12405 results for ""non-traditional+communal+storytelling+approach"+novel+segment+noted+in+critical+commentary"

in 39.80 milliseconds.

• A Functional Network of Gastric-Cancer-Associated Splicing Events Controlled by Dysregulated Splicing Factors

  Except for a few genes known to have oncogenic spliceforms in gastric cancer, the full scope of aberrant splicing in gastric oncogenesis remains unclear. In this study, we elucidated the alternative splicing events associated with gastric carcinogenesis and identified upstream regulators governing these events. We performed RNA-seq on 19 matched tumor/normal pairs and a panel of gastric cancer cell lines, and identified 361 tumor associated (TA) alternative splicing events (ASEs), which included known oncogenic ASEs in genes such as INSR, FGFR2, CD44 and KRAS. We further identified 8 splicing factors dysregulated in gastric tumors, the expression of which are correlated to the splice ratio of the TA ASEs. We thereby constructed a dysregulated splicing network in gastric cancer, consisting of alternative splicing changes correlated to their potential regulators. This network featured three potential regulatory modules centered around the splicing factors ESRP2, MBNL1 and PTPB1. Knockdown of each splicing factor led to the expected changes in splicing of approximately half of the ASEs assayed. Thus, dysregulation of the splicing factors indeed was the cause of many of the TA ASEs. Pathway enrichment analysis showed that genes affected by tumor associated splicing were pre-dominantly involved in cytoskeletal organization. Concordant with this, knockdown of the splicing factors regulating the TA ASEs led to the expected changes in trans-well migration activity. Thus, we have established for the first time a comprehensive splicing network that likely drives gastric tumor progression, based on which novel therapeutic targets can be identified for further evaluation.

  Study EGAS00001002256

• Neurodevelopmental Genomics: Trajectories of Complex Phenotypes

  This study is a collaboration between the Center for Applied Genomics (CAG) at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) and the Brain Behavior Laboratory at the University of Pennsylvania (Penn). The cohort consists of youths aged 8-21 years who consulted the CHOP network and volunteered to participate in genomic studies of complex pediatric disorders. All participants underwent clinical assessment, including a neuropsychiatric structured interview and review of electronic medical records. They were also administered a neuroscience based computerized neurocognitive battery (CNB) and a subsample underwent neuroimaging. These are described separately below. Clinical Testing: GOASSESS, a computerized, structured screener developed from a modified version of the Kiddie-Schedule for Affective Disorders and Schizophrenia (K-SADS, Kaufman et al. 1997, PMID: 9204677). Components of the interview include a timeline of life events, demographics and medical history, Global Assessment of Functioning, and Interviewer Observations. A psychopathology symptom and criterion-related assessment of mood disorders (depression, mania/hypomania), anxiety disorders (overanxious/generalized-, separation-, social-anxiety, specific phobia, panic disorder, agoraphobia, obsessive compulsive disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder), behavioral disorders (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, oppositional defiant disorder, conduct disorder), psychosis spectrum (psychosis and prodromal symptoms), eating disorders, suicidal thinking and behavior, and treatment history. This is also based on K-SADS. An abbreviated Family Interview for Genetics Studies (FIGS) to assess major domains of psychopathology in the proband's first-degree relatives. Computerized Neurocognitive Battery: The CNB, developed for large-scale studies, yields measures of accuracy and speed for domains of executive-control functions (abstraction, attention, working memory), episodic memory (verbal, facial, spatial), complex cognitive processing (language reasoning, nonverbal reasoning, spatial processing), social cognition (emotion identification, emotion intensity differentiation, age differentiation) and sensorimotor and motor speed. The following neurobehavioral domains were assessed: Penn Conditional Exclusion Test is a measure of abstraction and concept formation. Participants decide which of 4 objects does not belong with the other 3, based on one of three sorting principles, which change. Feedback is used. Attention: The Penn Continuous Performance Test. Participants respond to a set of 7-segment displays whenever they form a digit or letter. Working Memory: The Letter N-back Test displays sequences of uppercase letters with a stimulus duration of 500 ms (ISI 2,500 ms.) In the 0-back condition, participants respond to a single target (i.e., X). In the 1-back condition they respond if the letter is identical to that preceding it. In the 2-back condition, they respond if the letter is identical to that presented two trials back. Verbal Memory: The Penn Word Memory Test presents 20 target words that are then mixed with 20 distracters equated for frequency, length, concreteness and low imageability. A 20 min delayed recall procedure is also administered. Face Memory: The Penn Face Memory Test presents 20 digitized faces that are then mixed with 20 distracters equated for age, gender and ethnicity. The procedure is repeated at 20 min delay. Spatial Memory: The Visual Object Learning Test uses Euclidean shapes as stimuli with the same paradigm as the word and face. Language and Analogical Reasoning: The Penn Verbal Reasoning consists of verbal analogy problems. Spatial Processing: Penn Line Orientation Test presents two lines at an angle, and participants click on a button that makes one line rotate until it has the same angle as the other. Emotion Processing: Facial displays of 4 emotions (Happy, Sad, Anger, Fear) and Neutral faces, 8 each, are presented and the subject identifies the emotion in a multiple-choice format. The facial stimuli are balanced for gender, age, and ethnicity. Sensory-motor Processing Speed: The task requires moving the mouse and clicking on a green square that disappears after the click. The square gets increasingly small and appears in unpredictable locations. Neuroimaging Protocol: Studies were performed at Penn using a Siemens Trio (Erlangen, Germany) 3T scanner equipped with 40mT/m gradients and 200 mT/m/s slew-rates. RF transmission utilized a quadrature body-coil, and reception a 12-channel head coil optimized for parallel imaging. Total image acquisition time was about 45 min. Structural Imaging: The T1-weighted protocol utilized a 3D, inversion-recovery, and magnetization-prepared rapid acquisition gradient echo. Relevant imaging procedures include: Structural magnetic imaging Diffusion tensor imaging ASL perfusion BOLD fMRI Neuroimaging tasks: Fractal N-Back Task of Spatial Working Memory Face Emotion Identification Task Neuroimages: The current data release includes over 9700 MRI images that may be downloaded through Authorized Access.

  Study phs000607

• Oesophageal adenocarcinoma RNAseq from LUD2015-005 study (NCT02735239, EudraCT 2015-005298-19)

  This dataset contains bulk transcriptomes from the inoperable cohorts of the LUD2015-005 study (NCT02735239, EudraCT 2015-005298-19). Transcriptomes were prepared from pre-treatment oesophageal tumour biopsies using a ribodepletion approach in order to assess both previously reported (e.g. PD-L1 expression) and novel predictive expression-based biomarkers for immunochemotherapy treatment in this setting. On-treatment and post-treatment biopsies were generated as well to characterize response to therapy, and samples were also prepared from paired normal GI tissues for a subset of patients. scRNA-seq based deconvolution was also applied to bulk transcriptomes in this study to estimate the cell composition of tumour biopsies and assess the link between the presence of specific cell types with immunochemotherapy outcomes.

  Dataset EGAD00001009399

• Application of high-throughput, high-depth, targeted single-nucleus DNA sequencing in pancreatic cancer

  Despite insights gained by bulk DNA sequencing of cancer it remains challenging to resolve the admixture of normal and tumor cells, and/or of distinct tumor subclones; high throughput single-cell DNA sequencing circumvents these and brings cancer genomic studies to higher resolution. However, its application has been limited to liquid tumors or a small batch of solid tumors, mainly because of the lack of a scalable workflow to process solid tumor samples. Here we optimized a highly automated nuclei extraction workflow that achieved fast and reliable targeted single-nucleus DNA library preparation of 38 samples from 16 pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) patients, with an average library yield per sample of 2867 single nuclei. We demonstrate that this workflow not only performs well using low cellularity or low tumor purity samples but reveals novel genomic evolution patterns of PDAC as well.

  Study EGAS00001006024

• Malignant pheochromocytomas/paragangliomas harbor mutations in transport and cell adhesion genes

  One out of ten patients with pheochromocytoma (PCC) and paraganglioma (PGL) develop malignant disease. Today there are no reliable pathological methods to predict malignancy at the time of diagnosis. Tumors harboring mutations in the succinate dehydrogenase subunit B (SDHB) gene often metastasize but the sequential genetic events resulting in malignant progression are not fully understood. The aim of this study was to identify somatic mutations that contribute to the malignant transformation of PCC/PGL. We performed pair-wise (tumor-normal) whole-exome sequencing to analyze the somatic mutational landscape in five malignant and four benign primary PCC/sympathetic PGL (sPGL), including two biological replicates from each specimen. In total, 225 unique somatic mutations were identified in 215 genes, with an average mutation rate of 0.54 mutations/megabase. Malignant tumors had a significantly higher number of mutations compared to benign tumors (p<0.001). Three novel genes were identified as recurrently mutated; MYCN, MYO5B and VCL, and mutations in these genes were exclusively found in malignant sPGL tumors. Mutations in the MYO5B gene could be verified in two publicly available data sets. A gene ontology analysis of mutated genes showed enrichment of cellular functions related to cytoskeletal protein binding, myosin complex, and motor activity, many of which had functions in Rab and Rac/Rho GTPase pathways. Conclusively, we have identified recurrent mutations in genes related to intracellular transport and cell adhesion, and we have confirmed recurrent mutations of MYO5B in PCC/PGL cases with malignant potential. Our study suggests that deregulated Rab and Rac/Rho pathways may be important in PCC/PGL tumorigenesis.

  Study EGAS00001001601

• Prime-seq of human term placenta-derived trophoblast organoids

  To study the one of the mechanisms through which obesity could affect placental cells, we used a novel microfluidic organs-on-a-chip device fabricated for co-culturing adipose spheroids and trophoblast organoids. The organoids were derived from the term placenta of a over-weight women. The adipose spheorids were derived from the white adipose tissue of a woman. And we sequenced the RNAs from the trophoblast organoids. The RNA extracted were subjective to Prime-seq library preparation protocol and being sequenced on Illumina NovaSeq 6000 at Novogene.

  Study EGAS50000000833

• Genomic profiling of Follicular thyroid adenomas and carcinomas using exome-sequencing analyses

  While thyroid nodules per se are frequent (4%–50%), thyroid cancer is rare (∼5% of all thyroid nodules). The minimally invasive Fine Needle Aspiration Cytology (FNAC) is the current gold standard for the diagnosis thyroid nodule malignancy. However, proper discrimination of follicular neoplasias often require more invasive diagnostic techniques. To develop a novel molecular classification system for thyroid cancer malignancy, we performed an genomic profiling of 54 fresh frozen Follicular like thyroid samples using a whole exome sequencing approach (SureSelect V6 Target enrichment protocol and the Illumina Novaseq 6000 platform)

  Study EGAS00001005561

• Rapid Acceleration of Diagnostics - Digital Health Technologies (RADx-DHT): ILI Labels and Longitudinal Novel Engagement with Symptom Surveillance (ILLNESS) Study

  This study is a prospective observational study, approximately seven months in duration. Participants were asked to complete a weekly survey online asking about their ILI (influenza-like illness) experience over the past seven days. The primary objective of this study was to collect a population-wide, longitudinal dataset of ILI events (with onset and recovery dates) and the associated symptoms, behaviors, and medical information associated with each event.DOI: https://rapids.ll.mit.edu/10.57895/4vfb-4z30

  Study phs002538

• Neurogenetics_Essen

  Neurogenetic disorders are a clinically heterogeneous group of conditions characterized by an alteration or dysfunction of the central nervous system, resulting from a change encoded in the genome of affected individuals. Most of these conditions are individually rare but collectively frequent (>1-5% of the population), manifesting during development (neurodevelopmental disorders) or during later life (neurological disorders). Currently, genetic alterations in approximately 2,500 genes have been linked to human disorders affecting the brain and collectively explain approximately 50% of patients with neurological disorders with a supposed genetic etiology. We aim to identify new genes and uncover novel mechanisms underlying neurological and neurodevelopmental disorders, with a current focus on noncoding regions and complex (repeated) regions. We use a range of complementary approaches that make use of advanced technologies and bioinformatics tools. We combine short-read genome sequencing and long-read technologies, including nanopore sequencing and optical genome mapping, with multi-omics approaches (RNA sequencing, proteomics…) to detect pathogenic variants missed by routine diagnostics and to discover new genetic diseases.

  Dac EGAC50000000329

• Whole genome sequencing of multiple myeloma identifies novel structural and non-coding mutations.

  The coding region of the myeloma genome is well understood with key mutations having been identified. However, the non-coding regions of the myeloma genome are yet to be analyzed. Here we have performed whole genome sequencing of myeloma patient samples to identify structural abnormalities including chromothripsis and chromoplexy, as well as gene dysregulation through super-enhancer juxtaposition with key oncogenes. We have also identified non-coding region hotspots of mutation, especially in promoter regions, that affect gene expression.

  Study EGAS00001003164

• Targeted Gene Panel for 171 PTCLs

  Mature T-cell lymphomas, including peripheral T-cell lymphoma (PTCL) and extranodal NK/T-cell lymphoma (NKTL), represent a heterogeneous group of non-Hodgkin lymphomas with dismal outcomes and limited treatment options. To determine the extent of involvement of the JAK/STAT pathway in this malignancy, we performed targeted capture sequencing of 188 genes in this pathway in 171 PTCL and NKTL cases. A total of 272 nonsynonymous somatic mutations in 101 genes were identified in 73% of the samples, including 258 single-nucleotide variants and 14 insertions or deletions. Recurrent mutations were most frequently located in STAT3 and TP53 (15%), followed by JAK3 and JAK1 (6%) and SOCS1 (4%). A high prevalence of STAT3 mutation (21%) was observed specifically in NKTL. Novel STAT3 mutations (p.D427H, E616G, p.E616K, and p.E696K) were shown to increase STAT3 phosphorylation and transcriptional activity of STAT3 in the absence of cytokine, in which p.E616K induced programmed cell death-ligand 1 (PD-L1) expression by robust binding of activated STAT3 to the PD-L1 gene promoter. Consistent with these findings, PD-L1 was overexpressed in NKTL cell lines harboring hotspot STAT3 mutations, and similar findings were observed by the overexpression of p.E616K and p.E616G in the STAT3 wild-type NKTL cell line. Conversely, STAT3 silencing and inhibition decreased PD-L1 expression in STAT3 mutant NKTL cell lines. In NKTL tumors, STAT3 activation correlated significantly with PD-L1 expression. We demonstrated that STAT3 activation confers high PD-L1 expression, which may promote tumor immune evasion. The combination of PD-1/PD-L1 antibodies and STAT3 inhibitors might be a promising therapeutic approach for NKTL, and possibly PTCL.

  Study EGAS00001002740

• Stand Up To Cancer East Coast Prostate Cancer Research Group

  Most prostate cancer deaths are caused by metastatic, castration resistant disease (mCRPC). To develop a precision medicine framework for mCRPC, we established a multi-institutional, international clinical sequencing infrastructure to enroll and carry out prospective whole exome and transcriptome sequencing of tumors from a cohort of mCRPC patients. We obtained high quality DNA and RNA sequence data from 150 bone or soft tissue biopsies. Central pathology revealed high-grade adenocarcinoma with only four cases (3.6%) showing neuroendocrine differentiation. Aberrations of AR, ETS genes, TP53 and PTEN were frequent (40-60% of cases), with TP53 and AR alterations being the most enriched in mCRPC compared to primary prostate cancer. We identified novel genomic alterations in PIK3CA/B (fusions and mutations); R-spondin, BRAF and RAF1 (fusions); APC (inactivating mutations); delta-catenin (missense mutations); and ZBTB16/PLZF (homozygous deletions). Aberrations of BRCA2, BRCA1 and ATM were observed at substantially higher frequencies (19.3% overall) than seen in primary prostate cancers, with 56% of these being exclusively somatic. Putative driver gene alterations were identified in nearly all patients, and over half also harbored driver gene fusions, homozygous deletions and/or amplifications. Moreover, 89% of patients harbored a clinically actionable aberration including 62.7% with aberrations in AR, 65% in other cancer-related genes, and 8% with actionable pathogenic germline alterations. Overall, integrative clinical sequencing analysis can be safely and efficiently performed in mCRPC, yields findings that may be actionable for enrolling patients in clinical trials of targeted therapies, and may inform the basis of individual clinical responses.

  Study phs000915

• Genetic Modifiers of Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy

  The primary determinant of disease severity in patients with severe Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) or milder Becker muscular dystrophy (BMD) is whether their dystrophin gene (DMD) mutation disrupts the mRNA reading frame or permits the expression of a partially functional protein. However, even in the complete absence of dystrophin, variability in disease severity is observed, with candidate gene studies implicating several genes as potential DMD modifiers. This study undertakes a comprehensive genome-wide search for modifier loci influencing disease severity in DMD patients. The availability of subjects for such studies remains limited, resulting in modest sample sizes that challenge the GWAS design. To address this, we have implemented measures to minimize heterogeneity within the dataset at the dystrophin (DMD) gene itself, adopting a conservative approach to DMD mutation classification to limit the possibility of residual dystrophin expression. Additionally, the study employed statistical methods that are well-suited to smaller sample sizes, including the use of a novel linear regression-like residual for time to ambulatory loss and the application of evidential statistics, specifically the Posterior Probability of Linkage Disequilibrium (PPLD), to assess trait-SNP associations in the GWAS framework. With a sample size of 419 patients, this study has identified multiple candidate genetic modifier loci. The molecular data available in dbGaP includes 2,562,265 directly genotyped variants in 419 people using the Illumina Infinium Omni2.5Exome-8 Beadchip assay, achieving a genotyping rate of 0.998. The phenotypic data comprises age at ambulatory loss, steroid status, DMD gene mutation, and the PPLD value from the time-to-event (TE) phenotype.

  Study phs003680

• Pharmacogenomic Analysis Reveals New Therapeutic Options for Pleural Mesothelioma

  Background: Pleural mesothelioma (PM) urgently requires novel effective treatments. Drug repurposing is a relevant strategy to discover new therapeutic options among well-known drugs used in clinical practice. This study aimed to identify new therapies in the context of molecular heterogeneity of PM. Methods: We performed a multi-omics study of the largest cohort of patient-derived primary PM cell lines (n=58) to date, using whole exome sequencing, RNA sequencing and methylome analysis. We also conducted a large-scale drug screening of over 1300 compounds on a subset of cell lines (n=11), as well as an extension screen (n=48) for selected drugs of interest. The best candidates were validated using 3D culture and mouse models. Results: We demonstrated that the molecular landscape of the cell lines cohort recapitulates the main findings in tumours and revealed new specific features of PM. The large-scale drug screening and subsequent validations highlighted notably strong sensitivity to entinostat and fluvastatin. Importantly, both compounds displayed same efficacy in 2D and 3D culture models and single treatment prolonged survival in vivo similarly or even better than standard chemotherapy. Strikingly, combining entinostat treatment with anti-PD1 led to cures in some mice and immunized them against tumour cells. Conclusions: Among several candidates, we identified entinostat, notably in combination with immune checkpoint inhibitor, and to a lesser extent fluvastatin, as promising therapeutic options for patients. We believe our study provides a valuable resource that could contribute to advances in the field and warrants further clinical investigation.

  Study EGAS00001007866

• Combination of ribociclib and gemcitabine for the treatment of medulloblastoma

  Group 3 (G3) medulloblastoma (MB) is one of the deadliest forms of the disease for which novel treatment is desperately needed. Here we evaluate ribociclib, a highly selective CDK4/6 inhibitor, with gemcitabine in mouse and human G3 MBs. Ribociclib CNS penetration was assessed by in vivo microdialysis and by immunohistochemistry and gene expression studies. Survival studies to determine the efficacy of ribociclib and gemcitabine combination were performed on mice orthotopically implanted with luciferase labelled mouse and human G3 MB. Pharmacokinetic-pharmacodynamic outcomes and univariable survival models were analyzed to estimate survival. Gene activity inference using NetBID and tumor differentiation analysis investigated the effects of the combination after short and long-term treatments. Tumors from mice treated with oral ribociclib displayed inhibited RB phosphorylation, downregulated E2F target genes, and decreased proliferation. Treatment of mice with the combination of ribociclib and gemcitabine was well tolerated, slowed tumor progression and metastatic spread, and increased survival. Molecular analysis of treated versus untreated tumors showed a significant decrease in the activity and expression of genes involved in cell cycle progression and DNA damage response, and an increase in activity and expression of genes implicated in neuronal identity and neuronal differentiation. Ribociclib is CNS-penetrant. When administered/combined with gemcitabine in orthotopic G3 MB models resulted in improved survival. Our findings, with both mouse and human patient-derived-orthotopic xenograft models, suggest that this combination therapy has promise for children with G3 MB and may represent an effective treatment strategy for other CNS malignancies.

  Study EGAS00001006001

• Whole-genome sequencing of rare disease patients in a national healthcare system

  Most patients with rare diseases do not receive a molecular diagnosis and the aetiological variants and mediating genes for more than half such disorders remain to be discovered. We implemented whole-genome sequencing (WGS) in a national healthcare system to streamline diagnosis and to discover unknown aetiological variants, in the coding and non-coding regions of the genome. In a pilot study for the 100,000 Genomes Project, we generated WGS data for 13,037 participants, of whom 9,802 had a rare disease, and provided a genetic diagnosis to 1,138 of the 7,065 patients with detailed phenotypic data. We identified 95 Mendelian associations between genes and rare diseases, of which 11 have been discovered since 2015 and at least 79 are confirmed aetiological. Using WGS of UK Biobank1, we showed that rare alleles can explain the presence of some individuals in the tails of a quantitative red blood cell (RBC) trait. Finally, we reported 4 novel non-coding variants which cause disease through the disruption of transcription of ARPC1B, GATA1, LRBA and MPL. Our study demonstrates a synergy by using WGS for diagnosis and aetiological discovery in routine healthcare.

  Dataset EGAD00001006065

• Integrative genome profiling in AML

  AML emerges as a consequence of accumulating independent genetic aberrations that direct regulation and/or dysfunction of genes resulting in aberrant activation of signalling pathways, resistance to apoptosis and uncontrolled proliferation. Given the significant heterogeneity of AML genomes, AML patients demonstrate a highly variable response rate and poor median survival in response to current chemotherapy regimens. For the past 4 years we have conducted gene expression profiling on purified bone marrow populations equating to normal haematopoietic stem and progenitor cells from healthy subjects and patients with de novo AML in order to identify AML signatures of aberrantly expressed genes in cancer versus normal. We are now applying a series of bioinformatic methodologies combined with clinical and conventional diagnostic data to establish novel genomics strategies for improved prognostication of AML. Additionally, we use our AML signatures to unravel oncogenic signalling pathway activities in AML patients and test inhibitory drugs for these pathways inn preclinical therapeutic programmes. We consider that superimposing GEP and clinical data for our AML patient cohort with additional data on their mutational status will significantly improve the prognostic power of the study as well as unravel yet unknown mutations associated with aberrant signalling activities of oncogenic pathways.

  Dataset EGAD00001001873

• Extreme phenotypes define epigenetic and metabolic signatures in cardiovascular diseases.

  Improving the understanding of cardiometabolic syndrome pathophysiology and its relationship with thrombosis are ongoing healthcare challenges. Using plasma biomarkers analysis coupled with the transcriptional and epigenetic characterisation of cell types involved in thrombosis, obtained from two extreme phenotype groups (obese and lipodystrophy) and comparing these to lean individuals and blood donors, the present study identifies the molecular mechanisms at play, highlighting patterns of abnormal activation in innate immune phagocytic cells and shows that extreme phenotype groups could be distinguished from lean individuals, and from each other, across all data layers. The characterisation of the same obese group, six months after bariatric surgery shows the loss of the patterns of abnormal activation of innate immune cells previously observed. However, rather than reverting to the gene expression landscape of lean individuals, this occurs via the establishment of novel gene expression landscapes. Netosis and its control mechanisms emerge amongst the pathways that show an improvement after surgical intervention. Taken together, by integrating across data layers, the observed molecular and metabolic differences form a disease signature that is able to discriminate, amongst the blood donors, those individuals with a higher likelihood of having cardiometabolic syndrome, even when not presenting with the classic features.

  Study EGAS00001003780

• Asthma in the Lives of Families Today (ALOFT)

  Social interactions and the overall psychosocial environment have a demonstrated impact on health, particularly for people living in disadvantaged urban areas. Here we investigated the effect of psychosocial experiences on gene expression in peripheral blood immune cells of 251 children with asthma in Metro Detroit. Participants were included from an ongoing longitudinal study Asthma in the Lives of Families Today (ALOFT; recruited from November 2010-July 2018. The ALOFT project was established to identify the behavioral and biological pathways through which family social environments impact youth with asthma.In version 1 we used RNA-sequencing and a new machine learning approach to identify transcriptional signatures of 19 variables including psychosocial factors, blood cell composition and asthma symptoms. Using longitudinal data collected from a subset of the participants we showed that transcriptional signatures track the longitudinal changes in measured phenotypes. Importantly, we found 169 genes associated with asthma that are regulated by psychosocial factors, and 344 significant gene-environment interactions for gene expression levels. These results demonstrate that immune gene expression mediates the link between negative psychosocial experiences and asthma risk.In version 2, we focused on pubertal development. We identified substantial gene expression changes associated with age and pubertal development. We showed that genetic effects on gene expression change dynamically during pubertal development. Gene expression changes during puberty are correlated with gene expression changes associated with asthma and may explain sex differences in prevalence. Our results show that molecular data used to study the genetics of early onset diseases should consider pubertal development as an important factor that modifies the transcriptome.Version 3 uses single cell RNA-seq to study the dynamics of the transcriptional response to glucocorticoids in activated Peripheral Blood Mononuclear Cells from 96 African American children. We employed novel statistical approaches to calculate a mean-independent measure of gene expression variability and a measure of transcriptional response pseudotime. Using these approaches, we demonstrated that glucocorticoids reverse the effects of immune stimulation on both gene expression mean and variability. Our novel measure of gene expression response dynamics, based on the diagonal linear discriminant analysis, separated individual cells by response status on the basis of their transcriptional profiles and allowed us to identify different dynamic patterns of gene expression along the response pseudotime. We identified genetic variants regulating gene expression mean and variability, including treatment-specific effects, and demonstrated widespread genetic regulation of the transcriptional dynamics of the gene expression response.Version 4 adds scATAC-seq in activated peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) from 16 children with asthma with phytohemagglutinin (PHA) or lipopolysaccharide (LPS), and treated with dexamethasone (DEX), an anti-inflammatory glucocorticoid. We analyzed changes in chromatin accessibility, measured transcription factor motif activity, and identified treatment and cell-type specific transcription factors that drive changes in both gene expression mean and variability. We observed strong positive linear dependence between motif response and their target gene expression changes, but negative in variability changes. This result suggests that an increase of transcription factor binding tightens the variability of gene expression around the mean. We then annotated genetic variants in chromatin accessibility peaks and response motifs followed by computational fine-mapping of eQTL signals from a pediatric asthma cohort. We found that eQTLs were 5-fold enriched in peaks with response motifs and refined the credible set for 410 asthma risk genes, with 191 having the causal variant in response motifs. These results enhance the understanding of molecular mechanisms for asthma risk variants mediated by gene expression.

  Study phs002182

• Similarity and diversity of the tumor microenvironment in multiple metastases: critical implications for overall and progression-free survival of high-grade serous ovarian cancer.

  The tumor microenvironment is pivotal in influencing cancer progression and metastasis. Different cells co-exist with high spatial diversity within a patient, yet their combinatorial effects are poorly understood. We investigate the similarity of the tumor microenvironment of 192 local metastatic lesions in 61 ovarian cancer patients. An ecologically inspired measure of microenvironmental diversity derived from multiple metastasis sites is correlated with clinicopathological characteristics and prognostic outcome. We demonstrate a high accuracy of our automated analysis across multiple sites. A low level of similarity in microenvironmental composition is observed between ovary tumor and corresponding local metastases (stromal ratio r = 0.30, lymphocyte ratio r = 0.37). We identify a new measure of microenvironmental diversity derived from Shannon entropy that is highly predictive of poor overall (p = 0.002, HR = 3.18, 95% CI = 1.51-6.68) and progression-free survival (p = 0.0036, HR = 2.83, 95% CI = 1.41-5.7), independent of and stronger than clinical variables, subtype stratifications based on single cell types alone and number of sites. Although stromal influence in ovary tumors is known to have significant clinical implications, our findings reveal an even stronger impact orchestrated by diverse cell types. Quantitative histology-based measures can further enable objective selection of patients who are in urgent need of new therapeutic strategies such as combinatorial treatments targeting heterogeneous tumor microenvironment.

  Study EGAS00001002065

• Spatial predictors of response to immunotherapy in microsatellite stable metastatic colorectal cancer

  Microsatellite stable (MSS) colorectal cancers (CRC) are largely unresponsive to immune checkpoint inhibition (ICI), prompting investigation into strategies to enhance sensitivity. The MAYA trial, which utilized temozolomide (TMZ) in MGMT-silenced MSS mCRC, hypothesized that TMZ-induced hypermutation could sensitize tumors to ICI. This phase II trial met its primary endpoint, demonstrating durable clinical responses with TMZ combined with ipilimumab and nivolumab. To elucidate factors in uencing response heterogeneity, we conducted multi-omic spatial pro ling of samples from patients who participated in the MAYA trial, including baseline and on-treatment tissue and blood specimens. While increased neoantigen load following TMZ exposure did not consistently predict for deep responses, spatial profiling revealed key determinants. Lymphocyte proportions, particularly CD8+KI67+ cells, within stromal and tumor compartments, along with macrophage composition (CD68+CD163+ cells) at the tumor-stromal interface, were predictive of response. Treatment pressures dynamically altered the tumor microenvironment composition and activated peripheral immune cells. This study is the first to identify spatial predictors of response to this promising novel treatment approach for MSS CRC.

  Dataset EGAD50000002244

• A novel subset of human CD33+ haematopoietic stem cells characterized at single-cell resolution

  This dataset comprises single-cell RNA sequencing of the human Lin-CD34+38-45RA-90+49f+ phenotype isolated from 2 normal cord donors. Library preparation was performed following a modified CEL-Seq2 protocol.

  Dataset EGAD00001003955

• Whole Exome Sequencing of a Chinese Cataract Girl

  Whole exome sequencing of a Chinese girl with congenital cataract. The dataset contains one sample with two fastq files. The novel PAX6 mutation (c.221G>A) is associated with congenital cataract, and the WFS1 mutation (c.2070_2079del) interactively aggravates this process.

  Dataset EGAD00001008267

• Assessment of Neurological Deterioration in Subjects with Late Infantile Neuronal Ceroid Lipofuscinosis

  Late infantile ceroid lipofuscinosis (LINCL) is a rare, rapidly progressing lysosomal storage disease resulting from mutations in the CLN2 gene that lead to deficiency in the lysosomal protease tripeptidyl peptidase I (TPP-I). The symptoms are largely neurological with onset at 2-4 years age with progression to death at age 8-12 yrs. The rareness of the disease and the likelihood of non-uniform progression depending on genotype together limit the data available regarding the natural history of disease progression. Current neurological rating scales are used to give an overall quantitative description of the disease but the categories are generally broad and imprecise. With that background, the primary focus of this study is to use clinical rating scales and magnetic resonance imaging methods to define the natural history of LINCL and to provide objective and sensitive surrogates for neurological status and the impact of experimental treatments in children with LINCL. Together these parameters will be applicable to future clinical studies of novel therapies for LINCL and should be transferrable to other neurological lysosomal storage diseases. Subjects will be assessed at 2 visits separated by ≥1 yr. Brain morphometry, water self-diffusion coefficients and spectroscopic data will be obtained via magnetic resonance. Resulting MRI biomarkers will be compared with neurological assessment of disease severity using the Weill-Cornell LINCL rating scale.

  Study phs001575

• Integrative genomic analysis identifies key pathogenic mechanisms in primary mediastinal large B-cell lymphoma

  Primary mediastinal large B-cell lymphoma (PMBL) represents a clinically and pathologically distinct subtype of large B-cell lymphomas. Furthermore, molecular studies, including global gene expression profiling, have provided evidence that PMBL is more closely related to classical Hodgkin lymphoma (cHL). Although targeted sequencing studies have revealed a number of mutations involved in PMBL pathogenesis, a comprehensive description of disease-associated genetic alterations and perturbed pathways is still lacking. Here, we performed whole-exome sequencing of 95 PMBL tumors to inform on oncogenic driver genes and recurrent copy number alterations. The integration of somatic gene mutations with gene expression signatures provides further insights into genotype-phenotype interrelation in PMBL. We identified highly recurrent oncogenic mutations in the JAK-STAT and NF-kB pathways, and provide additional evidence of the importance of immune evasion in PMBL (CIITA, CD58, B2M, CD274, PDCD1LG2). Our analyses highlight the IRF-pathway as a putative novel hallmark with frequent alterations in multiple pathway members (IRF2BP2, IRF4, IRF8). In addition, our integrative analysis illustrates the importance of JAK1, RELB and EP300 mutations driving oncogenic signaling. The identified driver genes were significantly more frequently mutated in PMBL as compared to diffuse large B-cell lymphoma, whereas only a limited number of genes were significantly different between PMBL and cHL, emphasizing the close relationship between these entities. Our study, performed on a large cohort of PMBL, highlights the importance of distinctive genetic alterations for disease taxonomy with relevance for diagnostic work-up and therapeutic decision-making.

  Study EGAS00001003746

• Efficacy of nivolumab in pediatric cancers with high mutation burden and mismatch-repair deficiency

  Purpose: Checkpoint-inhibitors have limited efficacy for children with unselected solid and brain tumors. We report the first prospective pediatric trial (NCT02992964) using nivolumab exclusively for refractory non-hematological cancers harboring tumor mutation burden (TMB) ≥5 mutations/megabase (mut/Mb) and/or mismatch-repair deficiency (MMRD). Patients and methods: Twenty patients were screened, and ten ultimately included in the response cohort of whom nine had TMB >10mut/Mb (three initially eligible based on MMRD) and one patient had TMB between 5-10 mut/Mb. Results: Delayed immune responses contributed to best overall response of 50%, improving on initial objective responses (20%) and leading to 2-year overall survival (OS) of 50% (95% CI; 27, 93). Four children, including three with refractory malignant gliomas are in complete remission at a median follow-up of 37-months (range: 32.4-60), culminating in 2-year OS of 43% (95% CI; 18.2, 100). Biomarker analyses confirmed benefit in children with germline MMRD, microsatellite instability, higher activated and lower regulatory circulating T-cells. Stochastic mutation accumulation driven by underlying germline MMRD impacted the tumor microenvironment, contributing to delayed responses. No benefit was observed in the single patient with a MMR-proficient tumour and TMB 7.4 mut/Mb. Conclusions: Nivolumab resulted in durable responses and prolonged survival for the first time in a pediatric trial of refractory hypermutated cancers including malignant gliomas. Novel biomarkers identified here need to be translated rapidly to clinical care to identify children who can benefit from checkpoint-inhibitors, including for upfront management of their cancers.

  Study EGAS00001007393

• Exome sequencing in bipolar disorder families

  Bipolar disorder (BD) is a major psychiatric disorder affecting around 1% of the global population. BD is characterized by recurrent manic and depressive episodes, and has an estimated heritability of around 70% Research has identified the first BD susceptibility genes. However, the underlying pathways and regulatory networks remain largely unknown. Since research has shown that the cumulative impact of common alleles with small effect appears to explain only around 25-38% of the phenotypic variance for BD, rare variants of high penetrance may also contribute to BD risk. The present study investigated the role of rare, nonsynonymous, and potentially functional variants via whole exome sequencing in 15 BD cases from two large, multiply affected families from Cuba. The high prevalence of BD in these pedigrees renders them promising in terms of the identification of genetic risk variants with large effect sizes. In addition, SNP array data were used to calculate polygenic risk scores for affected and unaffected family members. After correction for multiple testing, polygenic risk scores for common, BD-associated genetic variants were not significantly higher in BD cases than in healthy relatives. Exome sequencing identified a total of 17 rare and potentially damaging variants in 17 genes. The identified variants were shared by all investigated BD cases in the respective pedigree. The most promising variant was located in the gene SERPING1 (p.L349F), which has been reported as a genome-wide significant risk gene for schizophrenia. A further promising variant was located in CAPN2, which has been implicated in synaptic plasticity. The present data suggest novel candidate genes for BD susceptibility, and may facilitate the discovery of disease-relevant pathways and regulatory networks.

  Study EGAS00001003085

• Prenatal lead exposure is associated with decreased cord blood DNA methylation of the glycoprotein VI gene involved in platelet activation and thrombus formation

  Early-life lead exposure impairs neurodevelopment and later exposure affects the cardiovascular system. Lead has been associated with reduced global 5-methylcytosine DNA methylation, suggesting that lead toxicity acts through epigenetic mechanisms. The objective of this study is to clarify how early life lead exposure alters DNA methylation of specific genes, using an epigenomic approach. We measured lead concentrations in urine (gestational week, GW, 8) and erythrocytes (GW 14), using ICP-MS, for 127 pregnant mothers recruited in the MINIMat food and supplementation cohort in rural Bangladesh. Cord blood DNA methylation was analyzed with the Infinium HumanMethylation450K BeadChip and top sites were validated by methylation-sensitive high-resolution melt curve analysis. Maternal urinary lead concentrations (divided into quartiles) showed significant (after adjustment for FDR) inverse associations with methylation at nine CpGs. Three of these sites were in the 5’ end, including the promoter, of glycoprotein IV (GP6); cg18355337 (q=0.029, β=-0.30), cg25818583 (q=0.041, β=-0.18) and cg23796967 (q=0.047, β=-0.17). The methylation in another CpG site in GP6 was close to significant (cg05374025, q=0.057, β=-0.23). The erythrocyte lead concentrations (divided into quartiles) were also inversely associated with CpG methylation in GP6, although this was not statistically significant after FDR-adjustments. Eight CpG sites in GP6 constituted a differentially methylated region in relation to urinary lead (p=0.005, q=0.48) and erythrocyte lead (p=0.007, q=0.46). In conclusion, we found that moderate prenatal lead exposure appear to epigenetically affect GP6, a key component of platelet aggregation and thrombus formation, suggesting a novel link between early lead exposure and cardiovascular disease later in life.

  Study EGAS00001001575

• Exome sequencing from cfDNA blood samples. 159 samples at 2x101bp Illumina reads in Fastq format.

  Differential presence of exons (DPE) by next generation sequencing (NGS) is a method of interpretation of whole exome sequencing. This method has been proposed to design a predictive and diagnostic algorithm with clinical value in plasma from patients bearing colorectal cancer (CRC). The aim of the present study was to determine a common exonic signature to discriminate between different clinical pictures, such as non-metastatic, metastatic and non-disease (healthy), using a sustainable and novel technology in liquid biopsy. Through DPE analysis, we determined the differences in DNA exon levels circulating in plasma between patients bearing CRC vs. healthy, patients bearing CRC metastasis vs. non-metastatic and patients bearing CRC metastasis vs. healthy comparisons. We identified a set of 510 exons (469 up and 41 down) whose differential presence in plasma allowed us to group and classify between the three cohorts. Random forest classification (machine learning) was performed and an estimated out-of-bag (OOB) error rate of 35.9% was obtained and the predictive model had an accuracy of 75% with a confidence interval (CI) of 56.6-88.5. In conclusion, the DPE analysis allowed us to discriminate between different patho-physiological status such as metastatic, non-metastatic and healthy donors. In addition, this analysis allowed us to obtain very significant values with respect to previous published results, since we increased the number of samples in our study. These results suggest that circulating DNA in patient’s plasma may be actively released by cells and may be involved in intercellular communication and, therefore, may play a pivotal role in malignant transformation (genometastasis).

  Study EGAS00001006656

• Rb and p53-Deficient Myxofibrosarcoma and Undifferentiated Pleomorphic Sarcoma Require Skp2 for Survival

  Myxofibrosarcoma (MFS) and undifferentiated pleomorphic sarcoma (UPS) are highly genetically complex soft tissue sarcomas. Up to 50% of patients develop distant metastases, but current systemic therapies have limited efficacy. MFS and UPS have recently been shown to commonly harbor copy number alterations or mutations in the tumor suppressor genes RB1 and TP53. As these alterations have been shown to engender dependence on the oncogenic protein Skp2 for survival of transformed cells in mouse models, we sought to examine its function and potential as a therapeutic target in MFS/UPS. Comparative genomic hybridization (CGH) and next-generation sequencing (NGS) confirmed that a significant fraction of MFS and UPS patient samples (n=94) harbor chromosomal deletions and/or loss-of-function mutations in RB1 and TP53 (88% carry alterations in at least one gene; 60% carry alterations in both). Tissue microarray (TMA) analysis identified a correlation between absent Rb and p53 expression and positive expression of SKP2. Downregulation of SKP2 or treatment with Skp2 Inhibitor C1 revealed that Skp2 drives proliferation of patient-derived MFS/UPS cell lines deficient in both Rb and p53 by degrading p21 and p27. Inhibition of Skp2 using the neddylation-activating enzyme (NAE) inhibitor pevonedistat decreased growth of Rb/p53-negative patient-derived cell lines and mouse xenografts. These results demonstrate that loss of both Rb and p53 renders MFS and UPS dependent on Skp2, which can be therapeutically exploited and could provide the basis for promising novel systemic therapies for MFS and UPS.

  Study phs001982

• Differential Presence of Exons in Cell-Free DNA Reveals Different Patterns in Colorectal Cancer Between Metastatic and Non-Metastatic Patients

  Tumor genotyping during disease follow-up is gaining an increasing interest for monitoring and clinical management in colorectal cancer (CRC). Growing evidences suggest that single biopsies are inefficient for molecular profiling, due to clonal evolution and intratumoral heterogeneity of primary tumors and/or metastasis. Circulating free DNA (cfDNA) has emerged as an alternative source of genetic material that seems to be representative of the continuously changing tumor molecular features. Thus, the so-called 'liquid biopsy' also offers the additional advantages of accessibility and non-invasiveness for the patient. Novel strategies based on next-generation sequencing (NGS) of cfDNA are being currently developed, with most studies focusing on targeted deep sequencing panels of potential clinically actionable genes. Here we describe an alternative approach, consisting of exome-sequencing in cfDNA at a relatively shallower depth to provide a more general overview of the circulating genome. In this study, two groups of colorectal cancer patients, with either disseminated (M) or localized disease (N), were compared using whole-exome sequencing and a RNA-seq bioinformatics analysis pipeline. Thus, a set of 379 exons present at different levels in cfDNA from both groups were identified, giving rise to a completely new concept in this field, termed as 'Differential Presence of Exons'. Differentially present exons (DPEs) were subsequently used for M and N patients clustering and classification, allowing for the design of a predictive algorithm with encouraging preliminary results in a small subset of patients that could not be initially classified attending to the selection criteria (U group, unassignable).

  Study EGAS00001002687

• Human Companion Data for 'A Transcriptomic Atlas of Mouse Cerebellar Cortex Reveals Novel Cell Types'

  In this study, we used single-nucleus RNA-seq to comprehensively define the cell specialization of the mouse cerebellar cortex and vermis. We focused in particular on two interneuron populations—the unipolar brush cells (UBCs) and the molecular layer interneurons (MLIs), identifying continuous variation within the former population, and a new discrete axis of variation in the latter. Human postmortem tissue was used to demonstrate that these specializations are evolutionarily conserved in primates. Together, these findings provide the first comprehensive cellular atlas of the cerebellar cortex, and outline a methodological and conceptual framework for the integration of molecular, morphological, and physiological ontologies for defining brain cell types.

  Study phs002414

• Deciphering molecular mechanisms underlying hematological malignancies and development of novel therapeutic approaches

  We aim to identify epigenomic features dysregulated in hematological malignancies through epigenetic analyses of hematological malignant cells. We also perform RNA sequencing to profile tumor cell-specific transcriptomes and target gene sequencing to profile somatic gene mutations in tumor cells. Regarding identified epigenomic abnormalities, we perform further analysis to determine whether they could be good candidates to translate into therapy development. To this end, we will modulate the activity of targets by using their activators and inhibitors in vitro and establish xenograft mouse models of hematological malignancies and manipulate their activity in vivo. Through these studies, we aim to develop new therapeutic agents or modalities that lead to improved patients��� prognosis.

  Study JGAS000603

• Mucociliary Clearance Consortium (MCC) Rare Genetic Disorders of the Airways: Cross-section Comparison of Clinical Features, and Development of Novel Screening and Genetic Test

  We have established a consortium of 7 geographically-dispersed clinical research sites that are designed to study rare diseases of the airways, which involve defects in clearance of mucus secretions from the airways (defective "mucociliary clearance"). These sites will collaborate in diagnostic, genetic, and other studies in patients with impairments of mucociliary clearance, including primary ciliary dyskinesia (PCD), variant cystic fibrosis (CF), and pseudohypoaldosteronism (PHA). These disorders reflect genetic defects in airway host-defense, and typically result in chronic infection of the airways. Patients with these disorders of the conducting airways and sinuses have delayed (or incorrect) diagnoses, because diagnostic tests are not readily available. These patients may also have sub-optimal management of their clinical disease, because the cause of these disorders is not well-defined, and treatment regimens are usually not driven by evidence-based medicine. This current protocol is designed to employ a systematic approach to the diagnostic evaluation of these patients with chronic airways disease, which will yield precise diagnoses in individual patients, and will be associated with development of better diagnostic techniques, including genetic testing. In addition, we will compare/contrast clinical features (phenotype) across these disorders. A rigorous cross-sectional comparison of the clinical features will provide better understanding of the clinical disease of these disorders; in turn, this will lead not only to a better standard of clinical care, but will also assist in the identification of novel therapeutic approaches. The patient population for these studies includes individuals carrying a tentative diagnosis of the three disorders (PCD, variant CF or PHA), plus individuals suspected to have one of these disorders, but with inadequate or inconclusive diagnostic tests. Individuals in this latter category must have a preliminary clinical evaluation to evaluate for other more common disorders that may have similar manifestations including classical CF, immunodeficiency, asthma, and severe gastroesophageal reflux. We have an informal agreement with a network of pulmonologists across the United States to perform clinically-indicated (not research) preliminary clinical testing, if not directly available to patients who inquire about these studies. Blood will be collected for DNA to test for genetic mutations. The blood samples will be processed to establish a cell line (lymphocyte transformation) for a source of DNA for future genetic studies, in participants with disease. For participants unable to provide a blood sample, a buccal sample will be obtained for DNA.

  Study phs000595

• A Phase I Study with a Personalized Neoantigen Cancer Vaccine in Melanoma

  Effective anti-tumor immunity in humans has been associated with presence of T cells targeting neoantigens that arise from non-silent tumor-specific mutations. Here we conducted whole-exome sequencing of tumor and normal cells from individual patients to identify mutations. We assessed the expression of mutated alleles by RNA-sequencing of tumor. We demonstrated the feasibility, safety and immunogenicity of a vaccine that targets up to 20 personal neoantigens predicted to be presented by the autologous patient tumor.Antigen-specific CD8+ T cells that can recognize and eliminate cancer cells play a crucial role in anti-tumor immune responses. Here we conducted single-cell sequencing of cells infiltrating melanoma specimens originating from 4 patients and determine the TCR clonality of the CD8+ tumor infiltrating cells. We investigated the relationship between T cell clonality and phenotypic cell states coupling single-cell transcriptome to single-cell TCR seq. The surface expression of a panel of protein was detected in parallel using CITE-Seq antibodies. Sorted tumor and peripheral blood specimens were processed in parallel.In order to discover cancer antigens derived from annotated and unannotated protein-coding regions of the genome, we carried out matched ribosome profiling (Ribo-seq), RNA-sequencing, and whole genome sequencing on one of the patients, as well as Ribo-seq on an additional patient. We used it to discover novel or unannotated open reading frames (nuORFs), their expression levels, as well as somatic mutations within them to predict potential neoantigens.

  Study phs001451

• Decoding Human Endogenous Retrovirus Expression in Liver Metastatic Colorectal Cancers: Implications for Diagnosis and Prognosis

  The association between Human Endogenous RetroVirus (HERV) expression and cancer can be considered to both reflect the epigenetic deregulation of cancer and facilitate oncogenesis through its promoter/enhancer action on genes. More than 50% of colorectal cancers develop liver metastases and HERV has never been studied in this setting. We collected 400 RNAseq samples from more than 200 patients with primary and liver metastases from published and unpublished databases. We corroborated our findings with tandem mass spectrometry from primary colorectal cancer and single-cell RNAseq from liver metastatic colorectal cancer (lmCRC). We identified global stability in HERV expression between liver metastases and primary colorectal cancers, suggesting an early oncogenic footprint. Therefore, we proposed a list of seventeen HERV loci for lmCRC characterization with ERV-derived peptides but no expression in normal tissues. Among them, we discovered six prognostic markers after surgical resection of lmCRC. Four of them, HERVH_Xp22.32a, HERVH_20p11.23b, HERVH_13q33.3, HERVH_13q31.3, showed poor prognostic value when expressed (log-rank p-value 0.028, 0.0083, 9e-4, 0.05, respectively). HERVH_Xp22.2c (log-rank p-value 0.032) and HERVH_8q21.3b (only in multivariate models) were associated with better prognosis when expressed. These markers showed a cumulative effect on survival when expressed. Some HERVs were associated with decreased cytotoxic immune cells and most of them correlated with cell cycle pathways. Our findings provide new insights into lmCRC classification and suggest novel prognostic biomarkers and potential therapeutic targets.

  Study EGAS50000000307

• Coding and regulatory somatic profiling of triple-negative breast cancer in Sub-Saharan African patients

  The burden of triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) may be shaped by genetic factors, particularly inherited and somatic mutation profiles. However, data on this topic remain limited, especially for the African continent, where a higher TNBC incidence is observed. In the age of precision medicine, cataloguing TNBC diversity in African patients becomes imperative. We performed whole exome sequencing, including untranslated regions, on 30 samples from Angola and Cape Verde, which allowed to ascertain on potential regulatory mutations in TNBC for the first time. A high somatic burden was observed for the African cohort, with 86% of variants being so far unreported. Recurring to predictive functional algorithms, 17% of the somatic single nucleotide variants were predicted to be deleterious at the protein level, and 20% overlapped with candidate cis-regulatory elements controlling gene expression. Several of these somatic functionally-impactful mutations and copy number variation (mainly in 1q, 8q, 6 and 10p) occur in known BC- and all cancer-driver genes, enriched for several cancer mechanisms, including response to radiation and related DNA repair mechanisms. TP53 is the top of these known BC-driver genes, but our results identified possible novel TNBC driver genes that may play a main role in the African context, as TTN, CEACAM7, DEFB132, COPZ2 and GAS1. These findings emphasize the need to expand cancer omics screenings across the African continent, the region of the globe with highest genomic diversity, accelerating the discovery of new somatic mutations and cancer-related pathways.

  Study EGAS50000001013

• A spatial human thymus cell atlas mapped to a continuous tissue axis

  T cells develop from circulating precursor cells, which enter the thymus and migrate through specialised sub-compartments that support their maturation and selection. In humans, this process starts in early fetal development and is highly active until thymic involution in adolescence. To map the micro-anatomical underpinnings of this process in pre- and early postnatal stages, we established a novel quantitative morphological framework for the thymus, the Cortico-Medullary Axis, and used it to perform a spatially resolved analysis. By applying this framework to a curated multimodal single-cell atlas, spatial transcriptomics, and high-resolution multiplex imaging data, we demonstrate establishment of the lobular cytokine network, canonical thymocyte trajectories and thymic epithelial cell distributions within the first trimester of fetal development. We pinpoint tissue niches of thymic epithelial cell progenitors and distinct subtypes associated with Hassall’s corpuscles and uncover divergence in the timing of medullary entry between CD4 vs. CD8 T cell lineages. These findings provide a basis for a detailed understanding of T lymphocyte development and are complemented with a holistic toolkit for cross-platform imaging data analysis, annotation, and Organ Axis construction (TissueTag), which can be applied to any tissue.

  Dataset EGAD00001015384

• Mutational patterns and regulatory networks in epigenetic subgroups of meningioma (H033)

  DNA methylation patterns delineate clinically relevant subgroups of meningioma. We previously established the six meningioma methylation classes (MC) benign-1, 2, 3, intermediate-A, B and malignant. Here, we set out to identify subgroup-specific mutational patterns and pathway regulation. Whole-genome-sequencing was performed on 62 samples across all MCs and WHO grades from 62 patients with matched blood control, including 40 sporadic and 22 radiation-induced (Mrad) meningiomas. RNA sequencing was added for 18 cases and chromatin-immunoprecipitation for the enhancer mark H3K27ac followed by sequencing (ChIP-seq) for 16 samples. Besides the known mutations in meningioma, structural alterations were found to contribute to the spectrum of mechanisms inactivating NF2 in sporadic meningioma similar to previous reports for Mrad. Aberrations of DMD were found to be enriched in MCs with NF2 mutations and DMD was among the most differentially upregulated genes in NF2 mutant compared to NF2 wild-type cases. The mutational signature AC3 was detected in both sporadic meningioma and Mrad, but distributed across the genome in sporadic cases and enriched near genomic breakpoints in Mrad. In general, the malignant MC presented a significantly higher exposure to AC3 and higher genomic instability beyond the mutational load than the other MCs. Pathway analysis of the ChIP-seq clusters revealed that the FOXM1 is most differentially activated in high-grade cases, along with super enhancer recruitment near HOX genes and respective upregulation of expression. This data further elucidate the biological mechanisms differentiating meningiomas of different WHO grade and epigenetic subgroups and suggest leveraging the genomic instability as novel therapeutic targets.

  Study EGAS00001003481

• Genome wide association study on coronary heart disease in patients with familial hypercholesterolemia

  Mutations in the low-density lipoprotein receptor (LDLR) gene cause familial hypercholesterolemia (FH), a disorder characterized by coronary heart disease (CHD) at young age. We aimed to apply an extreme sampling method to enhance the statistical power to identify novel genetic risk variants for CHD in individuals with FH. We selected cases and controls with an extreme contrast in CHD risk from 17 000 FH patients from the Netherlands, whose functional LDLR mutation was unequivocally established. The genome-wide association (GWA) study was performed on 249 very young FH cases with CHD and 217 old FH controls without CHD (above 65 years for males and 70 years of age for females) using the Illumina HumanHap 550K chip. In the next stage, two independent samples (one from the Netherlands and one from Italy, Norway, Spain, and the United Kingdom) of FH patients were used as replication samples. In the initial GWA analysis we identified 29 independent single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) with suggestive associations with premature CHD (p<1×10-4). We examined the association of these SNPs with CHD risk in the replication samples. After Bonferroni correction, none of the SNPs either replicated or reached genome-wide significance after combining the discovery and replication samples. Therefore, we conclude that the genetics of CHD risk in FH is complex and even applying an ‘extreme genetics’ approach we did not identify new genetic risk variants. Most likely, this method is not as effective in leveraging effect size as anticipated, and may therefore not lead to significant gains in statistical power. (NB submitten and conditionally accepted at European Journal of Human Genetics-please use abstract only for internal review until submission complete)

  Study EGAS00001000734

• Deciphering novel TCF4-driven mechanisms underlying a common triplet repeat expansion-mediated disease

  short and long read data generated from cultured corneal endothelial cells (CECs) of unaffected controls, expansion positive Fuchs Endothelial Corneal Dystrophy (FECD) and expansion negative FECD individuals.

  Study EGAS50000000303

• Novel method for efficient establishment, expansion and drug response profiling of high-grade serous ovarian cancer organoids

  HGSOC patient-derived organoids and their tissue of origin

  Dataset EGAD00001008753

• Osteosarcoma whole genome rearrangement screen

  Genomic libraries (500 bps) will be generated from total genomic DNA derived from Osteosarcoma cancer patients and subjected to short paired end sequencing on the llumina platform. Paired reads will be mapped to build 37 of the human reference genome to facilitate the generation of genome wide copy number information, and the identification of novel rearranged cancer genes and gene fusions.

  Dataset EGAD00001000368

• Identification of novel fusion genes in lung cancer using breakpoint assembly of transcriptome sequencing data

  Genomic translocation events frequently underlie cancer development through generation of gene fusions with oncogenic properties. Identification of such fusion transcripts by transcriptome sequencing might help to discover new potential therapeutic targets. We developed TRUP (Tumor-specimen suited RNA-seq Unified Pipeline (https://github.com/ruping/TRUP), a computational approach that combines split-read and read-pair analysis with de-novo assembly for the identification of chimeric transcripts in cancer specimens. We apply TRUP to RNA-seq data of different tumor types, and find it to be more sensitive than alternative tools in detecting chimeric transcripts, such as secondaryrearrangements in EML4-ALK-positive lung tumors, or recurrent inactivating rearrangements affecting RASSF8.

  Study EGAS00001000659

• The mutational landscape of skin tumours in CYLD cutaneous syndrome determined

  Patients with germline mutations in CYLD can develop hundreds of benign skin tumours called cylindromas. The development of multiple tumours within a single patient at sun-protected and sun-exposed sites, varying tumour histological patterns and grades of malignancy allow for the testing of several genetic hypothesis in relation to cutaneous carcinogenesis. By adopting the unprecedented approach of whole genome sequencing of multiple benign skin tumours within individuals in multigenerational families, we set out to study the impact of mutational diversity on models such as multistep carcinogenesis as well as non-sequential carcinogenesis. Using non-negative matrix factorisation (NMF) to discover mutational signatures, we found distinct mutational signatures in identical benign tumours (N=2 patients; n=11 tumours) at sun exposed and sun protected skin tumours within a mother and her daughter. We found recurrent mutations in epigenetic modifying genes in CCS tumours which are known to have an oncogenic dependency on Wnt signalling. We also demonstrate that cutaneous tumours that metastasize to the lung carry a a UV signature, supporting the origin from the skin. Distinct malignant tumours, such as BCC and malignant spiradenocarcinoma carried unique driver mutations. These findings add new dimensions to the existing paradigms of UV-induced skin cancer and highlight the utility of studying rare disease to gain novel insights into genetic mechanisms of tumour formation.

  Dataset EGAD00001004573

• NHLBI and NIA The New England Centenarian Study (NECS)

  Supercentenarians (age 110+ years old) generally delay or escape age-related diseases and disability well beyond the age one hundred and this exceptional survival is likely to be influenced by a genetic predisposition that includes both common and rare genetic variants. In this report, we describe the complete genomic sequences of male and female supercentenarians, both age >114 years old. We show that: (1) the sequence variant spectrum of these two individuals' DNA sequences is largely comparable to existing non-supercentenarian genomes; (2) the two individuals do not appear to carry most of the well-established human longevity enabling variants already reported in the literature; (3) they have a comparable number of known disease-associated variants relative to most human genomes sequenced to date; (4) approximately 1% of the variants these individuals possess are novel and may point to new genes involved in exceptional longevity; and (5) both individuals are enriched for longevity-associated variants that we discovered through a large genome-wide association study. These analyses suggest that there are both common and rare longevity associated variants that may counter the effects of disease predisposing variants and extend lifespan. The continued analysis of the genomes of these rare individuals who have survived to extremely old ages should provide insight into the processes that contribute to the maintenance of health during extreme ageing.

  Study phs000451

• Using human induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSC) and iPSC-derived neurons to explore cellular phenotypes associated with schizophrenia.

  Schizophrenia and major mental illness are common devastating conditions. Whilst partially effective treatments are available, none are disease-modifying. Notwithstanding important insights provided by animal models there is a need for novel models of mental illness to develop more effective therapies. A study of sporadic schizophrenia-derived human induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPS) has demonstrated a neuronal phenotype representing a powerful proof of concept of in vitro disease modeling, even for diseases with complex causation such as schizophrenia. These techniques have been used here to examine the behaviour of neural stem cells and neurons derived from fibroblasts from subjects carrying NDE1 copy number variations (CNVs) associated with increased risk of major mental illness. Using hiPS from individuals with and without disease-associated CNVs we have investigated how disease risk is conferred at a cellular and molecular level through detailed comparative studies of neural progenitor proliferation, neuronal morphology, physiology, cytoskeletal organization, synaptic function, glutamate (NMDA) receptor expression and also RNA sequencing and proteomic studies of these patient-derived cells.

  Study EGAS00001002895

• A Population Genomics Study Using a Disease-Targeted Cell model: Integration of

  The common genetic variants associated with complex traits typically lie in non-coding DNA and may alter gene regulation in a cell type-specific manner. Consequently, the choice of tissue or cell model in the dissection of disease associations is important. We carried out an expression quantitative trait loci (eQTL) study of primary human osteoblasts (HOb) derived from 95 unrelated donors of Swedish origin, each represented by two independently derived primary lines to provide biological replication. We combined our data with publicly available information from a genome-wide association study (GWAS) of bone mineral density (BMD). The top 2000 BMD-associated SNPs were tested for cis-association of gene expression in HObs and in lymphoblastoid cell lines (LCLs) using publicly available data and showed that HObs have a significantly greater enrichment (threefold) of converging cis-eQTLs as compared to LCLs. The top 10 BMD loci with SNPs showing strong cis-effects on gene expression in HObs were selected for further validation using a staged design in two cohorts of Caucasian male subjects. All 10 variants were tested in the Swedish MrOS Cohort (n = 3014), providing evidence for two novel BMD loci (SRR and MSH3). These variants were then tested in the Rotterdam Study (n = 2090), yielding converging evidence for BMD association at the 17p13.3 SRR locus. The cis-regulatory effect was further fine-mapped to the proximal promoter of the SRR gene (rs3744270). Our results suggest that primary cells relevant to disease phenotypes complement traditional approaches for prioritization and validation of GWAS hits for follow-up studies. Reprinted from Grundberg E, Kwan T, Ge B et al., Genome Res Nov 2009, with permission from Genome Research, Cold Spring Harbor Press, PMID:19654370.

  Study phs000225

• We evaluate the potential for routine WGS using ONT by sequencing the well-characterised reference sample NA12878 and the genome of an individual with ataxia-pancytopenia syndrome accompanied by severe immune dysregulation.

  Whole-genome sequencing (WGS) is becoming widely used in clinical medicine in diagnostic contexts and to inform treatment choice. While current sequencing technologies have been extremely successful, their reliance on short read lengths necessarily involves some limitations: accurately assaying certain genomic regions and classes of variation can be problematic. Recent advances in throughput and cost have made WGS using the Oxford Nanopore Technologies (ONT) MinION long-read single-molecule sequencer a potential solution to these challenges. Here we evaluate the potential for routine WGS using ONT by sequencing the well-characterised reference sample NA12878 and the genome of an individual with ataxia-pancytopenia syndrome accompanied by severe immune dysregulation, to 82× and 30× respectively. For NA12878, we evaluated single-nucleotide variant (SNV) calls based on data from multiple base-calling algorithms. We demonstrate that phasing metrics from a novel, reference panel-free, long-read-based method can improve variant-calling performance from otherwise modest levels, resulting in a false discovery rate of 7.1% and false negative rate of 8.5%; remaining errors are concentrated near homopolymers and in regions of reduced sequencing coverage. In the clinical sample, we are able to identify and directly phase two non-synonymous de novo variants in SAMD9L, (OMIM #159550) inferring that they both lie on a common paternal haplotype by overlap with parental genotypes at nearby common variants. This work demonstrates that methodological innovation can substantially reduce variant-calling error rates in ONT data, and that with on-going improvements in throughput, base-calling and dedicated long-read-based SNV-calling methodology, ONT offers promise as an option for clinical WGS.

  Study EGAS00001003469

• Global Endometrial DNA Methylation Analysis Reveals Insights into mQTL Regulation and Associated Endometriosis Disease Risk and Endometrial Function

  Endometriosis is a common gynecological disorder affecting 11% of reproductive aged women and is a leading cause of pain and infertility. We investigated global DNA methylation (DNAm) profiles in endometrium associated with endometriosis, menstruation, and genetic variation. Endometrial samples were collected from 984 patients with confirmed endometriosis (n=637) and women without endometriosis (n=347). Patients were recruited through the University of California San Francisco, USA, University of Melbourne, Australia, Endometriosis CaRe Centre in Oxford, UK, and EXPPECT Centre, The University of Edinburgh, UK, using the World Endometriosis Research Foundation Endometriosis Phenome and Biobanking Harmonization Project (WERF EPHect) standardized protocols for tissue collection and processing, and participant characteristics and clinical annotation. DNA was extracted from samples and was use to generate DNAm data using the Illumina Infinium MethylationEPIC Beadchip and genotype data using the Axiom Precision Medicine Research array. Estimates from this study suggest that 15.4% of the variation in endometriosis is captured by DNAm. DNAm analysis identified significant differences in DNAm profiles and DNAm networks, associated with endometriosis, endometriosis sub-phenotypes, and menstrual cycle phases. Integration of DNAm and genetic data in a DNAm quantitative trait locus (mQTL) analysis identified 118,185 independent cis-mQTLs including 51 associated with risk of endometriosis highlighting target genes contributing to disease risk. This study identified novel factors affecting epigenetic regulation in endometrium associated with endometriosis risk and disease heterogeneity and provides an important data resource for reproductive medicine. Genotype data generated as part of this study are available on dbGaP and methylation data are available on GEO.

  Study phs003307