Overview of experimental structure.

<p>Human bone marrow-derived multipotent stromal cell (BM-MSC) lines were cultivated and expanded until passage 3 or 4. Following the RNA was isolated and the cDNA preparation was performed by standard reverse transcription and by Whole Transcriptome Amplification (WTA). The same RNA of the respective human BM-MSC line was applied for standard reverse transcription and WTA to compare RT- and qPCR results of the non-amplified and amplified cDNA samples. To exclude RNA degradation, the RNA integrity number (RIN) was determined by Agilent Bioanalyzer and only RNA samples with RIN values ≥ 9.8 were applied. Additionally, various amounts of RNA and cDNA were tested as starting material for WTA or for RT-PCR analysis.