12213 results for "cancer rna-seq"

in 59.09 milliseconds.

• PSCP_bisulphite analysis in hESCs

  Many studies over the past 10 years, culminating in the recent report of the International Stem Cell Initiative (ISCI, 2011) have shown that hPSC acquire genetic and epigenetic changes during their time in culture. Many of the genetic changes are non-random and recurrent, probably because they provide a selective growth advantage to the undifferentiated cells. Some are shared by embryonal carcinoma cells, the malignant counterparts of ES cells. The origins of these growth advantages are poorly understood, but may come from altered cell cycle dynamics, resistance to apoptosis or altered patterns of differentiation. Less is known about the nature and consequences of epigenetic changes, but it is likely that these similarly affect hPSC behaviour; e.g., enhanced expression of DLK1, an imprinted gene, is associated with altered hPSC growth (Enver et al 2005). Inevitably, these genetic and epigenetic changes will impact on our ability to use hPSC for regenerative medicine, either because malignant transformation of the undifferentiated cells or their differentiated derivatives to be used for transplantation compromises safety, or because they impede the function of those differentiated derivatives, or because they affect the efficiency with which the undifferentiated cells can be expanded and differentiated into desired cell types. Focusing initially upon the existing clinical grade hESC lines, later moving to iPSC, we will Consolidate and extend knowledge of the rate, type and functional impact of the genetic variations that occur during hPSC culture. We will use whole genome and exome sequencing as well as SNP arrays, together with clonal analysis and other cytogenetics techniques. Common changes will be compared with those found in the normal human population, at low frequency in the original cell population or observed during iPSC generation in the HIPSCI project currently based at the WTSI. These studies will provide a better understanding of the range of genetic changes that occur in hPSC beyond the CNVs already identified. In conjunction with cancer genome resources and expertise at WTSI, bioinformatic analyses of these hPSC data will allow us to assess potential impact on hPSC behaviour pertinent to applications in regenerative medicine, notably the likelihood that specific changes arising in undifferentiated PSC cultures may be associated with potential malignant transformation of differentiated progeny. This data is part of a pre-publication release. For information on the proper use of pre-publication data shared by the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute (including details of any publication moratoria), please see http://www.sanger.ac.uk/datasharing/

  Dataset EGAD00001002235

• Dataset for Sarcoma RNA sequencing linked from study EGAS00001004813

  Sequencing data of 410 sarcoma tumor runs, which were uploaded to EGAS00001004813. The sequencing was always paired.

  Dataset EGAD00001010276

• Demographically Diverse Substance Use Disorder Cohorts of Dr. Stanley H. Weiss

  The Demographically Diverse Substance Use Disorder Cohorts of Dr. Stanley H. Weiss, which constitute the Epidemiology of the Weiss Cohort Projects, consist of a series of inter-connected projects, building upon a set of cohort projects of various groups, mainly drug users from medication-assisted treatment programs, that Dr. Stanley H. Weiss first developed in the 1980’s plus several newer initiatives, each with an array of collaborators. Beginning in the 1980’s, Dr. Stanley H. Weiss started several long-term studies of persons who inject drugs (PWID) across the United States, ultimately enrolling over 10,000 participants through the early 1990’s with an average age then in their 30’s. About a quarter were enrolled from sites in New Jersey (NJ). These studies included the first testing of PWID for the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and the human T-cell lymphotropic viruses (HTLV I and HTLV II). Cumulative past support (initiation thru ~ 1999) for these cohort studies included ~ $20 million from intramural resources from the National Cancer Institute (NCI) and the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), plus multiple grants and in-kind support from the New Jersey Department of Health (NJDOH) totaling ~ $1 million. The Weiss Cohort Projects include the first large AIDS-era cohorts to include women at high risk for HIV. A high percentage of subjects in these studies are black or Latino. Thus, this is an ethnically diverse US cohort, with a high proportion of women included. These subjects are at high risk of parenteral and sexual infection from both drug use and sexual practices. Samples from other studies conducted by Dr. Weiss, in which detailed interviews were conducted, are included as controls (persons documented by us not to have a history of opioid drug use). As one of our groups of subjects have many persons of Haitian ancestry, we specifically included some Haitians who had never used opioids as controls. Our documentation includes such ancestry. These cohorts demonstrated high rates of HIV and HTLV-II infection in PWIDs, including one study initiated in 1981 with confirmation in the later cohorts. In the first two decades of these studies, among numerous publications was the first study showing a very high rate of hepatitis C infection among PWIDs. An example of how the studies’ long-time horizon proved essential was that it first became possible to test whether a person had ever been infected with hepatitis C virus (HCV), as well as how much HCV was in each person’s blood, many years after the specimens were collected. This allowed HCV amounts in blood to be compared for subjects who had died of liver disease early in the study versus those who survived. Then a sequence of published papers culminated in demonstrating, using a nested case-control design, that a high baseline HCV titer was predictive of early progression to death from end-stage liver failure. Outcomes related to HCV (end stage liver disease and hepatocellular carcinoma) remain under study. In the original cohort studies, the mean age at enrollment was ~ 33 years old, so that those still alive in 2022 are mainly now ~ 60 - 75 years old. Many participants have already died. The tincture of time has led to subjects reaching ages when many more are dying from a wide array of outcomes, including from many chronic diseases (including cancer) as well as from infectious agents (especially HIV, HCV) or drug overdose. Renewed collaboration with local drug treatment programs has led to new field-based studies, including examination of some currently evolving problems among drug users. Dr. Weiss joined the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) Genetics Consortium (NGC) in 2017, and through the NIDA project officer has had access to NGC contract resources (see below). NIH Certificate of Confidentiality, CC-DA-16-214 (attached) protects these studies. Past arrangements related to data on our subjects leads to restrictions on the use of data emanating from our study, such as potential commercialization and restrictions on whom may access and use these data. NIDA Genetics Consortium (NGC) resources further support these endeavors and will be used as part of the NGC analyses studying the genetics of substance use. Study participants signed informed consent for the information collected from them to be used with no time limit and for biologic specimens collected from them to be used without restriction in future research. Serum samples were collected from participants, and from many also plasma, white blood cells and/or urine samples. About 100,000 vials were stored. All specimens have been continuously preserved at sufficiently cold temperatures to prevent deterioration, and many subjects separated white blood cells were processed and frozen in such a way as to maintain viability. Detailed data from the participants has been accumulated over time, and in general, linkage has been retained in each sub-study in accordance with the consent forms and protocols. For some participants, specimens were collected at multiple times (that is, sequential specimens). Multiple specimens from a single person exist in this database, and efforts at de-duplication remain ongoing. Dr. Weiss should be contacted if an investigator requires unique individuals since: • Multiple phases of enrollment occurred, and as our prospective follow-up continues; Dr. Weiss may identify new instances of multiple enrollment. • Some persons are related to each other. • In general, in this dataset for dbGaP, only a single specimen/record form a given person is included. Advances in laboratory testing techniques now permit innovative new uses for our linked research biospecimen repository. The ongoing focus of an interdisciplinary research program based on these cohorts relates subjects’ diseases, behaviors, medical history, and outcomes with biological and exposure markers. Participants’ use of various substances was ascertained on study enrollments, many serially over time. Quantitative frequency of use data, also sometimes sequential over time, were ascertained. Active ascertainment of outcomes is being conducted, including matching to mortality and cancer databases. Investigators interested in collaborations on specific outcomes (which is not part of this dbGaP dataset) or in the use of our stored specimens are encouraged to contact the principal investigator, Dr. Weiss. The processing of the genomic data was done in conjunction with NIDA, and in accordance with some longstanding data cleaning steps used by NIDA in the NIDA Genetics Consortium (NGC), a group to which we shall be contributing these data for collaborative analyses. Since there is the potential for these steps to introduce certain types of potential biases, we summarize these here. Under contract from NIDA, cryopreserved sera or plasma (-80 C) or cells (in liquid nitrogen) were used, with most stored having been stored for 30 to 40 years in our biorepository. In the case of serum or plasma, in which only (largely) cell-free DNA fragments were available, DNA was extracted and restored prior to amplification. Industry standard DNA amplification techniques were done on all samples prior to genotyping in accord with established protocols of the NIDA Genetics Consortium. Our genotype data were run and processed on the Illumina Infinium OmniExpress_v_1.3 array. This array has 714,238 SNPs, and was designed many years ago. There were 628 SNPs on the array that do not correspond to any chromosome position, and these were removed. Genotype data were submitted by NIDA’s contracted genotyping laboratory in six batches over time to NIDA’s contracted dbGaP data management group, which conducted quality control (QC) analyses. QC analysis included an assessment of batch effects on for five of the six batches. (One of the batches, with only 12 samples, was too small for QC analysis of batch effects.) Standard NIDA Genetic Consortium cleaning was performed. Samples with a call rate <.85 were removed. Only one sample per person was retained. When more than one specimen was genotyped from one subject, only the sample with the higher call rate was retained (provided, of course, that that call rate was ≥ 0.85). We have retained some people we know are related, including some found to have been related through genotyping; the pedigree file describes those relationships. In summary, key cleaning steps include: 1. Using PLINK to check gender discrepancy. 2. Using PREST-PLUS and KING (Kinship-based Inference for GWAS) to check relatedness. 3. Using PEDCHECK and PLINK to check/zero-out Mendelian error. 4. Using PLINK to perform sample QC, SNP QC, along with KING to perform chromosome X and chromosome Y QC. 5. SNP-QC: Batch-effect: 5 Batches were compared (one batch, with few samples, was not). These five batches were compared to each other in all ten possible pairs, one batch vs. another batch, examining SNP allele frequency discrepancies by population (from GRAF), Fisher Exact Allelic test, with the criterion of p<5e-8 for removal. 6. SNP-QC: discordant SNPs in QC duplicates. Compared 25 QC duplicated samples with call rate > 0.95, removed SNPs with 3+ discordance. 7. There were 1,056 SNPs that were monomorphic; these have been retained so they can be included in analyses in which our dbGaP data are combined with those from other cohorts (in the latter of which those SNPs may not be monomorphic). The final cleaned dataset submitted has 8,898 samples and 606,793 SNPs.

  Study phs002140

• Impact of Respiratory Virus Infections and Bacterial Microbiome Shifts on Lymphocyte and Respiratory Function in Infants Born Prematurely or Full Term

  Public health importance: Babies born preterm, approximately 1 out of every 9 live births in the United States, have significant respiratory morbidity over the first two years of life, exacerbated by respiratory viral infections. Many (<50%) return to pediatricians, emergency rooms and pulmonologists with symptoms of respiratory dysfunction (SRD): intermittent or chronic wheezing, poor growth and an excess of upper and lower respiratory tract infections (LRTI). SRD correlate inversely with gestational age and weight at birth and is more common in those with chronic lung disease of prematurity, yet its incidence and severity varies widely among both the prematurely born and those born at term. There is evidence from clinical studies and animal models that risks of LRTI and recurrent wheezing is influenced by gut and respiratory flora and by T cell responses to infection. Information gained from this study will be used to identify characteristics, risk factors and potential mechanisms for early and persistent lung disease in children born at term and born preterm. This Clinical Research Study will investigate the relationships between sequential respiratory viral infections, patterns of intestinal and respiratory bacterial colonization, and adaptive cellular immune phenotypes which are associated with increased susceptibility to respiratory infections and long term respiratory morbidity in preterm and full term infants. We hypothesize that the timing and acquisition of specific viral infections and bacterial species are directly related to respiratory morbidity in the first year of life as defined by SRD and by measures of pulmonary function. We hypothesize that cellular and molecular immuno-maturity are altered due to factors presented by premature birth in such a way as to promote chronic inflammatory and cytotoxic damage to the lung, with subsequent enhanced, damaging responses to infectious agents and environmental irritants. Our preliminary studies demonstrate both feasibility and expertise in mutiparameter immunophenotyping of small volume peripheral blood samples obtained from premature infants including gene expression arrays of flow cytometry sorted cells. We will use new technologies for known viral identification, as well as high-throughput metagenome sequencing of RNA and DNA virus like particles (VLP) to be used for viral discovery in infant respiratory sample and use of high-throughput pyrosequencing (454T) of bacterial 16S rRNA to determine shifts in bacterial community structure, occurring in pre-term (PT) as compared to full term (FT) infants, over the first year of life. Finally, we present statistical approaches to stratify disease risk predictors using multivariate logistic regression modeling approaches. We propose to evaluate T cell phenotypic and functional profiles relative to viral and predominant bacterial exposures according to highly complementary, but independent, Specific Objectives. Objective 1: To determine if viral respiratory infections and patterns of respiratory and gut bacterial community structure (microbiome) in prematurely born babies predict the rate and degree of immunologic maturation, and pulmonary dysfunction, measured from birth to 36 weeks corrected gestational age (CGA). Objective 2: To determine the relationship between respiratory viral infections and disease severity up to one year CGA, and the lymphocyte (Lc) phenotypes documented at term gestation (birth for term infants and 36 wks/NICU discharge in preterm infants) and at one year CGA. Three secondary outcomes of this objective will be to a) relate the quantity, type and severity of viral infections with pulmonary function at one and three years of life, b) relate the viral community structure to severity of viral infections and c) to seek evidence of modulation of viral susceptibility by bacterial respiratory and gut community structure (microbiome). The relationship of colonization with known and non-identified bacterial species in both the respiratory tract and the gut will be evaluated. Flow cytometry data corresponding to this study can be found within Immport study SDY1302. Positive and negative controls for microbiome samples are uploaded under SRA bioproject PRJNA474485. Microbiome samples corresponding to PRISM2 are distinguished from PRISM1 via "_PRISM2" appended to the sample name. Within the positive and negative controls, PRISM1 controls are uploaded as bam files and PRISM2 controls are uploaded as paired fastq. Samples ending in -08 correspond to TLDA qPCR results for a given sample. There is a column for each pathogen tested and a column to indicate where that pathogen was bacteria or virus.

  Study phs001347

• Hepatitis C Antiviral Long-term Treatment Against Cirrhosis (HALT-C)

  Reprinted from http://www.haltctrial.org/ Purpose The Hepatitis C Antiviral Long-term Treatment against Cirrhosis (HALT-C) Trial is a randomized controlled trial designed to evaluate the safety and efficacy of long-term use of pegylated interferon for the treatment of chronic hepatitis C in patients who failed to respond to previous interferon therapy. The HALT-C Trial was developed to determine whether prolonged interferon therapy altered histological and clinical outcomes in a group of patients who had failed to eradicate hepatitis C virus with previous interferon treatment. Study Hypotheses In patients with chronic hepatitis C and bridging fibrosis who failed to eradicate the virus with previous interferon therapy, long-term treatment with interferon is safe and can prevent progression to cirrhosis. In patients with cirrhosis secondary to chronic hepatitis C who failed to eradicate the virus with previous interferon therapy, long-term treatment with interferon is safe and can reduce the risks of hepatic decompensation or of hepatocellular carcinoma. Study Design 1145 patients with chronic HCV and advanced hepatic fibrosis (Ishak stage 3-6) who failed to respond to previous treatment with interferon were enrolled at 10 clinical centers and entered into a Lead-in phase. They were treated with a combination of pegylated interferon (Pegasys®, Hoffmann-La Roche) 180 µg/week and ribavirin (1000-1200 mg/day) for 24 weeks. Patients who had no detectable HCV-RNA at week 20 continued on combination therapy until week 48. 662 patients who did not clear virus were randomly assigned at week 24 to either continue treatment with pegylated interferon alone (90 µg/week) for an additional 42 months, or to have treatment discontinued. All patients were followed at 3-month intervals following randomization. Liver biopsy was performed at baseline and after 1.5 and 3.5 years of treatment. Because of slower than expected enrollment and the approval by the FDA of peginterferon alfa-2b after the start of the trial, we modified the study protocol in three ways. First, criteria for admission to the trial were liberalized to allow patients to enter the trial with lower platelet and white blood cell counts than had been initially considered safe or tolerable. Second, 151 Lead-in patients and those continuing on therapy after 24 weeks who demonstrated return of viremia during or after their 48-week treatment period (called "Breakthrough" or "Relapse" patients, respectively) were allowed to return to enter the randomized trial. Third, 237 patients treated with peginterferon alfa-2b (or with peginterferon alfa-2a in licensing trials) outside the HALT-C Trial who in other respects met all study criteria, having received the equivalent of Trial Lead-in period therapy, were allowed to enter the long-term trial as "Express" patients. A total 1050 patients were randomized. Those patients who completed Month 48 were offered an "extended follow-up (observation only)" until October 2009. These visits will primarily be to identify outcome events, and to provide information to patients concerning the current status of the trial. Some questionnaires, blood tests, and an ultrasonogram will be performed. Quarterly (every 3 months) Interval history of complications, adverse events Current medications Brief physical examination Laboratory tests: liver panel, CBC, INR, AFP Child-Pugh Score Stored serum Annual Complete physical examination Ultrasound of liver 1.5 years (M24 visit, middle of study) Liver biopsy: formalin fixed histology, frozen liver tissue (subset of patients) 3.5 years (M48, end of study) Liver biopsy: formalin fixed histology, frozen liver tissue (subset of patients) Endoscopy: evaluate esophageal varices and portal hypertension After Month 48 Observation only (no treatment) to determine clinical outcomes Clinic visit every 6 months with current medications, brief PE, liver panel, CBC, AFP, stored Serum Ultrasound of liver every 6 months Outcome Variables Primary outcome variables to be assessed in the two groups of patients include: Development of cirrhosis on liver biopsy (progression of Ishak fibrosis score by 2 points or more) Development of hepatic decompensation, as shown by: Sustained increase in the Child-Turcotte-Pugh score to 7 points or higher Variceal hemorrhage Ascites Spontaneous bacterial peritonitis Hepatic encephalopathy Development of hepatocellular carcinoma Death Secondary outcomes include quality of life, serious adverse events, events requiring dose reductions, and development of presumed hepatocellular carcinoma.

  Study phs000430

• Defining T cell States Associated with Response to Checkpoint Immunotherapy in Melanoma

  Checkpoint blockade therapy using antibodies targeting CTLA4, PD1 or PDL1 have changed the way cancer patients with advanced disease are being treated, as evident by their FDA approval in a wide variety of malignancies, and their ability to induce high response rates when compared to conventional therapies (e.g. chemotherapy). However, even in melanoma, despite the high response rate, most patients are refractory to therapy or acquire resistance in 10-12 months. To identify key immunological elements coupled with response or resistance to checkpoint immunotherapy, we performed an unbiased analysis on 16,291 CD45+ immune cells from 32 patients (48 samples) treated with checkpoint therapy (anti-PD1=37; anti-PD1/CTLA4=11), using single cell transcriptomics. Initial unsupervised clustering of all CD45+ cells identified 11 clusters. When examining the association of these clusters with clinical outcome, we found that two clusters (B-cells, p=0.005; memory T-cells, p=0.03) were significantly enriched in responder lesions while 4 clusters (monocytes/macrophages, p=0.003; dendritic cells, p=0.015; exhausted CD8+ T-cells, p=0.005; and exhausted/cell-cycle lymphocytes, 1.3x10-5) are enriched in non-responder lesions. Next, by leveraging our unbiased single cell approach, we identified not only clusters but also specific markers associated with either responder lesions (PLAC8, LTB, LY9, SELL, TCF7, IGKC and CCR7) or non-responder ones (CCL3, CD38, HAVCR2, ENTPD1 and WARS), many of which were not previously reported to be associated with clinical outcome to checkpoint therapy. Due to the importance of CD8+ T-cells in controlling tumors, the significant association of T-cell states with clinical outcome, and their high abundance in melanoma tumors, we next focused our analysis on CD8+ T-cells and identified 2 main clusters CD8_G (with increased expression of genes linked to memory) and CD8_B (enriched for genes linked to cell dysfunction), that were significantly enriched in responder (CD8_G, p=1.4x10-6) and non-responder (CD8_B, p=0.005) lesions, respectively. Since cells with both states coexist in each of the responder and non-responder lesions, we decided to calculate the ratio between the number of cells in these 2 clusters and observed a significant separation between responders (CD8_G/CD8_B>1) and non-responders (CD8_G/CD8_B<1) when looking at all samples, baseline or post samples separately. Similar results were detected when looking at the expression of a single transcription factor, TCF7, in CD8 T-cells in an independent cohort (n=43) using a simple immunofluorescence assay. Additionally, we validated the identity and function of some of the newly identified cell states as well as their epigenetic landscape, and found that cells expressing the inhibitory molecules CD39 and TIM3, on top of being enriched in non-responder lesions, are likely to play a crucial role in T-cell exhaustion in melanoma. Collectively, our study provides extensive unbiased data in human tumors for discovery of predictors and therapeutic targets to checkpoint immunotherapy.

  Study phs001680

• Blood Somatic Mutations in TCGA Donors Suffering from Solid Tumors

  Blood somatic mutations identified across 8,530 solid tumor patients in TCGA cohort. We reasoned that low-coverage whole-genome sequencing of blood samples routinely carried out in cancer genomics projects may be repurposed to detect clonal hematopoiesis (CH). Thus, inspired by a previous approach to identify early mutations in the development of the hematopoietic system, we implemented a pipeline to systematically carry out this "reverse" somatic mutation calling on the paired blood/tumor samples. Blood somatic mutations were called using a 'reverse' approach, in which the tumor sample taken from each patient was used as control of their germline genome. Blood somatic mutations are thus detected as variants in the blood (with respect to the human reference genome) that are absent in the tumor sample. The variant calling was carried out in our in house cluster on downloaded blood/tumor BAM files. The matched blood and tumoral BAM files -- masked and deduplicated using GATK -- of 8,530 whole-exome patients were obtained as described above. The variant calling was carried out using Strelka2 (employing default parameters) with the blood sample as the tumoral input and the tumor sample as control (reverse calling). All variants with two or more supporting reads matching the caller PASS filter and with VAF<0.5 were kept. Mutations in lowly mappable regions as defined by the DUST algorithm (k=30) and UMAP68 (36-kmers) were excluded. Contiguous variants were merged into double-base substitutions. Variants with greater frequency across the cohorts than the DNMT3A R882H or JAK2 V617F hotspot in a cohort-specific Panel of Normals and in gnomAD v2.1 were removed. This was equivalent to discarding variants present in these datasets with an allele frequency greater than 0.008 in PoN TCGA and 0.0003 in gnomAD v2.1. Additionally, common SNPs as defined by the dbSNP 151 Common UCSC track and dbSNP were excluded. Mutations within segmental duplications, simple repeats and masked regions as defined in UCSC tracks were also removed. Finally, samples with the mutation count above the 97.5 percentile of the mutation burden across the cohort were deemed unreliable and excluded for further analyses. We call the set of variants obtained after the application of these filters the full set. A more conservative subset of somatic mutations was generated from the full set of blood somatic mutations. To this end, we applied MosaicForecast, a software designed to phase mutations to polymorphisms with the aim of identifying somatic mutations in a small number of cells and also predict mosaicism for the unphased ones with a random forest classifier. As a result, we obtained a subset of mosaic-phased mutations, and a subset of mutations likely to be somatic (mosaic set).In order to obtain access to this study, please first obtain access to TCGA study (phs000178).

  Study phs002867

• Liquid biopsy for molecular characterization of diffuse large B-cell lymphoma and early assessment of minimal residual disease

  Circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) allows genotyping and minimal residual disease (MRD) detection in lymphomas. Using a NGS approach (Euroclonality-NDC), we evaluated clinical and prognostic value of ctDNA in a series of R-CHOP-treated DLBCL patients at baseline (n=68) and after 2-cycles (n=59), monitored by metabolic imaging (PET/CT). A molecular marker was identified in 61/68 (90%) ctDNA samples at diagnosis. Pre-treatment high ctDNA levels significantly correlated with elevated LDH, advanced stage, high risk IPI and a trend to shorter 2-year PFS. Valuable NGS data after 2-cycles of treatment were obtained in 44 cases, and 38 achieved major molecular response (MMR; 2.5-log drop in ctDNA). PFS curves displayed statistically significant differences among those achieving MMR vs. those not achieving MMR (2yr PFS of 76% vs. 0%, p<0.001). Similarly, more than 66% reduction in SUVmax by PET/CT identified two subgroups with different prognosis (2yr PFS of 83% vs. 38%; p<0.001). Combining both approaches MMR and SUVmax reduction, a better stratification was observed (2yr PFS of 84% vs. 17% vs. 0%, p<0.001). Euroclonality-NDC panel allows the detection of a molecular marker in the ctDNA in 90% of DLBCL. ctDNA reduction at 2 cycles and its combination with interim PET results improves patient prognosis stratification.

  Study EGAS50000000215

• Personalized peptide vaccination among 173 patients with IDH wildtype glioblastoma: a retrospective analysis

  Tumors from 173 GBM patients were analysed for somatic mutations to generate a personalized peptide vaccine targeting tumor-specific neoantigens. Exome libraries for 173 glioblastoma tumors and matched normal DNA were sequenced on Illumina platform, alongside whole transcriptomes from the tumor samples. Paper Abstract: Current treatment outcome of patients with glioblastoma (GBM) remains poor. Following standard therapy, recurrence is universal with limited survival. GBM tumors from 173 patients were analysed for somatic mutations to generate a personalized peptide vaccine targeting tumor-specific neoantigens. Among all patients, including 70 treated prior to progression (primary) and 103 treated after progression (recurrent), the median overall survival from first diagnosis was 31.9 months (95% CI: 25.0-36.5). Side effects were infrequent and were predominantly grade 1 or 2. A vaccine-induced immune response to at least one of the vaccinated peptides was detected in blood samples of 87 of 99 (88%) monitored patients. T-cell responses to vaccinated neoepitope peptides were durable in most patients. Significantly prolonged survival was observed for patients with multiple vaccine-induced immune responses (53 months) compared to those with no/low induced responses (27 months; P=0.03). Altogether, our results highlight that the application of personalized neoantigen-targeting peptide vaccine is feasible and represents a promising potential treatment option for GBM patients.

  Study EGAS50000000449

• A Cancer Cell-Line Titration Series for Evaluating Somatic Classification

  Accurate detection of somatic single nucleotide variants and small insertions and deletions from DNA sequencing experiments of tumour-normal pairs is a challenging task. Tumour samples are often contaminated with normal cells confounding the available evidence for the somatic variants. Furthermore, tumours are heterogeneous so sub-clonal variants are observed at reduced allele frequencies. We present here a cell-line titration series dataset that can be used to evaluate somatic variant calling pipelines with the goal of reliably calling true somatic mutations at low allele frequencies. Cell-line DNA was mixed with matched normal DNA at 8 different ratios to generate samples with known tumour cellularities, and exome sequenced on Illumina HiSeq to depths of >300x. The data was processed with several different variant calling pipelines and verification experiments were performed to assay >1,500 somatic variant candidates using Ion Torrent PGM as an orthogonal technology. By examining the variants called at varying cellularities and depths of coverage, we show that the best performing pipelines are able to maintain a high level of precision at any cellularity. In addition, we estimate the number of true somatic variants undetected as cellularity and coverage decrease. Our cell-line titration series dataset, along with the associated verification results, is effective for this evaluation and will serve as a valuable dataset for future somatic calling algorithm development.

  Study EGAS00001001016

• Chromothripsis in human breast cancer (HIPO K26K/H017/A017)

  Chromothripsis is a form of genome instability, by which a presumably single catastrophic event generates extensive genomic rearrangements of one or a few chromosome(s). Widely assumed to be an early event in tumor development, this phenomenon plays a prominent role in tumor onset. We analyzed chromothripsis in 252 human breast cancers from two patient cohorts (149 metastatic breast cancers, 63 untreated primary tumors, 29 local relapses, 11 longitudinal pairs) using whole-genome and whole-exome sequencing. We showed that chromothripsis affects a substantial proportion of human breast cancers, with a prevalence over 60% in a cohort of metastatic cases and 25% in a cohort comprising predominantly luminal breast cancers (cohorts from HIPO K26K and H017 and A017). In the vast majority of cases, multiple chromosomes per tumor are affected, with most chromothriptic events on chromosomes 11 and 17 including, among other significantly altered drivers, CCND1, ERBB2, CDK12 and BRCA1. Importantly, chromothripsis generates recurrent fusions that drive tumor development. Chromothripsis-related rearrangements are linked with univocal mutational signatures, with clusters of point mutations due to kataegis in close proximity to the genomic breakpoints, and with the activation of specific signaling pathways. Analysis of the temporal order of events in tumors with and without chromothripsis as well as longitudinal analysis of chromothriptic patterns in tumor pairs revealed important insights on the role of chromothriptic chromosomes in tumor evolution.

  Study EGAS00001004662

• Small_molecule_inhibitors_in_melanoma___Kenski___Kong___WES

  Small-molecule inhibitors targeting the most commonly activated pathway in melanoma, MAPK pathway (either alone or in combination) are already given to melanoma patients for few years, and initially reduce tumour burden dramatically, eventually melanomas become resistant and tumours progress while on treatment. Resistance to this treatment occurs by acquisition of additional mutations or other alterations that affect the mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) pathway by either direct or indirect signalling. Many resistance mechanisms somehow lead to reactivation of extracellular signal-regulated kinase (ERK), thereby restoring signalling of the oncogenic BRAF/MEK/ERK pathway. In addition, PI3K pathway activation contributes to resistance to BRAF inhibition. Less frequent but equally important to the phenomenon of targeted drug resistance is the observation that B15–20% of BRAF mutant melanoma patients fail to respond to BRAF inhibition already early on treatment, owing to intrinsic resistance. These patients have little therapeutic options, unless immunotherapy can be given. To better understand the resistance mechanisms in MAPK inhibitor-treated melanoma patients and melanoma biology, our lab generated a big panel of MAPK inhibitor resistant melanoma cell lines by continuous drug exposure. The understanding of the genetic landscape and gene expression as well as cross resistance to other treatment regimens, and other aspects of melanoma biology such as phenotype switch, will allow us to better exploit new therapeutic strategies for melanoma patients.

  Study EGAS00001002863

• OpACIN-neo – A Multicenter Phase 2 Study to identify the Optimal neo-Adjuvant Combination scheme of Ipilimumab and Nivolumab – RNA sequencing

  The outcome of patients with macroscopic stage III melanoma is poor. Neoadjuvant treatment with ipilimumab plus nivolumab at the standard dosing schedule induced pathological responses in a high proportion of patients in two small independent early-phase trials. However, toxicity of the standard ipilimumab plus nivolumab dosing schedule was high, preventing its broader clinical use. The aim of the OpACIN-neo study (NCT02977052) to identify a dosing schedule of ipilimumab plus nivolumab that is less toxic but equally effective. 86 patients with macroscopic stage III melanoma were randomised to one of three dosing schedules: arm A, two cycles of ipilimumab 3 mg/kg plus nivolumab 1 mg/kg once every 3 weeks; arm B, two cycles of ipilimumab 1 mg/kg plus nivolumab 3 mg/kg once every 3 weeks; or arm C, two cycles of ipilimumab 3 mg/kg once every 3 weeks directly followed by two cycles of nivolumab 3mg/kg once every 2 weeks. Within the first 12 weeks, grade 3–4 immune-related adverse events were observed in 12 (40%) of 30 patients in group A, six (20%) of 30 in group B, and 13 (50%) of 26 in group C. Pathological responses occurred in 24 (80%) patients in group A, 23 (77%) in group B, and 17 (65%) in group C. The 2-year estimated relapse-free survival was 84% for all patients, 97% for patients achieving a pathologic response and 36% for nonresponders (p&lt;0.001). High tumor mutational burden (TMB) and high interferon-gamma-related gene expression signature score (IFN-γ score) were associated with pathologic response and low risk of relapse; pathologic response rate (pRR) was 100% in patients with high IFN-γ score/high TMB, patients with high IFN-γ score/low TMB or low IFN-γ score/high TMB had pRRs of 91% and 88%; while patients with low IFN-γ score/low TMB had a pRR of only 39%. These data demonstrate long-term benefit in patients with a pathologic response and show the predictive potential of TMB and IFN-γ score.

  Study EGAS00001004833

• Transdisciplinary Studies of Genetic Variation in Colorectal Cancer(CORECT): Meta-analysis

  This study is part 2 of 2 for Schumacher et al, Nat Communication. 2015 Jul 7;6:7138. Part 2 is the pooled meta-analysis of 29 different studies of 37,955 European (18,299 Cases/19,656 Controls) participants using eight different genotyping platforms/variations. table, th, td { border: 1px solid black; border-collapse: collapse; } Study Name Participants Platform CFR-1 2976 Illumina 1M, 1M Duo, Omni1 CFR-2 3053 Affymetrix Axiom MECC 1 982 Illumina Omni 2.5 MECC2 1940 Affymetrix Axiom Kentucky 2172 Affymetrix Axiom ACS/CAPII 1086 Affymetrix Axiom Melbourne 1008 Affymetrix Axiom Newfoundland 672 Affymetrix Axiom ASTERKSI 1895 Illumina 300K COLO23 212 Illumina 300K DACHS1 3417 Illumina 300K DACHS2 1173 Illumina OmniExpress DALS1 1416 Illumina 550k/610K DALS2 874 Illumina 300K HPFS1 457 Illumina OmniExpress HPFS2 348 Illumina OmniExpress HPFS AA 658 Illumina OmniExpress MEC 674 Illumina 300K NHS1 1168 Illumina OmniExpress NHS2 340 Illumina OmniExpress NHSAA 1091 Illumina OmniExpress OFCCR 1172 Affymetrix 100k/500K PHS 771 Illumina OmniExpress PMH 402 Illumina 300K PLCO1 2509 Illumina 550k/610K PLCO2 901 Illumina 300K VITAL 573 Illumina 300K WHI1 1999 Illumina 550k/610K WHI2 573 Illumina 300K Since this study is a meta-analysis no corresponding phenotype, pedigree, sample, subjects, or primary molecular data are available. Each contributing study/platform will have fulfilled its own DBGAP submission commitment. This DBGAP entry is for European participants in the the pooled meta-analysis exclusively.

  Study phs001499

• First datasets available in the Federated EGA Network

  In February 2024, a great milestone was reached for the human omics data community: the first datasets are now available in the Federated European Genome-phenome Archive (FEGA). These datasets - hosted by national nodes in Poland, Norway, and Sweden - are discoverable in the EGA portal and accessible according to national laws. These datasets include: From FEGA Poland - The Genomic Map Of Poland From FEGA Norway - CRCbiome: Gut metagenome of Norwegian screening participants using FIT sampling Also from FEGA Norway - Single cell transcriptomics in expanded Tregs of APS-1 patients From FEGA Sweden - A Combined Omics and Tissue Biobank for Paediatric Cancers The establishment of these datasets represents a significant step towards achieving the broader objectives of the FEGA; to facilitate the sharing of high-quality human genomic and phenotypic data across borders. “The value for users is twofold: it becomes easier to make data available securely compared to storing data locally, and data becomes easier to find for other researchers. The possibility of reuse improves the chances of both verifying scientific discoveries and reaching groundbreaking conclusions, of benefit to the research community and later also patients,” said Anna Hagwall, project manager and head of human data at FEGA Sweden, NBIS. About Federated EGA FEGA was launched in 2022 as a network to store and lawfully share sensitive human omics data safely. It relies on the technology originally developed by the EGA and support from ongoing collaborations with ELIXIR - a European life sciences infrastructure. FEGA has contributed to and benefitted from the implementation of community standards for sensitive data management including those developed by the Global Alliance for Genomics and Health (GA4GH). “The FEGA concept and the development of the Nordic FEGA nodes have been made possible thanks to several projects coordinated by NeIC,” said Kjell Petersen, FEGA Norway technical lead. Managing human omics data is challenging due to its sheer size and privacy concerns, often resulting in restrictions on how and where sensitive data can be shared. The FEGA network follows a federated data access model whereby sensitive data is stored securely within a local or national jurisdiction, while discovery across the network for data of interest is enabled via a central portal. As of February 2024, the FEGA network comprises seven European national nodes with tens of additional national partners working towards establishing a FEGA node. As the FEGA network continues to onboard nodes from around the world, populated with more and more data, we move closer to a vision of a truly global resource for discovery of and access to sensitive human omics data to accelerate disease research and improve human health. "The Federated EGA network is entering a key phase where the first research datasets are now available across the network. In coming years, we look forward to expanding these datasets to cover key areas such as cancer and rare diseases for the benefit of patients" said Thomas Keane, Group Leader at EMBL-EBI.

  Blog first-datasets-available-in-Federated-EGA

• Germline variants collaborate with somatic mutations and initiate and/or drive disease in primary myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS) and therapy-related myeloid neoplasms (t-MN)

  Therapy-related myeloid neoplasms (T-MN) are poorly characterized secondary hematological malignancies following chemotherapy/radiotherapy exposure. We compared the clinical and mutational characteristics of T-MN (n=129) and primary myelodysplastic syndrome (P-MDS, n=108) patients. Although the somatic mutation frequency was similar between T-MN and P-MDS patients (93% in both groups), the pattern was distinct. TP53 mutations were more frequent in T-MN (29.5% versus 7%), while spliceosomal complex mutations were more common in P-MDS (56.5% versus 25.6%).In contrast to P-MDS, the ring sideroblasts (RS) phenotype was not associated with better survival in T-MN, most probably due to genetic association with TP53 mutations. SF3B1 was mutated in 96% of P-MDS with ≥15% RS, but in only 32% T-MN. TP53 mutations were detected in 92% T-MN with ≥15% RS and SF3B1 wild-type cases. Interestingly, T-MN and P-MDS patients with “Very low” or “Low” Revised International Prognostic Scoring System (IPSS-R) showed similar biological and clinical characteristics. In a Cox-regression analysis, TP53 mutation was a poor prognostic factor in T-MN, independent of IPSS-R cytogenetic, disease-modifying therapy and NRAS mutation.Our data have direct implications for T-MN management and provide evidence that, in addition to conventional disease parameters, mutational analysis should be incorporated in T-MN risk stratification.

  Study EGAS00001003547

• Predictive value of chromosome 18q11.2-q12.1 loss for benefit from bevacizumab in metastatic colorectal cancer; a post-hoc analysis of the randomized controlled trial AGITG-MAX

  Patients and methods: We analyzed tumor samples of 256 patients enrolled in the AGITG-MAX 3-arm randomized controlled trial (RCT) who were randomly assigned to receive either capecitabine, or capecitabine and bevacizumab with- or without mitomycin. Chromosome 18q11.2-q12.1 copy number status was measured and correlated with PFS according to a predefined analysis plan with marker-treatment interaction as the primary end-point.Results: Chromosome 18q11.2-q12.1 losses were detected in 71% of patients (181/256) characteristic for mCRC. Consistent with the non-randomized study, significant PFS benefit of bevacizumab was observed in chromosome 18q11.2-q12.1 loss patients (P=0.009), and not in 18q no-loss patients (P=0.67). Although significance for marker-treatment interaction was not reached (Pinteraction = 0.28), hazard ratio and 95% confidence interval (HRinteraction 0.72, CI 0.39 - 1.32) show striking overlap with the non-randomized study cohorts (HRinteraction 0.41, CI 0.32 - 0.8) supported by a non-significant Cochrane chi-squared (P=0.11) for heterogeneity. Conclusions: PFS characteristics for marker positive- and negative patients randomized for treatment with- or without bevacizumab were consistent with those of the non-randomized discovery study, though the number of AGITG-MAX samples fell short to reach significance for marker-treatment interaction. Post-hoc analysis of the AGITG-MAX RCT provides supportive evidence for chromosome 18q11.2-q12.1 as a clinically relevant predictive marker for mCRC patients.

  Study EGAS00001005453

• CIDR, NCI, NIDA Sequencing of Targeted Genomic Regions Associated with Smoking

  This study includes samples from two projects: Collaborative Genetic Study of Nicotine Dependence (COGEND; PI: Laura Bierut) and Genetic Study of Nicotine Dependence in African Americans (AAND; PI: Laura Bierut and Eric Johnson). The majority of the COGEND subjects included in the current study overlap with the two datasets already available on dbGaP. GWAS data are available for COGEND subjects through the Study of Addiction: Genetics and Environment (SAGE), dbGaP study accession phs000092. It should be noted that the case definition in the SAGE study is DSM-IV alcohol dependence. GWAS data are available for additional COGEND subjects through The Genetic Architecture of Smoking and Smoking Cessation, dbGaP study accession phs000404. The overall goal of this project is to apply deep sequencing to key genomic regions associated with nicotine dependence in order to accelerate the discovery of variation in molecular pathways that govern the development of nicotine dependence. The sample includes unrelated cases and controls of European American and African American descent. Cases are defined by a commonly used definition of nicotine dependence, a current score of 4 or more (maximum score of 10) on the Fagerstrom Test for Nicotine Dependence (FTND). Control status is defined as an individual who smoked at least 100 cigarettes during their lifetime, yet never became dependent (lifetime FTND&#60;2). By selecting controls who smoked cigarettes, we focus on those genetic effects that are specific to the development of nicotine dependence. COGEND: COGEND was initiated in 2001 as a three-part program project grant funded through the National Cancer Institute (NCI; PI: Laura Bierut). The three projects included a study of the familial transmission of nicotine dependence, a genetic study of nicotine dependence, and a study of the relationship of nicotine dependence with nicotine metabolism. The primary goal was to detect, localize, and characterize genes that predispose or protect an individual with respect to heavy tobacco consumption, nicotine dependence, and related phenotypes and to integrate these findings with the family transmission and nicotine metabolism findings. The primary design was a community based case-control study. Nicotine dependent cases and non-dependent, smoking controls were identified and recruited from Detroit and St. Louis. More than 54,000 subjects aged 25-44 years were screened by telephone; more than 3,100 subjects were personally interviewed; and more than 2,900 subjects donated blood samples for genetic studies. AAND: AAND was initiated in 2009 to identify and characterize genetic determinants of nicotine dependence in a large African American population. Community-based recruitment of approximately 100,000 people was conducted to ascertain 1,000 African American nicotine dependent cases and 1,000 African American non-dependent, smoking controls. All subjects were between the ages of 25-44. Subjects were screened by telephone; if they qualified as a case or control, they completed the same interview that was used in COGEND and donated a blood sample. Both studies (COGEND and AAND) included measures of basic socio-demographic variables, including age, sex, race/ethnicity, family income, and educational attainment using the Semi-Structured Assessment for the Genetics of Nicotine Dependence. Information on nicotine dependence, as assessed by the Fagerstrom Test for Nicotine Dependence (FTND) is available for all subjects. In addition, participants also completed the Nicotine Dependence Syndrome Scale (NDSS; Shiffman et al., 2004) and the Wisconsin Inventory of Smoking Dependence Motives (WISDM-68; Piper et al, 2004). All subjects were assessed in person by trained research assistants.

  Study phs000813

• ALCHEMIST Study

  The ALCHEMIST study will accrue patients that are potentially eligible for the Intergroup adjuvant studies and perform central EGFR and ALK genotyping using a central reference laboratory certified by the Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendments of 1988 (CLIA). Patients may either present prior to surgery with resectable NSCLC, may present following complete resection (before or after adjuvant chemotherapy). Eligibility is limited to those with NSCLC of a non-squamous histological subtype and those with adequate performance status and organ function for future trial eligibility. All subjects must submit tissue for central EGFR and ALK genotyping, as well as additional tissue for advanced genomics at the CCG. Subjects may have had local genotyping done prior to registration, however if these results shows no targetable EGFR or ALK alterations (or if it shows a KRAS mutation) then the patient will not be eligible for this screening protocol given the primary aim is to facilitate accrual to the adjuvant studies. All subjects will provide peripheral blood for matched normal DNA. All subjects (including those known to have EGFR or ALK alterations with local genotyping) will have formalin-fixed tissue collected for central genotyping. The testing will be performed at Response Genetics (Los Angeles, CA), a commercial CLIA-certified laboratory. ALK FISH will be performed using the Vysis break-apart probe and EGFR sequencing will be performed of exons 18-21. It is preferred that a full tumor block be submitted, but if unavailable, 15 unstained slides can be submitted. Genotyping results are expected to be provided to the treating clinician within 14 business days of submission so they can be used to determine eligibility for the randomized adjuvant studies, or to confirm the local results. Results will also be reported at intervals to the study team for update into the Alliance database. In addition to the commercial genotyping at Response Genetics, tissue will be collected for research genomics by CCG. For those patients with a block available, this will be forwarded to the CCG after clinical testing at Response Genetics. For patients without a block available, 15 unstained slides should be submitted to the CCG BCR for exploratory analysis. A peripheral blood specimen will also be collected and sent to the CCG BCR to use as matched normal. Specimens will be coded. Over the course of the study, the CCG will perform advanced genomic analysis of the resected lung cancer specimens in a research, non-CLIA environment. Following completion of the genomic analysis, the results can be matched with the clinical follow-up results using a link between the samples codes and the patient identifiers for correlative analyses. Subjects participating in the follow-up portion of the ALCHEMIST study, as well as those participating in the adjuvant therapeutic studies, are expected to undergo a standard-of-care diagnostic biopsy to confirm recurrence. At least two core biopsies, minimum, should be obtained as part of this recurrence biopsy. Paraffin embedded tissue from this biopsy will be used for confirmation of recurrence, for CLIA genomics to plan subsequent clinical trials, and for additional research genomics by the CCG. Plasma will additionally be collected at recurrence and sent to CCG for study of circulating free DNA (cfDNA). Data for the ALCHEMIST study is not yet available to be accessed by the public at this time; when ready it will be made available at the GDC Data Portal.

  Study phs001140

• Integration of Clinical and Molecular Biomarkers for Melanoma Survival (Berwick)

  The long-term goal of the InterMEL Program Project: Integration of Clinical and Molecular Biomarkers for Melanoma Survival is to identify molecular and clinical factors that predict survival of melanoma patients. Our overarching hypothesis is that we can identify factors in the primary melanoma tumor that will lead to more aggressive disease. Melanoma patients diagnosed at American Joint Committee on Cancer (AJCC) tumor, lymph nodes, and metastases (TNM) stages IIA/IIB/IIC/IIIA/IIIB/IIIC/IIID display highly variable clinical outcomes and responses to therapy. We wish to identify robust and reproducible biomarkers or sets of classifiers that distinguish patients likely to have poor prognosis. These biomarkers will help establish targets for adjuvant therapies for this set of patients before the tumors metastasize. Aim 1. Classify actionable somatic mutations, and copy number variations (CNVs) in relationship to melanoma survival. In Project 1, Targeted Sequencing and Clinicopathology to Evaluate Primary Melanoma Molecular Subtypes and Outcomes, we will profile 468 genes using the MSKIMPACT &#8482; assay and identify somatic mutations and CNVs associated with melanoma-specific survival, as well as their co-occurrence with other mutations, in 1,000 tumors from patients at AJCC TNM stages IIA-IIID: approximately 500 from patients who died with melanoma within five years and approximately 500 from individuals who have lived at least five years. We will also evaluate the joint effects of somatic mutations, CNVs and pathologic characteristics associated with good and poor outcomes. Aim 2. Identify primary melanoma DNA methylation profiles to evaluate subtypes and survival. Although it has been established that melanomas frequently have aberrant DNA methylation, it is unknown if DNA methylation in primary melanomas predicts outcome. In Project 2, Primary Melanoma DNA Methylation Profiling for Evaluating Subtypes and Survival, we will profile the same primary melanomas as in Project 1 with Illumina Infinium 850K methylation arrays. We expect to: identify and characterize DNA methylation-based melanoma subclasses; train, test and validate a CpG signature prognostic for survival from melanoma; determine whether this profile adds information to outcome prediction beyond AJCC TNM staging. This project is based on the hypothesis that DNA methylation in primary melanoma will define subgroups (including a poor-prognosis CIMP &#8211; &#8216;CpG island methylator phenotype' subtype) and that a CpG signature will be prognostic for melanoma survival. Aim 3. Define microRNA expression changes in relation to melanoma survival. MicroRNAs have been associated with poor prognosis in melanoma, as well as in other cancers. In Project 3, Prognostic and Functional Role of a Gene Expression Signature in Melanoma Patients, we hypothesize that altered miRNA expression, captured at the time of diagnosis, may contribute to the aggressive behavior of a subset of early stage primary melanomas. We will profile the same primary melanomas as in Projects 1 and 2 with a Nanostring assay. This project will define and validate a tissue-based microRNA signature in conducted to determine whether the prognostic miRNA signature, as well as other candidate genes emerging from other projects, contribute to melanoma survival. Aim 4. Integrate data from multiple platforms to identify melanoma subtypes and survival. Despite substantial literature on gene tumor mutation-, methylation- and gene expression-based prognostic and predictive signatures for melanoma, few such signatures are used in clinical practice. Project 4, Multiplatform Analysis of Melanoma Molecular Subtypes and Patient Survival Outcome, will use novel integrative clustering methods to identify molecular subtypes of melanoma jointly defined across these platforms.

  Study phs003099

• High-Resolution Clonal Mapping of Multi-Organ Metastasis, and Resistance to Neoadjuvant Chemotherapy, in Triple Negative Breast Cancer

  Clonal dynamics during metastasis were studied in two patient-derived xenograft (PDX) models established from treatment-naive primary breast tumors from TNBC patients diagnosed with concurrent metastatic disease. Genomic sequencing and barcode-mediated clonal tracking revealed robust alterations in clonal architecture between primary tumors and metastases. Polyclonal seeding and maintenance of low-abundance subclones was observed in each metastatic lesion examined. Lung, liver, and brain metastases were enriched for an identical population of subclones. Clones dominating multi-organ metastases shared a genomic lineage. Thus, properties of rare mammary tumor subclones enabled the seeding and colonization of metastases in multiple secondary organ sites. In this study, patient-derived xenograft (PDX) models of treatment-naive TNBC and serial biopsies from TNBC patients undergoing NACT were used to elucidate mechanisms of chemoresistance in the neoadjuvant setting. Barcode-mediated clonal tracking and genomic sequencing of PDX tumors revealed that residual tumors remaining after chemotherapy maintained the subclonal architecture of untreated tumors yet their transcriptomes, proteomes, and histologic features were distinct from those of untreated tumors. Once treatment was halted, residual tumors gave rise to chemotherapy-sensitive tumors with similar transcriptomes, proteomes, and histological features to those of untreated tumors. Taken together, these results demonstrated that tumors can adopt a reversible drug-tolerant state that does not involve clonal selection as a chemotherapy resistance mechanism. Serial biopsies obtained from patients with TNBC undergoing NACT revealed similar histologic changes as well as maintenance of stable subclonal architecture, demonstrating that PDXs capture molecular features characteristic of human TNBC chemoresistance.

  Study phs001742

• Complex genotype-phenotype relationships shape the response to treatment of Down Syndrome Childhood Acute Lymphoblastic Leukaemia

  Extensive genetic and epigenetic variegation has been demonstrated in many malignancies. Importantly, their interplay has the potential to contribute to disease progression and treatment resistance. To shed light on the complex relationships between these different sources of intra-tumour heterogeneity, we explored their relative contributions to the evolutionary dynamics of Acute Lymphoblastic Leukaemia (ALL) in children with Down syndrome, which has particularly poor prognosis. We quantified the tumour propagating potential of genetically distinct sub-clones using serial transplantation assays and SNP-arrays. While most leukaemias were characterized by a single dominant subclone, others were highly heterogeneous. Importantly, we provide clear and direct evidence that genotypes and phenotypes with functional relevance to leukemic progression and treatment resistance can co-segregate within the disease. Hence, individual genetic lesions can be restricted to well-defined cell immunophenotypes, corresponding to different stages of the leukemic differentiation hierarchy and varied proliferation potentials. As a result of this difference in fitness, which can be accurately quantified via competitive transplantation assays, matching diagnostic, post-treatment, and relapse leukaemias can be dominated by different genotypes, including pre-leukemic clones persisting throughout the disease progression and treatment. Intriguingly, plasticity also appears to be a temporally defined property that can segregate with genotype. These results suggest that Down Syndrome ALL should be viewed as a complex matrix of cells exhibiting genetic and epigenetic heterogeneity that foster extensive clonal evolution and competition. Therapeutic intervention reshapes this ‘eco-system’ and may provide the right conditions for the preferential expansion of selected compartments and subsequently relapse.

  Study EGAS50000001287

• Breast cancer DNA repair

  Tumors of germline BRCA1/2 mutated carriers show homologous recombination (HR) deficiency (HRD), resulting in impaired DNA double strand break (DSB) repair and high sensitivity to Poly-(ADP-Ribose)-Polymerase (PARP) inhibitors. Although this therapy is expected to be effective beyond germline BRCA1/2 mutated carriers, a robust validated test to detect HRD tumors is lacking. In the present study we therefore evaluated a functional HR assay exploiting the formation of RAD51 foci in proliferating cells after ex vivo irradiation of fresh breast cancers (BrC) tissue: the RECAP test.Methods Fresh samples of 170 primary BrC were analyzed using the RECAP test. The molecular explanation for the HRD phenotype was investigated by exploring BRCA deficiencies, mutational signatures, tumor infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs) and microsatellite instability (MSI).Results RECAP was completed successfully in 148 out of 170 samples (87%). 24 tumors showed HRD (16%), while 6 tumors were HR intermediate (HRi) (4%). HRD was explained by BRCA deficiencies (mutations, promoter hypermethylation, deletions) in 16 cases. Several non-BRCA deficient HRD tumors showed BRCAness mutational signatures, suggesting that they are also bona fide HRD cases. HRD tumors showed an increased incidence of high TIL counts (p=0.023) compared to HR proficient (HRP) tumors and MSI was more frequently observed in the HRD group (2/20, 10%) than expected in BrC (1%) (p=0.017).Conclusion The RECAP test is a robust assay detecting both BRCA1/2 deficient and BRCA1/2 proficient HRD tumors, suggesting that this test identifies approximately 50% more patients that may benefit from PARPi treatment than BRCA gene testing only.

  Study EGAS00001002792

• Heterogeneity of IKZF1 genomic alterations and risk of relapse in childhood B-cell precursor acute lymphoblastic leukemia

  Purpose Genomic alterations of IKZF1 are common and associated with adverse clinical features in B-ALL, but the relationship between the type of IKZF1 alteration, disease subtype and outcome are incompletely understood. Patients and Methods We used transcriptome and genomic sequencing, and SNP microarray data to determine leukemia subtype and genomic alterations for 688 pediatric patients with B-ALL enrolled into St. Jude Total Therapy 15 and 16 studies. Results IKZF1 alterations were identified in 115 (16.7%) patients, commonly in BCR::ABL1 (78%) and CRLF2-rearranged, BCR::ABL1-like B-ALL (70%), and were associated with five-year cumulative incidence of relapse (CIR) of 14.8 ± 3.3% compared to 5.0 ± 0.9% for patients without any IKZF1 alteration (P < 0.0001). IKZF1 deletions of exon 4-7 (P = 0.0002), genomic IKZF1plus with any IKZF1 deletion (P = 0.006) or with focal IKZF1 deletion (P = 0.0007), and unfavorable genomic subtypes (P < 0.005) were independently adversely prognostic. Patients with both IKZF1 exon 4-7 deletion and unfavorable genomic subtype had a significantly increased risk of relapse (HR = 58.3; 95% CI, 11.9 – 285.4, P < 0.0001) whereas IKZF1 sequence mutations were not independently predictive of outcome. Conclusions Genomic IKZF1plus with any IKZF1 deletion, IKZF1 deletion of exon 4-7, and unfavorable subtype confer increased risk of relapse. The combination of unfavorable genomic subtype and IKZF1 deletion of exon 4-7 identified patients at greatest risk of relapse despite MRD-directed therapy. The type of IKZF1 alteration together with subtype are informative for risk stratification and predict response in patients with B-ALL.

  Study EGAS50000000106

• Implementation of pediatric precision oncology into clinical practice: The individualized Therapies for Children with cancer program “iTHER”

  iTHER is a prospective national precision oncology program aiming to define tumor molecular profiles in children and adolescents with primary very high-risk, relapsed, or refractory pediatric tumors in order to identify relevant aberrations to inform treatment. From April 2017 to April 2021, 302 samples of 253 patients were included. Comprehensive molecular profiling utilizing lcWGS, WES, RNAseq, Affymetrix, and/or 850k methylation profiling was performed for 226 samples. Germline pathogenic variants were identified in 16% of patients. At least one somatic alteration was detected in 204 (90.3%), and 185 (81.9%) were considered druggable, with priority levels very high (6.1%), high (21.3%), moderate (26.0%), intermediate (36.1%), and borderline (10.5%). Diagnosis was revised or refined in 8 patients (3.5%). Spatial and temporal heterogeneity was observed in paired samples of 15 patients, indicating the value of sequential analysis. Of 137 patients with follow-up beyond 12 months, 21 molecularly matched treatments were applied in 19 patients (13.9%) with modest response. Most relevant barriers to not applying targeted therapies included poor performance status, as well as limited access to drugs within clinical trial. iTHER demonstrates feasibility of comprehensive molecular profiling across all ages, tumor types and stages in pediatric cancers, informing of diagnostic, prognostic, and targetable alterations as well as reportable germline variants within a clinically relevant timeframe. Therefore, WES and RNAseq is implemented into standard clinical care at the Princess Máxima Center for all children. Improved access to targeted treatments within biology-driven combination trials is required to eventually improve survival.

  Study EGAS00001007099

• Myeloma Genome Project Targeted Panel Validation dataset

  372 samples consisting of 185 patient paired CD138+ tumor and non-involved DNA pairs, plus 5 Horizon Diagnostic known mutation standards (HD). Samples were processed using the KAPA HyperCap protocol and hybridized onto a targeted panel for multiple myeloma and associated diseases. Reference Sudha et al Clinical Cancer Research, 2022.

  Dataset EGAD00001008689

• Single Cell RNA Sequencing of Tendon Scar Tissue (Tenolysis)

  This human tenolysis sample was collected as a control (non-diabetic sample) as part of larger study described below.The purpose of the larger study is to define the cellular and molecular environment in tendons, pulleys, synovial sheath, tendon scar tissue, and palmar fascia samples. The samples are isolated from discarded tissues from patients who undergo lower limb amputation surgery, dupuytren's disease, trigger finger release, tenolysis surgery, tenosynovitis surgery, distal biceps tendon repair, common extensor debridement and repair, common flexor debridement and repair, or proximal long head of the biceps tenodesis.The dramatic increase in Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus (T2DM) as part of the obesity epidemic is one of the most pressing health challenges facing the U.S. Type II diabetes results in systemic inflammation and is characterized by metabolic dysfunction including elevated plasma glucose levels (hyperglycemia). There is a clear link between T2DM and musculoskeletal pathologies; T2DM accelerates the progression of osteoarthritis, and increases fracture risk. Moreover, T2DM impairs tendon homeostasis and repair, and increases the risk and severity of tenosynovitis (infection of the tendon and sheath), however there remains a paucity of information regarding the molecular mechanisms of diabetes-induced changes in tendon function. Flexor and extensor tendons facilitate digit range of motion (ROM) and movement of the hand. Tendon gliding can be impaired by tendon fibrosis and an inability to fit within the surrounding synovial sheath, or due to the formation of fibrous adhesions between the tendon and synovial sheath during healing. Fibrosis and increased disorganization of the extracellular matrix are hallmarks of the diabetic hand phenotype observed in T2DM patients. T2DM dramatically affects the baseline function of tendons; up to 50% of diabetic patients experience impaired hand function, including increased rates of tenosynovitis, and carpal tunnel syndrome. In addition to decrements in tendon gliding function, deficits in mechanical properties are also observed, rendering diabetic tendons more susceptible to rupture. Considering that the complication rate of primary flexor tendon repairs is as high as 40% in non-diabetic patients, and that T2DM further impairs tendon healing, it is imperative to understand the cellular and molecular components of diabetic tendinopathy. The study will define the overall cellular and molecular environment in tendon pulleys, palmar fascia, synovial sheath tissue, and scar tissue (tenolysis and tenosynovitis samples) as a function of type II diabetes.

  Study phs004076

• Convergent evolution towards CD38 biallelic loss is a recurrent mechanism of resistance to anti-CD38 antibodies in multiple myeloma.

  Monoclonal antibodies directed against CD38 are a therapeutic mainstay in multiple myeloma (MM). While they have contributed to improved outcomes, most patients will still experience disease relapse. Despite their ubiquity, little is known about tumor-intrinsic mechanisms of resistance to these drugs. Antigen escape, whereby tumor cells alter expression of cell surface immunotherapy targets, has been proposed as a potential avenue, and has been seen with other immunotherapies in MM. Yet, it is unknown whether MM cells can develop permanent resistance to anti-CD38 antibodies by acquiring genomic events leading to biallelic disruption of the CD38 gene locus. Here, by using whole genome and whole exome sequencing data from 701 newly diagnosed patients, 72 patients at relapse with naivety to anti-CD38 antibodies, and 52 patients collected at relapse following anti-CD38 antibodies, we report biallelic inactivation of CD38 as a recurrent mechanism of resistance in 6% of patients, often via convergent evolution where distinct subclones are advantaged towards the same selective endpoint within the same patient. Monoallelic loss of the CD38 locus was seen in another 14% post-CD38-directed therapy. Three of the cases with biallelic events on CD38 presented with missense mutations and retained CD38 expression. Functional work demonstrated that two of these mutations decreased binding affinity and antibody-dependent cellular cytotoxicity of commercial antibodies Daratumumab and Isatuximab. However, the third mutation (R140G) provided relative resistance only towards one commercial product. Given that patients are often rechallenged with CD38 antibodies following disease progression, these data support the need for next generation sequencing to guide treatment selection.

  Study EGAS50000000709

• Bone marrow breakout lesions act as key sites for tumor-immune cell diversification and exhaustion in multiple myeloma

  Multiple myeloma is a disease characterized by the expansion of cancerous plasma cells in the bone marrow. The bone marrow microenvironment plays a pivotal role in supporting myeloma growth and modulating tumor immunity. As the disease progresses, myeloma cells may become independent of the bone marrow environment, leading to extramedullary disease associated with poor prognosis. However, the early processes associated with bone marrow independence and its implications for disease and immune control remain poorly understood. Here, we employed comprehensive single-cell and spatial mapping to identify the disruption of the cortical bone and subsequent expansion of myeloma cells in breakout lesions as a key event in multiple myeloma pathogenesis and tumor immunity. Breakout lesions harbor an adapted niche and a unique immune microenvironment conferred by sustained immune-tumor interactions. In particular, tumor-reactive T cells with a highly exhausted phenotype, alongside unique NK cell and macrophage subtypes, specifically expanded in breakout lesions. Spatially-resolved genomic, transcriptomic and cellular analyses uncovered extensive intra-lesion heterogeneity, suggesting a divergent co-evolution of genomic variation and locally confined T cell responses in distinct subregions. Ultra-high plex imaging revealed that tumor-reactive T cells, together with other immune-regulatory cells and dendritic cells, co-expand and exhaust upon sustained tumor interactions in locally confined immune islands. In contrast, immune-regulatory macrophage and NK cell subsets operate spatially separated within myeloma cell deserts. Jointly, our analyses uncover bone marrow breakout lesions as a hotspot for tumor-immune cell interactions, diversification and exhaustion, representing a key event in myeloma pathogenesis with significant therapeutic implications.

  Study EGAS50000000304

• Repotrectinib in NTRK fusion–positive advanced solid tumors: a phase 1/2 trial

  Early-generation TRK tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs) approved for treating NTRK fusion–positive (NTRK+) solid tumors provide clinical benefit; however, resistance emerges. Repotrectinib is a next-generation ROS1/TRK TKI with a compact macrocyclic structure designed to improve durability of response. TRIDENT-1 is a registrational phase 1/2 trial assessing repotrectinib, a next-generation ROS1/TRK TKI, in adults with advanced solid tumors, including NTRK+ disease. The primary endpoint was confirmed objective response; secondary endpoints included duration of response (DOR), progression-free survival (PFS), overall survival and safety. Median follow-up ranged between 21.3 months and 25.7 months. In the TKI-naive cohort (n = 51; 95% confidence interval (CI)), the response rate was 59% (44–72); the median DOR was not estimable (NE); and the median PFS was 30.3 months (9.0–NE). In the TKI-pretreated cohort (n = 69; 95% CI), the response rate was 48% (36–60); the median DOR was 9.8 months (7.4–13.0); and the median PFS was 7.4 months (3.9–9.7). Of 30 TKI-pretreated patients with NTRK solvent front mutations, 16 had a response (53%; 95% CI: 34–72). Intracranial responses were observed in two of three TKI-naive patients and in four of six TKI-pretreated patients with measurable intracranial disease at baseline. Among all treated patients (n = 565), the most common any-grade treatment-related adverse event (TRAE) was dizziness (57%); most TRAEs were low grade; and 4% discontinued repotrectinib due to a TRAE. Overall, repotrectinib demonstrated durable systemic and intracranial responses with generally low-grade adverse events in patients with NTRK+ solid tumors, including those with previous TRK TKI treatment and solvent front mutations. These results support the use repotrectinib to treat patients with NTRK+ solid tumors. ClinicalTrials.gov identifier: NCT03093116 .

  Study EGAS50000001572

• Discovery and validation of an ancillary genomic test of malignancy for primary melanocytic tumors

  Background:Pathological diagnosis of melanocytic tumors can be difficult and prone to error. More accurate and reliable ancillary investigations than those currently available are required to improve diagnostic accuracy. Goals: (1) to generate a genomic model for distinguishing benign (nevi) from malignant (melanoma) melanocytic skin tumors, developed from a customized gene panel evaluated on a cohort of 250 nevi and melanomas. (2) To evaluate the performance of the genomic model in melanocytic tumors of uncertain diagnosis/behavior. Details: The cohort of 250 melanomas and naevi was split into a discovery set and a validation set. Our genomic model obtained an area under the curve of 95% in the discovery cohort and 96% for the validation cohort. Based on a Youden index threshold, the resulting classifier shows high specificity (>95% in the discovery and validation cohorts), with sensitivities >80% in the discovery and validation cohorts. Evaluation of the genomic model on a cohort of 110 melanocytic tumors identifies key driver mutations in agreement with the likely pathway of origin of the tumors. The probability of melanoma (p=0.02) from the genomic model was significantly associated with pathology-based estimates of malignancy for melanocytic tumors lacking pathway-defining genomic aberrations (conventional tumors). The genomic model identified 8/36 (22%) conventional tumors with unresolved malignancy to have a high probability of melanoma, with 7/8 of these cases showing negative/non-aberrant results with either fluorescent in-situ hybridization, PRAME and/or p16 immunostains. Furthermore, no evidence of malignant behavior based on the genomic model was seen in 4 conventional borderline tumors with more than 1 year follow-up. Conclusion: This genomic model can become a clinically useful ancillary tool that is highly specific for differentiating melanomas from nevi.

  Study EGAS50000000887

• Intra-tumor heterogeneity and clonal evolution patterns towards platinum-resistant high-grade serous ovarian cancer

  Although many high-grade serous ovarian carcinoma (HGSOC) patients are initially sensitive to the standard-of-care platinum-based therapy, intra-tumor heterogeneity may fuel selection towards platinum-resistant clones over subsequent lines of therapy. We performed whole-exome coupled to ultra-deep re-sequencing and copy number alteration (CNA) profiling on 31 matched diagnosis and relapse tumors from HGSOC patients treated with platinum. Genetic heterogeneity within tumor pairs varied extremely, with some recurrent tumors being identical and others completely different from the primary tumor. All primary tumors showed evidence of homologous recombination (HR)-deficiency, but none of them carried reactivating mutations in the HR pathway at relapse, also not when becoming resistant to subsequent lines of platinum. We did also not identify other mutations, CNAs or pathways that were enriched in platinum-resistant clones. However, a platinum score consisting of 13 CNAs correlated significantly with platinum-free interval (PFI) after first-line therapy in multiple cohorts of &gt;450 primary HGSOCs. A relative increase of this score in the relapsed tumor correlated with a change in PFI during subsequent therapy. Clonal evolution under platinum therapy contributes to genetic heterogeneity within tumor pairs, implicating that genetic tests linked to targeted treatment options for recurrent HGSOC need to be performed on biopsies collected at relapse. Platinum resistance of an initially platinum-sensitive HR-deficient HGSOC at relapse is not caused by reactivation of the HR pathway, suggesting that these tumors are still responsive to PARP inhibitors, instead, several chromosomal aberrations contribute to a score predictive of disease outcome under platinum therapy, both in first and subsequent lines of platinum therapy.

  Study EGAS00001001244

• Phase 1/2 Study of the Indoleamine 2,3-Dioxygenase 1 Inhibitor Linrodostat Mesylate Combined With Nivolumab or Nivolumab and Ipilimumab in Advanced Solid Tumors or Hematologic Malignancies

  Purpose: To evaluate the safety, efficacy, pharmacokinetics, pharmacodynamics, and biomarker data of linrodostat mesylate, a selective, oral indoleamine 2,3-dioxygenase 1 (IDO1) inhibitor, combined with nivolumab ± ipilimumab in advanced solid tumors and hematologic malignancies. Patients and Methods: In this phase 1/2 study, patients received once-daily (QD) linrodostat (part 1 [escalation], 25-400 mg; part 2 [expansion], 100 or 200 mg) plus nivolumab (480 mg every [Q] 4 weeks [W] or 240 mg Q2W) or triplet therapy (part 3, linrodostat 20-100 mg QD; nivolumab 360 mg Q3W or 480 mg Q4W; ipilimumab 1 mg/kg Q6W or Q8W). Endpoints included safety and efficacy (co-primary; parts 2, 3), pharmacokinetics, pharmacodynamics, biomarkers, and efficacy (part 1). Results: Fifty-five, 494, and 41 patients were enrolled in parts 1, 2, and 3, respectively. Linrodostat exposures exceeded predicted therapeutic target concentrations starting at 50 mg. Rates of grade 3/4 adverse events were 50.1%-63.4%. The maximum tolerated linrodostat dose was 200 mg; dose-limiting toxicities were primarily immune related. Responses were observed across different cohorts, study parts, and tumor types, particularly in immunotherapy-naive patients. Kynurenine decreased with linrodostat + nivolumab, regardless of response. In contrast, interferon gamma (IFN-γ) gene expression signature was associated with response; in nonmelanoma patients, a composite of low tryptophan 2,3-dioxygenase (TDO2) gene expression plus high IFN-γ signature was associated with response. Conclusions: Linrodostat + nivolumab ± ipilimumab demonstrated a manageable safety profile. Kynurenine changes supported IDO1 pathway inhibition but did not correlate with response. A composite biomarker of low TDO2 expression plus high IFN-γ gene expression may predict response to linrodostat + nivolumab.

  Study EGAS50000000710

• Driver mutations in histone H3.3 and chromatin remodelling genes in paediatric glioblastoma

  Glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) is a lethal brain tumour in adults and children. However, DNA copy number and gene expression signatures indicate differences between adult and paediatric cases. To explore the genetic events underlying this distinction, we sequenced the exomes of 48 paediatric GBM samples. Somatic mutations in the H3.3-ATRX-DAXX chromatin remodelling pathway were identified in 44% of tumours (21/48). Recurrent mutations in H3F3A, which encodes the replication-independent histone 3 variant H3.3, were observed in 31% of tumours, and led to amino acid substitutions at two critical positions within the histone tail (K27M, G34R/G34V) involved in key regulatory post-translational modifications. Mutations in ATRX (alpha-thalassaemia/mental retardation syndrome X-linked) and DAXX (death-domain associated protein), encoding two subunits of a chromatin remodelling complex required for H3.3 incorporation at pericentric heterochromatin and telomeres, were identified in 31% of samples overall, and in 100% of tumours harbouring a G34R or G34V H3.3 mutation. Somatic TP53 mutations were identified in 54% of all cases, and in 86% of samples with H3F3A and/or ATRX mutations. Screening of a large cohort of gliomas of various grades and histologies (n=784) showed H3F3A mutations to be specific to GBM and highly prevalent in children and young adults. Furthermore, the presence of H3F3A/ATRX-DAXX/TP53 mutations was strongly associated with alternative lengthening of telomeres and specific gene expression profiles. This is, to our knowledge, the first report to highlight recurrent mutations in a regulatory histone in humans, and our data suggest that defects of the chromatin architecture underlie paediatric and young adult GBM pathogenesis.

  Study EGAS00001000226

• Analysis of RAD51C promoter methylation using targeted bisulfite sequencing (amplicon sequencing) in ovarian cancer pre-clinical models and patient samples.

  In high-grade serous ovarian carcinoma (HGSC), deleterious mutations in the DNA repair gene RAD51C are established drivers of defective homologous recombination and are emerging biomarkers of PARP inhibitor (PARPi) sensitivity. RAD51C promoter methylation (meRAD51C) is detected at similar frequencies to mutations, yet its effects on PARPi responses remain unresolved. In this study, three HGSC patient-derived xenograft (PDX) models with methylation at most or all examined CpG sites in the RAD51C promoter show responses to PARPi. Both complete and heterogeneous methylation patterns were associated with RAD51C gene silencing and homologous recombination deficiency (HRD). PDX models lost meRAD51C following treatment with PARPi rucaparib or niraparib, where a single unmethylated copy of RAD51C was sufficient to drive PARPi resistance. Genomic copy number profiling of one of the PDX models using SNP arrays revealed that this resistance was acquired independently in two genetically distinct lineages. In a cohort of 11 patients with RAD51C-methylated HGSC, various patterns of meRAD51C were associated with genomic 'scarring', indicative of HRD history, but exhibited no clear correlations with clinical outcome. Differences in methylation stability under treatment pressure were also observed between patients, where one HGSC was found to maintain meRAD51C after 6 lines of therapy (4 platinum-based), whilst another HGSC sample was found to have heterozygous meRAD51C and elevated RAD51C gene expression (relative to homozygous meRAD51C controls) after only neo-adjuvant chemotherapy. As meRAD51C loss in a single gene copy was sufficient to cause PARPi resistance in PDX, methylation zygosity should be carefully assessed in previously treated patients when considering PARPi therapy.

  Study EGAS00001005395

• Proteom characterization in primary colorectal cancer and corresponding liver metastasis

  Colorectal adenocarcinomas (CRC) are one of the most commonly diagnosed tumors worldwide. Colorectal adenocarcinomas primarily metastasize into the liver and (less often) into the peritoneum. Patients suffering from CRC-liver metastasis (CRC-LM) typically present with a dismal overall survival compared to non-metastasized CRC patients. The metastasis process and metastasis promoting factors in patients with CRC are under intensive debate. However, CRC studies investigating the proteome biology are lacking. Formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded (FFPE) tissue specimens provide a valuable resource for comprehensive proteomic studies of a broad variety of clinical malignancies. The presented pilot study compares the proteome of primary CRC and patient-matched CRC-LM. The applied protocol allows a reproducible and straightforward identification and quantification of over 2,600 proteins within the dissected tumorous tissue. Subsequent unsupervised clustering reveals distinct proteome biologies of the primary CRC and the corresponding CRC-LM. Statistical analysis yields multiple differentially abundant proteins in either primary CRC or their corresponding liver metastases. A more detailed analysis of dysregulated biological processes suggests an active immune response in the liver metastases, including several proteins of the complement system. Proteins with structural roles, e.g. cytoskeleton organization or cell junction assembly appear to be less prominent in liver metastases as compared to primary CRC. Immunohistochemistry corroborates proteomic high expression levels of metabolic proteins in CRC-LM. We further assessed how the in vitro inhibition of two in CRC-LM enriched metabolic proteins affected cell proliferation and chemosensitivity. The presented proteomic investigation in a small clinical cohort promotes a more comprehensive understanding of the distinct proteome biology of primary CRC and their corresponding liver metastases.

  Study EGAS00001005641

• Biomarker Screen for Efficacy of Oncolytic Virotherapy in Patient-derived Pancreatic Cancer Cultures

  Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) is a tumour entity with unmet medical need. To assess the therapeutic potential of oncolytic virotherapy (OVT) against PDAC, different oncolytic viruses (OVs) are currently investigated in clinical trials. However, systematic comparisons of these different OVs in terms of efficacy against PDAC and biomarkers predicting therapeutic response are lacking. We screened fourteen patient-derived PDAC cultures for their sensitivity to five clinically relevant OVs, namely serotype 5 adenovirus Ad5-hTERT, herpes virus T-VEC, measles vaccine strain MV-NIS, reovirus jin-3, and protoparvovirus H 1PV using live cell analysis, quantification of viral genome/gene expression, cell viability as well as cytotoxicity assays. Sensitivity was correlated with transcriptome profiles to identify potential predictive biomarkers for response to OVT. Patient-derived PDAC cultures showed individual response patterns to OV treatment. Twelve of fourteen cultures were responsive to at least one OV, with no single OV proving superior or inferior across all cultures. Known host factors for distinct viruses were retrieved as potential biomarkers. Compared to the basal-like molecular subtype, the quasi-mesenchymal subtype of PDAC was more sensitive to H-1PV, jin-3, and T-VEC. Expression of viral entry receptors did not correlate with sensitivity to OV treatment. Rather, cellular pathways controlling immunological, metabolic, and proliferative signalling appeared to determine outcome. For instance, high baseline expression of interferon-stimulated genes (ISGs) correlated with relative resistance to oncolytic measles virus, whereas cGAS expression was associated with exceptional response. Combination treatment of MV-NIS with a cGAS inhibitor improved tumour cell killing in several PDAC cultures.

  Study EGAS00001007001

• MethylationEPIC BeadChip samples of pre- and post-5ZA-treated head and neck cancer patients refractory to anto-PD-1 therapy

  Background Immune checkpoint blockade (ICB) is an effective treatment in a subset of patients diagnosed with head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC); however, most patients are refractory. Methods In a non-randomized, open-label phase 1b clinical trial, participants with recurrent and/or metastatic (R/M) HNSCC were treated with low-dose 5’azacytidine (5’aza) daily for either 5- or 10-days in combination with fixed doses of durvalumab and tremelimumab after progression on ICB therapy. The primary objective was to assess the biologically effective dose of 5’aza as determined by molecular changes in paired baseline and on-treatment tumor biopsies; the secondary objective was safety. Results Thirty-eight percent (3/8) of participants with evaluable paired tissue samples had a greater than 2-fold increase from baseline in interferon-gamma (IFN-ɣ) signature and CD274 (programmed cell death protein 1 ligand, PD-L1) expression within the tumor microenvironment (TME), which was associated with increased CD8+ T cell infiltration and decreased infiltration of CD4+ T regulatory cells. The mean neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio (NLR) decreased by greater than 50%, from 14.2 (SD 22.6) to 6.9 (SD 5.2). Median overall survival (OS) was 16.3 months (95% CI 1.9, NA) and 2-year OS rate was 24.7% (95% CI: 4.5%, 53.2%) with 58% (7/12) of treated participants demonstrated prolonged OS of greater than 12 months. Conclusion Our findings suggest that low-dose 5’aza can reprogram systemic host immune responses and the local TME to increase IFN-ɣ and PD-L1 expression. The increased expression of these established biomarkers correlated with prolonged OS upon re-challenge with ICB.

  Study EGAS00001007998

• EPICC: Evolutionary Predictions in Colorectal Cancer WGS-3

  WGS profiling bam files from colorectal carcinoma and adenoma.

  Dataset EGAD00001008642

• Clonal selection after gene therapy in sickle cell disease

  While gene therapy (GT) provides a potentially curative treatment option for patients with sickle cell disease (SCD), the occurrence of myeloid malignancies in clinical trials has prompted concern. To interrogate potential mechanisms underlying increased cancer risk, we used hematopoietic stem cell (HSC) clonal tracking by whole genome sequencing (WGS) to map the somatic mutation and clonal landscape of 2,592 gene modified as well as unmodified single stem and progenitor cells from six SCD patients undergoing gene therapy (7-26 years old, average 12.7× depth). Pre-GT phylogenetic trees in SCD were highly polyclonal and mutation burdens per cell were elevated in some, but not all, patients. Post-GT, no clonal expansions were identified. However, an increased frequency of driver mutations associated with myeloid neoplasms or clonal hematopoiesis (DNMT3A- and EZH2-mutated clones in particular) were seen in both genetically modified and unmodified cells suggested positive selection of mutant clones during gene therapy. This work sheds light on the mutation landscape and HSC clonal dynamics in gene therapy for SCD and highlights enhanced fitness of some HSCs harboring pre-existing driver mutations following gene therapy. Future studies should define the long-term fate of mutant clones including any contribution to expansions associated with myeloid neoplasms.

  Dataset EGAD00001010913

• Alzheimer's Disease Sequencing Project (ADSP)

  NOTICE OF CHANGE IN LOCATION FOR ALZHEIMER&#39;S DISEASE SEQUENCING PROJECT (ADSP) GENETIC AND PHENOTYPIC DATA: ADSP whole exome and whole genome sequence data that are shared through dbGaP were mapped to the Genome Reference Consortium human genome GRCh37 (build 37). These data are from the Discovery Phase of the project (described below) and will continue to be available at this site. Please see the ADSP Design page for the complete study description. All data that are mapped to GRCh38 (hg38) are being shared through the NIA Genetics of Alzheimer&#39;s Disease Data Storage Site (NIAGADS) Data Sharing Service (DSS). For instructions on how access the ADSP Build 38 data that are shared through NIAGADS DSS, visit the Application Instructions page. STUDY DESCRIPTION FOR dbGaP BUILD 37 ADSP DATA: The overarching goals of the Alzheimer&#39;s Disease Sequencing Project (ADSP) are to: (1) identify new genomic variants contributing to increased risk of developing Alzheimer&#39;s Disease (AD), (2) identify new genomic variants contributing to protection against developing AD, and (3) provide insight as to why individuals with known risk factor variants escape from developing AD. These factors will be studied in multi-ethnic populations in order to identify new pathways for disease prevention. Such a study of human genomic variation and its relationship to health and disease requires examination of a large number of study participants and needs to capture information about common and rare variants (both single nucleotide and copy number) in well phenotyped individuals. Using existing samples from NIH funded and other studies, three NHGRI funded Large Scale Sequencing and Analysis Centers (LSAC) - Broad, Baylor, and Washington University - produced the DNA sequence data. Variant call data are being made available to the scientific community through NIH-approved data repositories. Statistical analysis of the sequence data is anticipated to identify new genetic risk and protective factors. The ADSP will conduct and facilitate analysis of sequence data to extend previous discoveries that may ultimately result in new directions for AD therapeutics. Analysis of ADSP data will be done in two phases. The Discovery Phase analysis (2014-2018) is funded under PAR-12-183. The entire Discovery dataset contains whole-genome sequencing data on 584 subjects from 113 families, and pedigree data for &#62; 4000 subjects; whole exome sequencing data on 5096 cases 4965 controls; and whole exome sequence data on an additional 853 (682 Cases [510 Non-Hispanic, 172 Hispanic]), and 171 Hispanic Control subjects from families that are multiply affected with AD. The Replication Phase (2016-2021) analysis will be funded under RFA-AG-16-001 and RFA-AG-16-002 and is expected to include a combination of genotyping and sequencing approaches on at least 30,000 subjects. Targeted sequencing will be done by the LSACs. GRCh37 Data Releases The first ADSP data release occurred on November 25, 2013. It included the whole-genome sequencing data in BAM file format on 410 individuals. The second ADSP data release occurred on March 31, 2014, and included the whole-genome sequencing data in BAM file format for an additional 168 individuals. The third ADSP data release occurred on November 03, 2014 and included whole-exome sequencing data in BAM file format for 10,939 individuals. The fourth ADSP data release occurred on February 13, 2015 and included revised ethnic data for subjects with whole-exome sequencing data. The fifth ADSP data release occurred on July 13, 2015 and included whole-genome genotypes and updated phenotypes as well as changes to pedigree structures and sample IDs. The sixth ADSP data release occurred on December 8, 2015, and included whole-exome genotypes and updated phenotypes as well as changes to subject IDs. This seventh ADSP data release on April 12, 2016 includes: (1) WES and WGS SNV VCF files (2) WES and WGS Indel PLINK files ADSP Data Available through dbGaP: ADSP - Whole Genome Sequencing ADSP - Whole Exome Sequencing Comments DNA-Seq (BAM) n=578 n=10913 Sequence data available (plus n=38 replications w/out genotype data) Concordant SNV Genotypes (PLINK format) N/A n=10913 QC&#39;ed genotypes that are concordant between the Atlas (Baylor&#39;s) and GATK (Broad&#39;s) calling pipelines (a subset of the consensus genotype set) Consensus Genotypes (PLINK and VCF format) n=578 n=10913 QC&#39;ed genotypes that are concordant between Atlas and GATK pipelines as well as those that that were called uniquely by Atlas or GATK Concordant Indel Genotypes (PLINK format) n=578 n=10913 QC&#39;ed genotypes that are concordant between the Atlas and GATK calling pipelines Phenotype Data n=4735 n=10913 Data of n=53 phenotype variables available (plus administrative data), including APOE genotype. WGS phenotypes include data of connecting family members. Please use the release notes provided by dbGaP to obtain detailed information about study release updates. The ADSP data portal provides a customized interface for users to quickly identify and retrieve files by covariates, phenotypes, and data properties such as sequencing facility or coverage. For more information about the ADSP study and the data portal, please visit https://www.niagads.org/adsp/.

  Study phs000572

• Successful Clinical Response in Pneumonia Therapy (SCRIPT)

  The goal of this study is to iteratively identify, validate and refine biomarkers to predict clinical failure, and identify novel targets for therapy, beyond traditional antibiotics, for patients with severe pneumonia requiring intubation, including severe community-acquired pneumonia (CAP), hospital-acquired pneumonia, and ventilator-associated pneumonia (HAP/VAP). We hypothesize that factors within the alveolar microenvironment in many patients with pneumonia prevent the active process of pneumonia resolution.The major emphasis will be on HAP. Mechanically ventilated CAP patients are a very high-risk group for subsequent VAP, and therefore CAP samples will be included to determine baseline bacteria, microbiome, and host defense patterns for those that do or do not develop HAP/VAP. Hospital-acquired pneumonia is the leading cause of death from nosocomial infections. Even in patients receiving pathogen-appropriate therapy, reported clinical failure rates are increasing, approaching 50% in recent clinical trials. Current approaches to improve outcomes in patients with pneumonia almost exclusively focus on the development of antibiotics to address the problem of resistance. However, the prevalence of antibiotic-resistant pathogens is insufficient to explain the high rates of clinical failure. Instead, we hypothesize that factors within the alveolar microenvironment in many patients with pneumonia prevent the active process of pneumonia resolution. These factors include pathogen-specific adaptations to the injured lung that modulate the innate and adaptive immune response, as well as changes to the alveolar microbiome, driven by selective pressure within our modern intensive care units. Understanding this complex adaptive system requires the integration of clinical information with unbiased measures of the host, pathogen, and microbiome changes within the alveolar microenvironment. These measures must be repeated over time to identify factors that distinguish successful from failed therapy for pneumonia sufficiently early during the clinical course to allow for effective interventions. To address this challenge, we have assembled a talented group of investigators in the Successful Clinical Response In Pneumonia Therapy (SCRIPT) Systems Biology Center. We will leverage our routine clinical practice of safe alveolar sampling in mechanically ventilated patients with pneumonia with repeated non-bronchoscopic bronchoalveolar lavage (NBBAL) sampling over the course of pneumonia. From this fluid, we will combine flow cytometry with multi-omic technologies (cell population-specific transcriptomics, epigenomics, shotgun microbiome sequencing, and pathogen-specific sequencing). Our systems scientists will integrate these genomic data with robust clinical -omics with the goal of identifying biomarkers that can be prospectively tested in patients and causally evaluated in humanized mouse models.The addition of a pooled sample artificially increases the number of automatically computed subjects by one.

  Study phs002300

• Study of Melanoma Risk in Australia and the United Kingdom

  The results from a small number of melanoma GWAS have been published. Initial studies identified several pigmentation- and nevus-associated loci that mediate an effect on melanoma risk, however, these studies were somewhat limited in that sample number (hence power) was low, they used first-generation low density SNP arrays, or used pools of DNA samples. Subsequently, additional melanoma GWAS have been completed, including a "Phase 2" study by the International Melanoma Genetics Consortium (GenoMEL), a full GWAS of the Australian sample resource previously used in a pooled-DNA GWAS, and study conducted through the MD Anderson Cancer Center and the Brigham and Women&#39;s Hospital. The groups who performed these studies have recently shared data and replicated a number of new melanoma susceptibility loci. Aside from the identification of novel loci, there are two additional notable outcomes of these studies. Firstly, an examination of the observed versus expected test statistics (Q-Q plot) from the Australian study, even after removing data from SNPs within known replicated susceptibility loci, reveals that there remains an excess of positive results. Similarly, the latest GenoMEL study finds almost three times as many SNPs reaching p-values between 10-4 and 10-5 as would be expected by chance. In the light of other studies of complex traits [1], these data suggest that studies based on additional melanoma samples from the same population are likely to identify an even larger "polygenic tail" and should prove invaluable in identifying and characterizing the underlying loci. A second observation, is that the effect size for replicated associations differs very little between GWAS. Given the strong effect of ultraviolet radiation (UVR) on risk of melanoma this might be expected to affect penetrance, particularly in the Australian and English samples, which are ethnically similar, but have very different sun exposures. We hypothesize that those SNPs whose effects are strongly mediated by UVR exposure may have smaller marginal effects on risk and are therefore harder to detect initially, suggesting a whole category of genetic effects that are unexplored.Indeed, most melanoma GWAS performed to date used samples from both European and Australian populations in discovery and or replication, and thus, existing studies have been poorly powered to detect associations with a wide difference in effect between these low- and high-UVR populations. Here, we wish to pursue this hypothesis further and plan to genotype additional cases drawn from the English and Australian populations. This will serve two complementary objectives: firstly, it will greatly increase our collective power to detect additional new melanoma risk alleles; secondly, it will highlight associations that are stronger specifically within the context of either low-UVR or high-UVR exposure environments. We posit that these data will be invaluable, not just for identifying novel melanoma-associated loci, but also for addressing gene-environment interactions. We have available a collection of valuable resources to help fulfill our aims. These include a considerable number of well-characterized and ungenotyped Australian and UK melanoma cases, as well as existing genotype data from sets of Australian and UK cases and population-based controls. We propose the following Specific Aims: To extend our current collective melanoma GWAS by genotyping a large number of additional UK and Australian cases. To jointly analyze these data and identify new melanoma risk loci. To determine whether pre-existing and new melanoma risk alleles show different degrees of association between the English and Australian populations, and assess whether these differences might be due to differences in sunlight exposure.

  Study phs000519

• Circulating kidney injury molecule-1 (KIM-1) and association with response to adjuvant immunotherapy in renal cell carcinoma

  Adjuvant immunotherapy is currently the standard of care for patients with resected renal cell carcinoma (RCC) at increased risk of recurrence, but there are no biomarkers available to guide treatment decisions. Kidney injury molecule-1 (KIM-1) has previously been described as a potential circulating biomarker in renal cell carcinoma. We evaluated biomarkers and outcomes among patients who participated in a randomized phase III trial of adjuvant atezolizumab versus placebo in resected RCC (IMmotion010). This trial did not meet its primary DFS endpoint in the intention-to-treat population. An affinity-based proximity extension proteomics assay was used to compare levels of circulating proteins among baseline (post-nephrectomy) serum samples and also with samples taken at time of recurrence. We demonstrate that serum KIM-1 was the most significantly enriched protein at recurrence versus baseline. Patients with serum KIM-1high at baseline had worse disease-free survival (DFS) (hazard ratio 1.68, 95% CI 1.35-2.09), but also had improved DFS when treated with adjuvant atezolizumab versus placebo (hazard ratio 0.72, 95% CI 0.52-0.99). An increase in KIM-1 during follow-up was associated with worse DFS compared to patients with no increase in KIM-1. Comparison of transcriptomic expression profiles in paired primary and recurrent tumor samples revealed that metastatic recurrence is associated with upregulation of transcriptional programs associated with tumor proliferation and myeloid immune suppression. Downregulation of an MHC class I signature was seen among patients with recurrence after treatment with atezolizumab but not placebo, suggesting this is a mechanism of resistance to PD-L1 immunotherapy. These analyses suggest that elevated post-nephrectomy serum KIM-1 enriches for benefit from adjuvant immunotherapy in RCC, and that biomarker driven adjuvant therapy should be evaluated as a potential new paradigm in RCC trials.

  Study EGAS50000001285

• Successful immune checkpoint blockade in a patient with advanced stage microsatellite unstable biliary tract cancer (H021)

  Cancers acquire multiple somatic mutations that can lead to the generation of immunogenic mutation-induced neoantigens. These neoantigens can be recognized by the host’s immune system. However, continuous stimulation of immune cells against tumor antigens can lead to immune cell exhaustion, which allows uncontrolled outgrowth of tumor cells. Recently, immune checkpoint inhibitors have emerged as a novel approach to overcome immune cell exhaustion and re-activate anti-tumor immune responses. In particular, antibodies blocking the exhaustion-mediating programmed death receptor (PD-1)/PD-L1 pathway have shown clinical efficacy. The effects were particularly pronounced in tumors with DNA mismatch repair deficiency and a high mutational load, which typically occur in the colon and endometrium. Here, we report on a 24-year old woman diagnosed with extrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma who showed strong and durable response to the immune checkpoint inhibitor pembrolizumab, although treatment was initiated at an advanced stage of disease. The patient’s tumor displayed DNA mismatch repair deficiency and microsatellite instability (MSI), but lacked other features commonly discussed as predictors of response towards checkpoint blockade, such as PD-L1 expression or dense infiltration with cytotoxic T cells. Notably, high levels of HLA class I and II antigen expression were detected in the tumor, suggesting a potential causal relation between functionality of the tumor’s antigen presentation machinery and the success of immune checkpoint blockade. We suggest determining MSI status in combination with HLA class I and II antigen expression in tumors potentially eligible for immune checkpoint blockade even in the absence of conventional markers predictive for anti-PD-1/PD-L1 therapy and in entities not commonly linked to MSI phenotype. Further studies are required to determine the value of these markers for predicting the success of immune checkpoint blockade. (H021)

  Study EGAS00001002441

• Substantial somatic genomic variation and selection for BCOR mutations in human induced pluripotent stem cells

  Human Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells (hiPSC) are an established patient-specific model system where opportunities are emerging for cell-based therapies. We compared and contrasted hiPSCs derived from different tissues, skin and blood, in the same individual. We show extensive single-nucleotide mutagenesis in all hiPSC lines, although fibroblast-derived hiPSCs (F-hiPSCs) are particularly heavily mutagenized by ultraviolet (UV)-related damage. We utilized genome sequencing data on 454 F-hiPSCs and 44 blood-derived hiPSCs (B-hiPSCs) to gain further insights. Across 324 whole genome sequenced (WGS) F-hiPSCs derived by the Human Induced Pluripotent Stem Cell Initiative (HipSci), UV-related damage is present in ~72% of cell lines, sometimes causing substantial mutagenesis (range 0.25-15 per Mb). Furthermore, we find remarkable genomic heterogeneity between independent F-hiPSC clones derived from the same reprogramming process in the same donor, due to oligoclonal populations within fibroblasts. Combining WGS and exome-sequencing data of 452 HipSci F-hiPSCs, we identify 272 predicted pathogenic mutations in cancer-related genes, of which 21 genes were hit recurrently three or more times, involving 77 (17%) lines. Notably, 151 of 272 mutations were present in starting fibroblast populations suggesting that more than half of putative driver events in F-hiPSCs were acquired in vivo. In contrast, B-hiPSCs reprogrammed from erythroblasts show lower levels of genome-wide mutations (range 0.28-1.4 per Mb), no UV damage, but a strikingly high prevalence of acquired BCOR mutations in ~57% of lines, indicative of strong selection pressure. All hiPSCs had otherwise stable, diploid genomes on karyotypic pre-screening, highlighting how copy-number-based approaches do not have the required resolution to detect widespread nucleotide mutagenesis. This work strongly suggests that models for cell-based therapies require detailed nucleotide-resolution characterization prior to clinical application.

  Dataset EGAD00001007029

• From research to data sharing: exploring EGA user's experiences

  The Cell Plasticity and Regeneration Group at the Bellvitge Biomedical Research Institute-IDIBELL focuses on the process of recruitment of macrophages that takes place in the small intestine during injury and healing. They recently published a paper titled “Mucosal Macrophages Govern Intestinal Regeneration in Response to Injury" in Gastroenterology Journal. As part of the research, some experiments were conducted using human intestinal organoid lines. These cells were processed for RNA sequencing, and the sequencing data were deposited at the EGA to be made available to the scientific community. When dealing with human genomic information, repositories must ensure the availability of the datasets while ensuring data protection. In this context, the European Genome-phenome Archive stands as a service for secure archiving and sharing of genetic, phenotypic and clinical data resulting from biomedical research. Following the recent publication of their paper, we took the opportunity to talk to Ilias Moraitis, first author, and Jordi Guiu, group leader, to find out about their experience with data sharing. Could you explain the focus of your research? In the lab, we study intestinal regeneration and how immune cells participate in this process. We use several techniques: engineered mouse models, image tracing, as well as mouse and human cells intestinal organoids. What challenges do you face regarding data management? We didn’t have a lot of problems. Always the informatic part, the data analysis, can give problems. But everything was smooth and working. We think it’s very important to deposit the data in repositories. For the mouse data it is very straightforward, but for us it was the first time depositing human data, which is sensitive because it comes from patients, and this is legally regulated. That’s why we thought about the EGA, and it was our first time. Why do you think it is important to submit data to repositories such as EGA? Because we think data is important for the science. Nowadays, we are sequencing a lot everywhere worldwide and having these resources shared with the scientific community it’s not only good for science, but it is also saving money and reducing costs. And there is so much data in there that can be used for other projects and for other questions. And it saves time! How was the process of submitting the data to the EGA? The communication worked very well but it was slower than we would like. But I think this is something we learn on the way. People usually wait until the last minute to do this before publication but if you know it in advance, you can start the process earlier. If you had to repeat the process, would you do anything differently? It’s like everything, isn’t it? For the first time you don’t know, you aren’t sure, but for the second time you know the steps, you know what to do and it’s faster. Of course, we would to do it earlier. Also, there were some things related to the control access that we didn’t know how to manage, but it was something more internal to us. Who is going to receive the communications and when, is our ethical committee going to evaluate this? All these technicalities that we didn’t know before starting this process, so we had to think about all these things. Next time it will be faster on our side. Do you have any suggestions for us to improve the submission process? Maybe we’ll need to ask our bioinformatician who did it! He was in charge of this part. Besides that, we think if the process were faster, it would be better for everyone. Also, in science a lot of times you have to do a lot of things at the very last minute, because of the nature of the experiments, or the need to accomplish for submitting a paper. Being faster in the process would be a plus. On your side, we went through the process and were able to find some information, but there were aspects we weren't aware of and weren't sure how to handle. I'm not sure if other institutes have different protocols for managing data requests or how they handle these internally. We believe the main issue lies in how the forms are filled out. Do you have any recommendations for other submitters? The main advice is to do this with enough time. Submit the data when you have the sequences, and don’t wait until the last minute. And then it can be under embargo, so you don’t need to make it public at that moment. As soon as you sequence, upload it and then it will be there for whenever you need to publish. How do you think we could encourage other researchers to submit their data? There are different layers here. One is that it is mandatory. You have to do this. The other is that we belong to a research community, to the same community and sharing this is making our research community stronger and more efficient. And then, also because this gives you visibility. The data is there, other people can analyse your data, and this also will bring citations to your papers. It has many advantages.

  Blog from-research-to-data-sharing

• The NCAA-DoD Concussion Assessment, Research, and Education (CARE) Consortium

  Study Description: Established in 2014, the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) and the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) funded the Concussion Assessment, Research and Education (CARE) Consortium to inform science, clinical care and public policy related to concussion and repetitive head impact exposure (HIE) in U.S. Military Service Academy (MSA) cadets and collegiate student-athletes. The primary aims of the initial study were to: (1) establish a multisite research consortium to characterize the effects of concussion and repetitive head impact exposure on brain health, (2) characterize the clinical sequelae and natural history of concussion, (3) characterize the effect of concussion and repetitive head impacts on brain structure and brain function. The 30 member institutions of the CARE Consortium (26 civilian universities/colleges and 4 military service academies) agreed to invite all varsity athletes to undergo multimodal clinical assessments at preseason baseline, and at 5 additional timepoints after concussion diagnosis. At the service academies, non-varsity athlete cadets/midshipmen were also studied. Assessment Categories At Each Time Point Baseline: &#8226; Demographics &#8226; Personal and Family History &#8226; Neurocognitive Assessment &#8226; Neurological Status &#8226; Postural Stability &#8226; Symptoms ACUTE POST-INJURY FOLLOW-UP (CARE 1.0) (24 hrs; 48hrs; Asymptomatic; Unrestricted Return to Play (RTP); 6 mos) &#8226; Neurocognitive Assessment &#8226; Neurological Status &#8226; Postural Stability &#8226; Symptoms CUMULATIVE &amp; PERSISTENT EFFECTS. (CARE 2.0) In-Person Exit Visit; Post-grad Online &#8226; Demographics &#8226; Personal and Family History &#8226; Neurocognitive Assessment &#8226; Neurological Status &#8226; Postural Stability &#8226; Symptoms &#8226; PROs &#8226; MROs (at academies only) LONG-TERM EFFECTS (CARE/SALTOS Integrated (CSI))Annual Online Assessment (at MSAs only); In-Person Research Visits &#8226; Demographics &#8226; Symptoms &#8226; Psychological health &#8226; PROs &#8226; MROs (at academies only)A subset of athletes at 6 of the CARE institutions underwent additional assessments including multimodal MRI, proteomic and genomic biomarker characterization, and head impact quantification (helmet-based sensors). Assessment time points for the ARC/pARC Neurocognitive and Behavioral Testing was done at Baseline, &lt;48hrs Post-Injury, Cleared for Return to Play Progression (Asymptomatic), Unrestricted Return to Play, 7 days following Return to Play, and at &gt;60 days after final game of junior year until end of collegiate career.Blood biomarker collection was done at Baseline, &lt;48hrs Post-Injury, Cleared for Return to Play Progression (Asymptomatic), 7 days following Return to Play, and at &gt;60 days after final game of junior year until end of collegiate career. Multi-modal MRI studies were done at Baseline, &lt;48hrs Post-Injury, Cleared for Return to Play Progression (Asymptomatic), 7 days following Return to Play, and at &gt;60 days after final game of junior year until end of collegiate career. However, please note that only athletes from one study performance site completed a multi-modal MRI study at baseline.

  Study phs002175

• Providing access to COVID-19 data: one year later

  response efforts On 11 March 2020 the World Health Organization declared the novel coronavirus outbreak a global pandemic. Four months later, the European Genome-phenome Archive (EGA) released its first COVID-19 dataset. This dataset – single cell RNA and VDJ sequencing of B cells from 60 COVID-19 patients – showed that neutralizing antibodies could be identified by high-throughput sequencing in response to SARS-CoV-2 infection. That was one year ago. Today, the EGA provides access to fifteen COVID-19 datasets from researchers across seven countries in Asia, Europe, and North America. These studies represent almost 17,000 individuals and have resulted in at least sixteen publications and preprints. Researchers deposit controlled access COVID-19 data at EGA The global research community has come together rapidly to investigate the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus and better understand the related disease, COVID-19. These research efforts generate valuable genetic and phenotypic data from patients and research participants that can be shared with approved researchers. The EGA enables sharing of this research data by providing a service for archiving and controlled distribution of sensitive data. Over the past year, the EGA has worked with researchers to archive and distribute COVID-19 data from high-throughput sequencing experiments, genotyping studies, and phenotypic information. These datasets investigate the immune system, blood, and cells and tissues of the lung, which are relevant for studying a contagious respiratory illness caused by a viral infection. *Study Spotlight. In January 2021, Ancestry.com demonstrated the utility of deep phenotyping based on self-reported outcomes from a large population of mild and asymptomatic COVID-19 cases. They identified genetic associations with eight COVID-19 phenotypes and showed distinct patterns of association, most notably related to the chr3/SLC6A20/LZTFL1 and chr9/ABO regions. The supporting data is available at the EGA to approved researchers and includes both genotype and phenotype data for 15,000 individuals. EGA collaborates with global COVID-19 community Since the coronavirus outbreak, the EGA has collaborated with other life science resources to support discovery and access to COVID-19 datasets. COVID-19 Host Genetics Initiative. With the NHGRI’s Genomic Data Science Analysis, Visualization, and Informatics Lab-space (AnVIL) platform, the EGA enables sharing of individual-level genetic and phenotypic data from the COVID-19 Host Genetics Initiative (HGI). This initiative aims to generate, share, and analyze data from COVID-19 host genetics research projects to better understand the genetic determinants of COVID-19 susceptibility, severity, and outcomes. In response to COVID-19, the EGA actively supports COVID-19 data submissions and integration of data access and flow into the COVID-19-HGI analysis platform. *Study Spotlight. The COVID-19 HGI has combined individual-level data for 13,868 COVID-19 positive patients (N=7,167 hospitalized) from 17 cohorts in nine countries. The data were used to assess the association of the major common COVID-19 genetic risk factor (chromosome 3 locus tagged by rs10490770) with mortality, COVID-19-related complications, and laboratory values. The genotype and phenotype data for 10 of these cohorts is available at the EGA to approved researchers under accession EGAS00001005304. Fig 1: EGA COVID-19 studies are searchable in the European COVID-19 Data Portal alongside other COVID-19 and SARS-CoV-2 public datasets. European COVID-19 Data Portal. EGA-archived COVID-19 data are discoverable via the European COVID-19 Data Portal (Fig. 1), which brings together public and controlled access data to accelerate coronavirus research for the international community. By indexing all COVID-19-related data in one place, researchers can more easily discover relevant datasets of interest, thus increasing the “FAIRness” (Findability, Accessibility, Interoperability, Reusability) of this valuable data. Fig 2: SARS-CoV-2 viral sequences are imported from ENA and analysed in Galaxy to detect variants. Results are accessible to researchers through the COVID-19 Viral Beacon. COVID-19 Viral Beacon. The COVID-19 Viral Beacon tool was developed in collaboration with the European Nucleotide Archive and Galaxy to enable near real-time browsing of SARS-CoV-2 variability at genomic, amino acid, and motif levels (Fig. 2). The COVID-19 Viral Beacon allows researchers to (i) perform detailed searches about genomic variants, (ii) filter queries and find unique cases, (iii) filter data based on strain-specific variants, and (iv) explore associated metadata. It uses the Global Alliance for Genomics and Health (GA4GH) Beacon standard including new Beacon v2 features. With this tool, researchers can study intra-host mutations on genomic regions of interest, or trace any variant frequency over time using raw read data. More than 200,000 SARS-CoV-2 analysed genomic data files are now available to researchers for further exploration. Ongoing COVID-19 efforts at EGA Addressing the COVID-19 pandemic is a global effort. Federated resources are necessary to support transnational deposition, access, and analysis of sensitive COVID-19 host genetics and other related data. At the same time, many countries now have emerging personalized medicine programmes which are generating data from national or regional healthcare initiatives. These data are subject to more stringent information governance than research data and often must comply with national data protection legislation. To address this need, the Federated EGA was established to serve as the primary global resource for discovery and access of sensitive human omics and associated data consented for secondary use. The Federated EGA will comprise a network of national human data repositories and will implement community standards and common interfaces. Launching Federated EGA promises to accelerate not only global research efforts to understand, diagnose, and treat COVID-19, but also to foster data reuse, enable reproducibility, and accelerate biomedical and disease research to ultimately improve human health.

  Blog providing-access-to-covid-19

• HCA_Thymus_Disease_DiGeorge_Transplant_RNA

  Single cell transcriptomics study of thymic transplant biopsies Allogeneic thymus transplantation is the only curative therapy for complete DiGeorge Syndrome (cDGS), a rare severe primary immunodeficiency characterised by athymia. GOSH is one of only two centres worldwide to offer this treatment. Despite a lack of major histocompatibility complex (MHC)-matching between donor and host, transplanted thymus becomes repopulated by recipient bone marrow derived precursor cells and supports development of functional T-cells. The mechanisms underlying thymopoiesis in this context are poorly understood, but over time we observe reconstitution of T-cell immunity, with the ability to produce host naïve T-cells showing a broad T-cell receptor (TCR) repertoire and to generate MHC-restricted T-cell proliferative responses. Although lifesaving, the achieved immunological reconstitution is typically not complete with circulating T-cell numbers usually remaining below the age related normal ranges. Additionally, we observe persistence of donor-derived T-cells of unknown clinical significance. To gain more insight into the mechanisms by which MHC-mismatched transplanted thymus supports T-cell development with self-tolerance, as well as into the basis of suboptimal T-cell immunity, we now aim to investigate immune reconstitution after thymus transplantation in further detail by using single-cell transcriptomics, applied to thymic transplant biopsies and peripheral blood samples collected during standard post-transplant patient care. By identifying which lineages of host- derived cells repopulate the thymic tissue after transplantation, we will be able to address the role of MHC in positive and negative T-cell selection during T-cell differentiation. We will also be able to clarify the exact ontogeny of the persistent donor T-cells, as well as their possible role. Understanding the mechanisms of action of HLA-mismatched transplanted thymus will contribute to treatment optimisation. Additionally, our research provides a unique opportunity to further investigate key immunological concepts, such as tolerance and autoimmunity, challenging existing paradigms in thymus immunology. This data is part of a pre-publication release. For information on the proper use of pre-publication data shared by the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute (including details of any publication moratoria), please see http://www.sanger.ac.uk/datasharing/

  Study EGAS00001004025