Do sputum or circulating blood samples reflect the pulmonary transcriptomic differences of COPD patients? A multi-tissue transcriptomic network META-analysis

Background Previous studies have identified lung, sputum or blood transcriptomic biomarkers associated with the severity of airflow limitation in COPD. Yet, it is not clear whether the lung pathobiology is mirrored by these surrogate tissues. The aim of this study was to explore this question.