The up-regulated probes in PBMCs showed significant positive correlations with the number of monocytes, lymphocytes and neutrophils, whereas the down-regulated probes were correlated with the number erythrocytes and mean cell volume. Our comparison between B-cell subsets and LCLs showed that the correlations between the expression levels of detected probes were much lower compared to the two B-cell isolation methods. More specifically, enrichment of inflammatory response genes in the B-cell CD19 and CD20 may represent the lack of external stimuli of the in vitro controlled conditions in LCLs or the manipulation of the B-cell CD19 and CD20. Conversely, the enrichment of glycolysis and cell cycle genes in LCLs might appear as adaptation to the in vitro cell transformation of B-cells to LCLs and might reflect indefinite LCL propagation.
