Whole-blood was collected (PAXGene Tubes - Becton Dickinson), and total RNA was isolated (PAXGene Blood RNA kits - Qiagen). To ensure a constant high quality of the RNA preparations, all RNA samples were analysed using the Labchip GX (Calliper) according to the manufacturer’s instructions. Samples with an RNA quality score more than 7 were amplified and labelled (Ambion TotalPrep RNA) and hybridized to the Illumina HumanHT12v4 Expression Beadchips as described by the manufacturer’s protocol. Processing of the Rotterdam Study RNA samples was performed at the Genetic Laboratory of Internal Medicine, Erasmus University Medical Centre Rotterdam. The RS-III expression dataset is available at GEO (Gene Expression Omnibus) public repository under the accession GSE33828: 881 samples are available for analysis.
