaneous coronary intervention and inexpensive, low-input RNA-Seq. 

They studied 27 patients and obtained novel insights into human coronary plaque pathology.