1
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Fukumura K, Sperotto L, Seuß S, Kang HS, Yoshimoto R, Sattler M, Mayeda A. SAP30BP interacts with RBM17/SPF45 to promote splicing in a subset of human short introns. Cell Rep 2023; 42:113534. [PMID: 38065098 DOI: 10.1016/j.celrep.2023.113534] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/13/2023] [Revised: 11/03/2023] [Accepted: 11/16/2023] [Indexed: 12/30/2023] Open
Abstract
Human pre-mRNA splicing requires the removal of introns with highly variable lengths, from tens to over a million nucleotides. Therefore, mechanisms of intron recognition and splicing are likely not universal. Recently, we reported that splicing in a subset of human short introns with truncated polypyrimidine tracts depends on RBM17 (SPF45), instead of the canonical splicing factor U2 auxiliary factor (U2AF) heterodimer. Here, we demonstrate that SAP30BP, a factor previously implicated in transcriptional control, is an essential splicing cofactor for RBM17. In vitro binding and nuclear magnetic resonance analyses demonstrate that a U2AF-homology motif (UHM) in RBM17 binds directly to a newly identified UHM-ligand motif in SAP30BP. We show that this RBM17-SAP30BP interaction is required to specifically recruit RBM17 to phosphorylated SF3B1 (SF3b155), a U2 small nuclear ribonucleoprotein (U2 snRNP) component in active spliceosomes. We propose a mechanism for splicing in a subset of short introns, in which SAP30BP guides RBM17 in the assembly of active spliceosomes.
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Affiliation(s)
- Kazuhiro Fukumura
- Division of Gene Expression Mechanism, Center for Medical Science, Fujita Health University, Toyoake, Aichi 470-1192, Japan.
| | - Luca Sperotto
- Institute of Structural Biology, Helmholtz Zentrum München, 85764 Neuherberg, Germany; Bavarian NMR Center, TUM School of Natural Sciences, 85748 Garching, Germany
| | - Stefanie Seuß
- Institute of Structural Biology, Helmholtz Zentrum München, 85764 Neuherberg, Germany; Bavarian NMR Center, TUM School of Natural Sciences, 85748 Garching, Germany
| | - Hyun-Seo Kang
- Institute of Structural Biology, Helmholtz Zentrum München, 85764 Neuherberg, Germany; Bavarian NMR Center, TUM School of Natural Sciences, 85748 Garching, Germany
| | - Rei Yoshimoto
- Department of Applied Biological Sciences, Faculty of Agriculture, Setsunan University, Hirakata, Osaka 673-0101, Japan
| | - Michael Sattler
- Institute of Structural Biology, Helmholtz Zentrum München, 85764 Neuherberg, Germany; Bavarian NMR Center, TUM School of Natural Sciences, 85748 Garching, Germany
| | - Akila Mayeda
- Division of Gene Expression Mechanism, Center for Medical Science, Fujita Health University, Toyoake, Aichi 470-1192, Japan.
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2
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Zhang C, Fang Y, Chen W, Chen Z, Zhang Y, Xie Y, Chen W, Xie Z, Guo M, Wang J, Tan C, Wang H, Tang C. Improving the RNA velocity approach with single-cell RNA lifecycle (nascent, mature and degrading RNAs) sequencing technologies. Nucleic Acids Res 2023; 51:e112. [PMID: 37941145 PMCID: PMC10711548 DOI: 10.1093/nar/gkad969] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/05/2023] [Revised: 09/27/2023] [Accepted: 10/14/2023] [Indexed: 11/10/2023] Open
Abstract
We presented an experimental method called FLOUR-seq, which combines BD Rhapsody and nanopore sequencing to detect the RNA lifecycle (including nascent, mature, and degrading RNAs) in cells. Additionally, we updated our HIT-scISOseq V2 to discover a more accurate RNA lifecycle using 10x Chromium and Pacbio sequencing. Most importantly, to explore how single-cell full-length RNA sequencing technologies could help improve the RNA velocity approach, we introduced a new algorithm called 'Region Velocity' to more accurately configure cellular RNA velocity. We applied this algorithm to study spermiogenesis and compared the performance of FLOUR-seq with Pacbio-based HIT-scISOseq V2. Our findings demonstrated that 'Region Velocity' is more suitable for analyzing single-cell full-length RNA data than traditional RNA velocity approaches. These novel methods could be useful for researchers looking to discover full-length RNAs in single cells and comprehensively monitor RNA lifecycle in cells.
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Affiliation(s)
| | | | - Weitian Chen
- BGI, Shenzhen 518000, China
- BGI Education Center, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shenzhen 518083, China
| | | | - Ying Zhang
- Guangdong Provincial Reproductive Science Institute (Guangdong Provincial Fertility Hospital), Guangzhou, China; NHC Key Laboratory of Male Reproduction and Genetics, Guangzhou, China
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3
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Girardini KN, Olthof AM, Kanadia RN. Introns: the "dark matter" of the eukaryotic genome. Front Genet 2023; 14:1150212. [PMID: 37260773 PMCID: PMC10228655 DOI: 10.3389/fgene.2023.1150212] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/23/2023] [Accepted: 04/28/2023] [Indexed: 06/02/2023] Open
Abstract
The emergence of introns was a significant evolutionary leap that is a major distinguishing feature between prokaryotic and eukaryotic genomes. While historically introns were regarded merely as the sequences that are removed to produce spliced transcripts encoding functional products, increasingly data suggests that introns play important roles in the regulation of gene expression. Here, we use an intron-centric lens to review the role of introns in eukaryotic gene expression. First, we focus on intron architecture and how it may influence mechanisms of splicing. Second, we focus on the implications of spliceosomal snRNAs and their variants on intron splicing. Finally, we discuss how the presence of introns and the need to splice them influences transcription regulation. Despite the abundance of introns in the eukaryotic genome and their emerging role regulating gene expression, a lot remains unexplored. Therefore, here we refer to introns as the "dark matter" of the eukaryotic genome and discuss some of the outstanding questions in the field.
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Affiliation(s)
- Kaitlin N. Girardini
- Physiology and Neurobiology Department, University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT, United States
| | - Anouk M. Olthof
- Physiology and Neurobiology Department, University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT, United States
- Department of Cellular and Molecular Medicine, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark
| | - Rahul N. Kanadia
- Physiology and Neurobiology Department, University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT, United States
- Institute for Systems Genomics, University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT, United States
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4
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Loewenthal G, Wygoda E, Nagar N, Glick L, Mayrose I, Pupko T. The evolutionary dynamics that retain long neutral genomic sequences in face of indel deletion bias: a model and its application to human introns. Open Biol 2022; 12:220223. [PMID: 36514983 PMCID: PMC9748784 DOI: 10.1098/rsob.220223] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/15/2022] Open
Abstract
Insertions and deletions (indels) of short DNA segments are common evolutionary events. Numerous studies showed that deletions occur more often than insertions in both prokaryotes and eukaryotes. It raises the question why neutral sequences are not eradicated from the genome. We suggest that this is due to a phenomenon we term border-induced selection. Accordingly, a neutral sequence is bordered between conserved regions. Deletions occurring near the borders occasionally protrude to the conserved region and are thereby subject to strong purifying selection. Thus, for short neutral sequences, an insertion bias is expected. Here, we develop a set of increasingly complex models of indel dynamics that incorporate border-induced selection. Furthermore, we show that short conserved sequences within the neutrally evolving sequence help explain: (i) the presence of very long sequences; (ii) the high variance of sequence lengths; and (iii) the possible emergence of multimodality in sequence length distributions. Finally, we fitted our models to the human intron length distribution, as introns are thought to be mostly neutral and bordered by conserved exons. We show that when accounting for the occurrence of short conserved sequences within introns, we reproduce the main features, including the presence of long introns and the multimodality of intron distribution.
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Affiliation(s)
- Gil Loewenthal
- The Shmunis School of Biomedicine and Cancer Research, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv 69978, Israel
| | - Elya Wygoda
- The Shmunis School of Biomedicine and Cancer Research, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv 69978, Israel
| | - Natan Nagar
- The Shmunis School of Biomedicine and Cancer Research, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv 69978, Israel
| | - Lior Glick
- School of Plant Sciences and Food Security, George S. Wise Faculty of Life Sciences, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv 69978, Israel
| | - Itay Mayrose
- School of Plant Sciences and Food Security, George S. Wise Faculty of Life Sciences, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv 69978, Israel
| | - Tal Pupko
- The Shmunis School of Biomedicine and Cancer Research, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv 69978, Israel
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5
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Kim HC, Jolly ER. LncRNAs Are Differentially Expressed between Wildtype and Cell Line Strains of African Trypanosomes. Noncoding RNA 2022; 8:ncrna8010007. [PMID: 35076577 PMCID: PMC8788480 DOI: 10.3390/ncrna8010007] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/23/2021] [Revised: 01/02/2022] [Accepted: 01/08/2022] [Indexed: 12/15/2022] Open
Abstract
Trypanosoma brucei is a parasitic protist that causes African sleeping sickness. The establishment of T. brucei cell lines has provided a significant advantage for the majority of T. brucei research. However, these cell lines were isolated and maintained in culture for decades, occasionally accumulating changes in gene expression. Since trypanosome strains have been maintained in culture for decades, it is possible that difference may have accumulated in fast-evolving non-coding RNAs between trypanosomes from the wild and those maintained extensively in cultures. To address this, we compared the lncRNA expression profile of trypanosomes maintained as cultured cell lines (CL) to those extracted from human patients, wildtype (WT). We identified lncRNAs from CL and WT from available transcriptomic data and demonstrate that CL and WT have unique sets of lncRNAs expressed. We further demonstrate that the unique and shared lncRNAs are differentially expressed between CL and WT parasites, and that these lncRNAs are more evenly up-regulated and down-regulated than protein-coding genes. We validated the expression of these lncRNAs using qPCR. Taken together, this study demonstrates that lncRNAs are differentially expressed between cell lines and wildtype T. brucei and provides evidence for potential evolution of lncRNAs, specifically in T. brucei maintained in culture.
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Affiliation(s)
- Hyung Chul Kim
- Department of Biology, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH 44106, USA;
| | - Emmitt R. Jolly
- Department of Biology, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH 44106, USA;
- Center for Global Health and Disease, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH 44106, USA
- Center for RNA Science and Therapeutics, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH 44106, USA
- Correspondence:
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6
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de Melo Costa VR, Pfeuffer J, Louloupi A, Ørom UAV, Piro RM. SPLICE-q: a Python tool for genome-wide quantification of splicing efficiency. BMC Bioinformatics 2021; 22:368. [PMID: 34266387 PMCID: PMC8281633 DOI: 10.1186/s12859-021-04282-6] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/16/2020] [Accepted: 07/06/2021] [Indexed: 11/10/2022] Open
Abstract
BACKGROUND Introns are generally removed from primary transcripts to form mature RNA molecules in a post-transcriptional process called splicing. An efficient splicing of primary transcripts is an essential step in gene expression and its misregulation is related to numerous human diseases. Thus, to better understand the dynamics of this process and the perturbations that might be caused by aberrant transcript processing it is important to quantify splicing efficiency. RESULTS Here, we introduce SPLICE-q, a fast and user-friendly Python tool for genome-wide SPLICing Efficiency quantification. It supports studies focusing on the implications of splicing efficiency in transcript processing dynamics. SPLICE-q uses aligned reads from strand-specific RNA-seq to quantify splicing efficiency for each intron individually and allows the user to select different levels of restrictiveness concerning the introns' overlap with other genomic elements such as exons of other genes. We applied SPLICE-q to globally assess the dynamics of intron excision in yeast and human nascent RNA-seq. We also show its application using total RNA-seq from a patient-matched prostate cancer sample. CONCLUSIONS Our analyses illustrate that SPLICE-q is suitable to detect a progressive increase of splicing efficiency throughout a time course of nascent RNA-seq and it might be useful when it comes to understanding cancer progression beyond mere gene expression levels. SPLICE-q is available at: https://github.com/vrmelo/SPLICE-q.
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Affiliation(s)
- Verônica R de Melo Costa
- Institute of Computer Science and Institute of Bioinformatics, Freie Universität Berlin, Berlin, Germany.
- Department of Computational Molecular Biology, Max Planck Institute for Molecular Genetics, Berlin, Germany.
| | - Julianus Pfeuffer
- Institute of Computer Science and Institute of Bioinformatics, Freie Universität Berlin, Berlin, Germany
- Department of Computer Science, Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany
- Institute for Bioinformatics and Medical Informatics Tübingen, Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany
| | - Annita Louloupi
- Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine, Berlin Institute for Medical Systems Biology, Berlin, Germany
| | - Ulf A V Ørom
- Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics, Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark
| | - Rosario M Piro
- Dipartimento di Elettronica, Informazione e Bioingegneria, Politecnico di Milano, Milan, Italy.
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7
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Dutta A, Singh KK, Anand A. SpliceViNCI: Visualizing the splicing of non-canonical introns through recurrent neural networks. J Bioinform Comput Biol 2021; 19:2150014. [PMID: 34088258 DOI: 10.1142/s0219720021500141] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/18/2022]
Abstract
Most of the current computational models for splice junction prediction are based on the identification of canonical splice junctions. However, it is observed that the junctions lacking the consensus dimers GT and AG also undergo splicing. Identification of such splice junctions, called the non-canonical splice junctions, is also essential for a comprehensive understanding of the splicing phenomenon. This work focuses on the identification of non-canonical splice junctions through the application of a bidirectional long short-term memory (BLSTM) network. Furthermore, we apply a back-propagation-based (integrated gradient) and a perturbation-based (occlusion) visualization techniques to extract the non-canonical splicing features learned by the model. The features obtained are validated with the existing knowledge from the literature. Integrated gradient extracts features that comprise contiguous nucleotides, whereas occlusion extracts features that are individual nucleotides distributed across the sequence.
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Affiliation(s)
- Aparajita Dutta
- Department of CSE, Indian Institute of Technology, Guwahati, India
| | | | - Ashish Anand
- Department of CSE, Indian Institute of Technology, Guwahati, India
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8
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Antonaros F, Zenatelli R, Guerri G, Bertelli M, Locatelli C, Vione B, Catapano F, Gori A, Vitale L, Pelleri MC, Ramacieri G, Cocchi G, Strippoli P, Caracausi M, Piovesan A. The transcriptome profile of human trisomy 21 blood cells. Hum Genomics 2021; 15:25. [PMID: 33933170 PMCID: PMC8088681 DOI: 10.1186/s40246-021-00325-4] [Citation(s) in RCA: 9] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/07/2021] [Accepted: 04/14/2021] [Indexed: 12/18/2022] Open
Abstract
BACKGROUND Trisomy 21 (T21) is a genetic alteration characterised by the presence of an extra full or partial human chromosome 21 (Hsa21) leading to Down syndrome (DS), the most common form of intellectual disability (ID). It is broadly agreed that the presence of extra genetic material in T21 gives origin to an altered expression of genes located on Hsa21 leading to DS phenotype. The aim of this study was to analyse T21 and normal control blood cell gene expression profiles obtained by total RNA sequencing (RNA-Seq). RESULTS The results were elaborated by the TRAM (Transcriptome Mapper) software which generated a differential transcriptome map between human T21 and normal control blood cells providing the gene expression ratios for 17,867 loci. The obtained gene expression profiles were validated through real-time reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) assay and compared with previously published data. A post-analysis through transcriptome mapping allowed the identification of the segmental (regional) variation of the expression level across the whole genome (segment-based analysis of expression). Interestingly, the most over-expressed genes encode for interferon-induced proteins, two of them (MX1 and MX2 genes) mapping on Hsa21 (21q22.3). The altered expression of genes involved in mitochondrial translation and energy production also emerged, followed by the altered expression of genes encoding for the folate cycle enzyme, GART, and the folate transporter, SLC19A1. CONCLUSIONS The alteration of these pathways might be linked and involved in the manifestation of ID in DS.
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Affiliation(s)
- Francesca Antonaros
- Department of Experimental, Diagnostic and Specialty Medicine (DIMES), Unit of Histology, Embryology and Applied Biology, University of Bologna, Via Belmeloro 8, 40126, Bologna, BO, Italy
| | - Rossella Zenatelli
- Department of Experimental, Diagnostic and Specialty Medicine (DIMES), Unit of Histology, Embryology and Applied Biology, University of Bologna, Via Belmeloro 8, 40126, Bologna, BO, Italy.,Current Address: Department of Molecular and Translational Medicine (DMMT), University of Brescia, Viale Europa 11, 24123, Brescia, BS, Italy
| | - Giulia Guerri
- MAGI'S Lab, Via delle Maioliche 57/D, 38068, Rovereto, TN, Italy
| | - Matteo Bertelli
- MAGI'S Lab, Via delle Maioliche 57/D, 38068, Rovereto, TN, Italy
| | - Chiara Locatelli
- Neonatology Unit, St. Orsola-Malpighi Polyclinic, Via Massarenti 9, 40138, Bologna, BO, Italy
| | - Beatrice Vione
- Department of Experimental, Diagnostic and Specialty Medicine (DIMES), Unit of Histology, Embryology and Applied Biology, University of Bologna, Via Belmeloro 8, 40126, Bologna, BO, Italy
| | - Francesca Catapano
- Department of Experimental, Diagnostic and Specialty Medicine (DIMES), Unit of Histology, Embryology and Applied Biology, University of Bologna, Via Belmeloro 8, 40126, Bologna, BO, Italy.,Current Address: Department of Medical Biotechnologies, University of Siena, Strada delle Scotte, 4, 53100, Siena, SI, Italy
| | - Alice Gori
- Department of Experimental, Diagnostic and Specialty Medicine (DIMES), Unit of Histology, Embryology and Applied Biology, University of Bologna, Via Belmeloro 8, 40126, Bologna, BO, Italy
| | - Lorenza Vitale
- Department of Experimental, Diagnostic and Specialty Medicine (DIMES), Unit of Histology, Embryology and Applied Biology, University of Bologna, Via Belmeloro 8, 40126, Bologna, BO, Italy
| | - Maria Chiara Pelleri
- Department of Experimental, Diagnostic and Specialty Medicine (DIMES), Unit of Histology, Embryology and Applied Biology, University of Bologna, Via Belmeloro 8, 40126, Bologna, BO, Italy
| | - Giuseppe Ramacieri
- Department of Experimental, Diagnostic and Specialty Medicine (DIMES), Unit of Histology, Embryology and Applied Biology, University of Bologna, Via Belmeloro 8, 40126, Bologna, BO, Italy
| | - Guido Cocchi
- Neonatology Unit, St. Orsola-Malpighi Polyclinic, Department of Medical and Surgical Sciences (DIMEC), University of Bologna, Via Massarenti 9, 40138, Bologna, BO, Italy
| | - Pierluigi Strippoli
- Department of Experimental, Diagnostic and Specialty Medicine (DIMES), Unit of Histology, Embryology and Applied Biology, University of Bologna, Via Belmeloro 8, 40126, Bologna, BO, Italy
| | - Maria Caracausi
- Department of Experimental, Diagnostic and Specialty Medicine (DIMES), Unit of Histology, Embryology and Applied Biology, University of Bologna, Via Belmeloro 8, 40126, Bologna, BO, Italy.
| | - Allison Piovesan
- Department of Experimental, Diagnostic and Specialty Medicine (DIMES), Unit of Histology, Embryology and Applied Biology, University of Bologna, Via Belmeloro 8, 40126, Bologna, BO, Italy
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9
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Mor-Shaked H, Salah S, Yanovsky-Dagan S, Meiner V, Atawneh OM, Abu-Libdeh B, Elpeleg O, Harel T. Biallelic deletion in a minimal CAPN15 intron in siblings with a recognizable syndrome of congenital malformations and developmental delay. Clin Genet 2021; 99:577-582. [PMID: 33410501 DOI: 10.1111/cge.13920] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/02/2020] [Revised: 12/24/2020] [Accepted: 01/05/2021] [Indexed: 12/31/2022]
Abstract
Calpainopathies constitute a heterogeneous group of disorders resulting from deficiencies in calpains, calcium-specific proteases that modulate substrates by limited proteolysis. Clinical manifestations depend on tissue-specific expression of the defective calpain and substrate specificity. CAPN15, encoding the Drosophila small optic lobes (sol) homolog, was recently found to cause various eye defects in individuals carrying bi-allelic missense variants. Here we report on two siblings with manifestations reminiscent of Johanson-Blizzard syndrome including failure to thrive, microcephaly, global developmental delay, dysmorphic features, endocrine abnormalities and congenital malformations, in addition to eye abnormalities. Exome sequencing identified a homozygous 47 base-pair deletion in a minimal intron of CAPN15, including the splice donor site. Sequencing of cDNA revealed single exon skipping, resulting in an out-of-frame deletion with a predicted premature termination codon. These findings expand the phenotypic spectrum associated with CAPN15 variants, and suggest that complete loss-of-function is associated with a recognizable syndrome of congenital malformations and developmental delay, overlapping Johanson-Blizzard syndrome and the recently observed brain defects in Capn15 knockout (KO) mice. Moreover, the data highlight the unique opportunity for indel detection in minimal introns.
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Affiliation(s)
- Hagar Mor-Shaked
- Department of Genetics, Hadassah Medical Center, Jerusalem, Israel.,Faculty of Medicine, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Israel
| | - Somaya Salah
- Department of Genetics, Hadassah Medical Center, Jerusalem, Israel.,Genetic Unit, Palestine Red Crescent Society Hospital, Hebron, Palestine
| | | | - Vardiella Meiner
- Department of Genetics, Hadassah Medical Center, Jerusalem, Israel.,Faculty of Medicine, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Israel
| | - Osama M Atawneh
- Pediatric Neurology Unit, Palestine Red Crescent Society Hospital, Hebron, Palestine
| | - Bassam Abu-Libdeh
- Department of Pediatrics, Makassed Hospital and Al-Quds Medical School, East Jerusalem, Palestine
| | - Orly Elpeleg
- Department of Genetics, Hadassah Medical Center, Jerusalem, Israel.,Faculty of Medicine, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Israel
| | - Tamar Harel
- Department of Genetics, Hadassah Medical Center, Jerusalem, Israel.,Faculty of Medicine, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Israel
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10
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Doshi J, Willis K, Madurga A, Stelzer C, Benenson Y. Multiple Alternative Promoters and Alternative Splicing Enable Universal Transcription-Based Logic Computation in Mammalian Cells. Cell Rep 2020; 33:108437. [PMID: 33264624 DOI: 10.1016/j.celrep.2020.108437] [Citation(s) in RCA: 7] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/28/2020] [Revised: 09/04/2020] [Accepted: 11/05/2020] [Indexed: 10/22/2022] Open
Abstract
Multi-input logic gene circuits can enable sophisticated control of cell function, yet large-scale synthetic circuitry in mammalian cells has relied on post-transcriptional regulation or recombinase-triggered state transitions. Large-scale transcriptional logic, on the other hand, has been challenging to implement. Inspired by a naturally found regulatory strategy of using multiple alternative promoters, followed by alternative splicing, we developed a scalable and compact platform for transcriptional OR logic using inputs to those promoters. The platform is extended to implement disjunctive normal form (DNF) computations capable of implementing arbitrary logic rules. Specifically, AND logic is implemented at individual promoters using synergistic transcriptional inputs, and NOT logic via microRNA inputs targeting unique exon sequences driven by those promoters. Together, these regulatory programs result in DNF-like logic control of output gene expression. The approach offers flexibility for building complex logic programs in mammalian cells.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jiten Doshi
- Department of Biosystems Science and Engineering, ETH Zurich, Mattenstrasse 26, 4058 Basel, Switzerland
| | - Katie Willis
- Department of Biosystems Science and Engineering, ETH Zurich, Mattenstrasse 26, 4058 Basel, Switzerland
| | - Angela Madurga
- Department of Biosystems Science and Engineering, ETH Zurich, Mattenstrasse 26, 4058 Basel, Switzerland
| | - Christoph Stelzer
- Department of Biosystems Science and Engineering, ETH Zurich, Mattenstrasse 26, 4058 Basel, Switzerland
| | - Yaakov Benenson
- Department of Biosystems Science and Engineering, ETH Zurich, Mattenstrasse 26, 4058 Basel, Switzerland.
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11
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Meyer C, Scalzitti N, Jeannin-Girardon A, Collet P, Poch O, Thompson JD. Understanding the causes of errors in eukaryotic protein-coding gene prediction: a case study of primate proteomes. BMC Bioinformatics 2020; 21:513. [PMID: 33172385 PMCID: PMC7656754 DOI: 10.1186/s12859-020-03855-1] [Citation(s) in RCA: 12] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/28/2020] [Accepted: 10/30/2020] [Indexed: 11/10/2022] Open
Abstract
Background Recent advances in sequencing technologies have led to an explosion in the number of genomes available, but accurate genome annotation remains a major challenge. The prediction of protein-coding genes in eukaryotic genomes is especially problematic, due to their complex exon–intron structures. Even the best eukaryotic gene prediction algorithms can make serious errors that will significantly affect subsequent analyses. Results We first investigated the prevalence of gene prediction errors in a large set of 176,478 proteins from ten primate proteomes available in public databases. Using the well-studied human proteins as a reference, a total of 82,305 potential errors were detected, including 44,001 deletions, 27,289 insertions and 11,015 mismatched segments where part of the correct protein sequence is replaced with an alternative erroneous sequence. We then focused on the mismatched sequence errors that cause particular problems for downstream applications. A detailed characterization allowed us to identify the potential causes for the gene misprediction in approximately half (5446) of these cases. As a proof-of-concept, we also developed a simple method which allowed us to propose improved sequences for 603 primate proteins. Conclusions Gene prediction errors in primate proteomes affect up to 50% of the sequences. Major causes of errors include undetermined genome regions, genome sequencing or assembly issues, and limitations in the models used to represent gene exon–intron structures. Nevertheless, existing genome sequences can still be exploited to improve protein sequence quality. Perspectives of the work include the characterization of other types of gene prediction errors, as well as the development of a more comprehensive algorithm for protein sequence error correction.
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Affiliation(s)
- Corentin Meyer
- Department of Computer Science, ICube, CNRS, University of Strasbourg, Strasbourg, France
| | - Nicolas Scalzitti
- Department of Computer Science, ICube, CNRS, University of Strasbourg, Strasbourg, France
| | - Anne Jeannin-Girardon
- Department of Computer Science, ICube, CNRS, University of Strasbourg, Strasbourg, France
| | - Pierre Collet
- Department of Computer Science, ICube, CNRS, University of Strasbourg, Strasbourg, France
| | - Olivier Poch
- Department of Computer Science, ICube, CNRS, University of Strasbourg, Strasbourg, France
| | - Julie D Thompson
- Department of Computer Science, ICube, CNRS, University of Strasbourg, Strasbourg, France.
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12
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Yang HS, White CC, Klein HU, Yu L, Gaiteri C, Ma Y, Felsky D, Mostafavi S, Petyuk VA, Sperling RA, Ertekin-Taner N, Schneider JA, Bennett DA, De Jager PL. Genetics of Gene Expression in the Aging Human Brain Reveal TDP-43 Proteinopathy Pathophysiology. Neuron 2020; 107:496-508.e6. [PMID: 32526197 PMCID: PMC7416464 DOI: 10.1016/j.neuron.2020.05.010] [Citation(s) in RCA: 22] [Impact Index Per Article: 5.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/01/2019] [Revised: 03/20/2020] [Accepted: 05/07/2020] [Indexed: 12/14/2022]
Abstract
Here, we perform a genome-wide screen for variants that regulate the expression of gene co-expression modules in the aging human brain; we discover and replicate such variants in the TMEM106B and RBFOX1 loci. The TMEM106B haplotype is known to influence the accumulation of TAR DNA-binding protein 43 kDa (TDP-43) proteinopathy, and the haplotype's large-scale transcriptomic effects include the dysregulation of lysosomal genes and alterations in synaptic gene splicing that are also seen in the pathophysiology of TDP-43 proteinopathy. Further, a variant near GRN, another TDP-43 proteinopathy susceptibility gene, shows concordant effects with the TMEM106B haplotype. Leveraging neuropathology data from the same participants, we also show that TMEM106B and APOE-amyloid-β effects converge to alter myelination and lysosomal gene expression, which then contributes to TDP-43 accumulation. These results advance our mechanistic understanding of the TMEM106B TDP-43 risk haplotype and uncover a transcriptional program that mediates the converging effects of APOE-amyloid-β and TMEM106B on TDP-43 aggregation in older adults.
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Affiliation(s)
- Hyun-Sik Yang
- Center for Alzheimer Research and Treatment, Department of Neurology, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Boston, MA 02115, USA; Department of Neurology, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA 02114, USA; Department of Neurology, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02115, USA; The Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, MA 02142, USA
| | - Charles C White
- The Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, MA 02142, USA; Center for Translational and Computational Neuroimmunology, Department of Neurology, Columbia University Irving Medical Center, New York, NY 10032, USA; Taub Institute for Research on Alzheimer's Disease and the Aging Brain, Columbia University Irving Medical Center, New York, NY 10032, USA
| | - Hans-Ulrich Klein
- The Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, MA 02142, USA; Center for Translational and Computational Neuroimmunology, Department of Neurology, Columbia University Irving Medical Center, New York, NY 10032, USA; Taub Institute for Research on Alzheimer's Disease and the Aging Brain, Columbia University Irving Medical Center, New York, NY 10032, USA
| | - Lei Yu
- Rush Alzheimer's Disease Center, Rush University Medical Center, Chicago, IL 60612, USA; Department of Neurological Sciences, Rush University Medical Center, Chicago, IL 60612, USA
| | - Christopher Gaiteri
- Rush Alzheimer's Disease Center, Rush University Medical Center, Chicago, IL 60612, USA; Department of Neurological Sciences, Rush University Medical Center, Chicago, IL 60612, USA
| | - Yiyi Ma
- The Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, MA 02142, USA; Center for Translational and Computational Neuroimmunology, Department of Neurology, Columbia University Irving Medical Center, New York, NY 10032, USA; Taub Institute for Research on Alzheimer's Disease and the Aging Brain, Columbia University Irving Medical Center, New York, NY 10032, USA
| | - Daniel Felsky
- The Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, MA 02142, USA; Center for Translational and Computational Neuroimmunology, Department of Neurology, Columbia University Irving Medical Center, New York, NY 10032, USA; Taub Institute for Research on Alzheimer's Disease and the Aging Brain, Columbia University Irving Medical Center, New York, NY 10032, USA
| | - Sara Mostafavi
- Department of Statistics, Department of Medical Genetics, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC V6H 3N1, Canada; Canadian Institute for Advanced Research, Toronto, ON M5G 1M1, Canada
| | | | - Reisa A Sperling
- Center for Alzheimer Research and Treatment, Department of Neurology, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Boston, MA 02115, USA; Department of Neurology, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA 02114, USA; Department of Neurology, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02115, USA
| | - Nilüfer Ertekin-Taner
- Department of Neurology, Mayo Clinic, Jacksonville, FL 32224, USA; Department of Neuroscience, Mayo Clinic, Jacksonville, FL 32224, USA
| | - Julie A Schneider
- Rush Alzheimer's Disease Center, Rush University Medical Center, Chicago, IL 60612, USA; Department of Neurological Sciences, Rush University Medical Center, Chicago, IL 60612, USA
| | - David A Bennett
- Rush Alzheimer's Disease Center, Rush University Medical Center, Chicago, IL 60612, USA; Department of Neurological Sciences, Rush University Medical Center, Chicago, IL 60612, USA
| | - Philip L De Jager
- The Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, MA 02142, USA; Center for Translational and Computational Neuroimmunology, Department of Neurology, Columbia University Irving Medical Center, New York, NY 10032, USA; Taub Institute for Research on Alzheimer's Disease and the Aging Brain, Columbia University Irving Medical Center, New York, NY 10032, USA.
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13
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Mamun MAA, Katayama T, Cao W, Nakamura S, Maruyama JI. A novel Pezizomycotina-specific protein with gelsolin domains regulates contractile actin ring assembly and constriction in perforated septum formation. Mol Microbiol 2020; 113:964-982. [PMID: 31965663 DOI: 10.1111/mmi.14463] [Citation(s) in RCA: 8] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/12/2019] [Revised: 01/13/2020] [Accepted: 01/13/2020] [Indexed: 12/29/2022]
Abstract
Septum formation in fungi is equivalent to cytokinesis. It differs mechanistically in filamentous ascomycetes (Pezizomycotina) from that of ascomycete yeasts by the retention of a central septal pore in the former group. However, septum formation in both groups is accomplished by contractile actin ring (CAR) assembly and constriction. The specific components regulating septal pore organization during septum formation are poorly understood. In this study, a novel Pezizomycotina-specific actin regulatory protein GlpA containing gelsolin domains was identified using bioinformatics. A glpA deletion mutant exhibited increased distances between septa, abnormal septum morphology and defective regulation of septal pore closure. In glpA deletion mutant hyphae, overaccumulation of actin filament (F-actin) was observed, and the CAR was abnormal with improper assembly and failure in constriction. In wild-type cells, GlpA was found at the septum formation site similarly to the CAR. The N-terminal 329 residues of GlpA are required for its localization to the septum formation site and essential for proper septum formation, while its C-terminal gelsolin domains are required for the regular CAR dynamics during septum formation. Finally, in this study we elucidated a novel Pezizomycotina-specific actin modulating component, which participates in septum formation by regulating the CAR dynamics.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - Takuya Katayama
- Department of Biotechnology, The University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan.,Collaborative Research Institute for Innovative Microbiology, The University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan
| | - Wei Cao
- Faculty of Information Networking for Innovation and Design, Department of Information Networking for Innovation and Design, Toyo University, Tokyo, Japan
| | - Shugo Nakamura
- Faculty of Information Networking for Innovation and Design, Department of Information Networking for Innovation and Design, Toyo University, Tokyo, Japan
| | - Jun-Ichi Maruyama
- Department of Biotechnology, The University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan.,Collaborative Research Institute for Innovative Microbiology, The University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan
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14
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Pan B, Chen X, Hou L, Zhang Q, Qu Z, Warren A, Miao M. Comparative Genomics Analysis of Ciliates Provides Insights on the Evolutionary History Within "Nassophorea-Synhymenia-Phyllopharyngea" Assemblage. Front Microbiol 2019; 10:2819. [PMID: 31921016 PMCID: PMC6920121 DOI: 10.3389/fmicb.2019.02819] [Citation(s) in RCA: 16] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/20/2019] [Accepted: 11/20/2019] [Indexed: 11/13/2022] Open
Abstract
Ciliated protists (ciliates) are widely used for investigating evolution, mostly due to their successful radiation after their early evolutionary branching. In this study, we employed high-throughput sequencing technology to reveal the phylogenetic position of Synhymenia, as well as two classes Nassophorea and Phyllopharyngea, which have been a long-standing puzzle in the field of ciliate systematics and evolution. We obtained genomic and transcriptomic data from single cells of one synhymenian (Chilodontopsis depressa) and six other species of phyllopharyngeans (Chilodochona sp., Dysteria derouxi, Hartmannula sinica, Trithigmostoma cucullulus, Trochilia petrani, and Trochilia sp.). Phylogenomic analysis based on 157 orthologous genes comprising 173,835 amino acid residues revealed the affiliation of C. depressa within the class Phyllopharyngea, and the monophyly of Nassophorea, which strongly support the assignment of Synhymenia as a subclass within the class Phyllopharyngea. Comparative genomic analyses further revealed that C. depressa shares more orthologous genes with the class Nassophorea than with Phyllopharyngea, and the stop codon usage in C. depressa resembles that of Phyllopharyngea. Functional enrichment analysis demonstrated that biological pathways in C. depressa are more similar to Phyllopharyngea than Nassophorea. These results suggest that genomic and transcriptomic data can be used to provide insights into the evolutionary relationships within the "Nassophorea-Synhymenia-Phyllopharyngea" assemblage.
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Affiliation(s)
- Bo Pan
- Institute of Evolution and Marine Biodiversity, Ocean University of China, Qingdao, China.,Laboratory for Marine Biology and Biotechnology, Qingdao National Laboratory for Marine Science and Technology, Qingdao, China
| | - Xiao Chen
- Department of Genetics and Development, Columbia University Medical Center, New York, NY, United States
| | - Lina Hou
- Savaid Medical School, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China
| | - Qianqian Zhang
- Yantai Institute of Coastal Zone Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Yantai, China
| | - Zhishuai Qu
- Institute of Evolution and Marine Biodiversity, Ocean University of China, Qingdao, China.,Ecology Group, Technical University of Kaiserslautern, Kaiserslautern, Germany
| | - Alan Warren
- Department of Life Sciences, Natural History Museum, London, United Kingdom
| | - Miao Miao
- Savaid Medical School, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China
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15
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Using the Chou's 5-steps rule to predict splice junctions with interpretable bidirectional long short-term memory networks. Comput Biol Med 2019; 116:103558. [PMID: 31783254 DOI: 10.1016/j.compbiomed.2019.103558] [Citation(s) in RCA: 24] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/11/2019] [Revised: 11/17/2019] [Accepted: 11/18/2019] [Indexed: 11/21/2022]
Abstract
Neural models have been able to obtain state-of-the-art performances on several genome sequence-based prediction tasks. Such models take only nucleotide sequences as input and learn relevant features on their own. However, extracting the interpretable motifs from the model remains a challenge. This work explores various existing visualization techniques in their ability to infer relevant sequence information learnt by a recurrent neural network (RNN) on the task of splice junction identification. The visualization techniques have been modulated to suit the genome sequences as input. The visualizations inspect genomic regions at the level of a single nucleotide as well as a span of consecutive nucleotides. This inspection is performed based on the modification of input sequences (perturbation based) or the embedding space (back-propagation based). We infer features pertaining to both canonical and non-canonical splicing from a single neural model. Results indicate that the visualization techniques produce comparable performances for branchpoint detection. However, in the case of canonical donor and acceptor junction motifs, perturbation based visualizations perform better than back-propagation based visualizations, and vice-versa for non-canonical motifs. The source code of our stand-alone SpliceVisuL tool is available at https://github.com/aaiitggrp/SpliceVisuL.
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16
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Deep Splicing Code: Classifying Alternative Splicing Events Using Deep Learning. Genes (Basel) 2019; 10:genes10080587. [PMID: 31374967 PMCID: PMC6722613 DOI: 10.3390/genes10080587] [Citation(s) in RCA: 19] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/31/2019] [Revised: 07/20/2019] [Accepted: 07/30/2019] [Indexed: 12/11/2022] Open
Abstract
Alternative splicing (AS) is the process of combining different parts of the pre-mRNA to produce diverse transcripts and eventually different protein products from a single gene. In computational biology field, researchers try to understand AS behavior and regulation using computational models known as “Splicing Codes”. The final goal of these algorithms is to make an in-silico prediction of AS outcome from genomic sequence. Here, we develop a deep learning approach, called Deep Splicing Code (DSC), for categorizing the well-studied classes of AS namely alternatively skipped exons, alternative 5’ss, alternative 3’ss, and constitutively spliced exons based only on the sequence of the exon junctions. The proposed approach significantly improves the prediction and the obtained results reveal that constitutive exons have distinguishable local characteristics from alternatively spliced exons. Using the motif visualization technique, we show that the trained models learned to search for competitive alternative splice sites as well as motifs of important splicing factors with high precision. Thus, the proposed approach greatly expands the opportunities to improve alternative splicing modeling. In addition, a web-server for AS events prediction has been developed based on the proposed method.
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17
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Pelleri MC, Cicchini E, Petersen MB, Tranebjærg L, Mattina T, Magini P, Antonaros F, Caracausi M, Vitale L, Locatelli C, Seri M, Strippoli P, Piovesan A, Cocchi G. Partial trisomy 21 map: Ten cases further supporting the highly restricted Down syndrome critical region (HR-DSCR) on human chromosome 21. Mol Genet Genomic Med 2019; 7:e797. [PMID: 31237416 PMCID: PMC6687668 DOI: 10.1002/mgg3.797] [Citation(s) in RCA: 23] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/15/2018] [Accepted: 05/22/2019] [Indexed: 12/12/2022] Open
Abstract
BACKGROUND Down syndrome (DS) is characterized by the presence of an extra full or partial human chromosome 21 (Hsa21). An invaluable model to define genotype-phenotype correlations in DS is the study of the extremely rare cases of partial (segmental) trisomy 21 (PT21), the duplication of only a delimited region of Hsa21 associated or not to DS. A systematic retrospective reanalysis of 125 PT21 cases described up to 2015 allowed the creation of the most comprehensive PT21 map and the identification of a 34-kb highly restricted DS critical region (HR-DSCR) as the minimal region whose duplication is shared by all PT21 subjects diagnosed with DS. We reanalyzed at higher resolution three cases previously published and we accurately searched for any new PT21 reports in order to verify whether HR-DSCR limits could prospectively be confirmed and possibly refined. METHODS Hsa21 partial duplications of three PT21 subjects were refined by adding array-based comparative genomic hybridization data. Seven newly described PT21 cases fulfilling stringent cytogenetic and clinical criteria have been incorporated into the PT21 integrated map. RESULTS The PT21 map now integrates fine structure of Hsa21 sequence intervals of 132 subjects onto a common framework fully consistent with the presence of a duplicated HR-DSCR, on distal 21q22.13 sub-band, only in DS subjects and not in non-DS individuals. No documented exception to the HR-DSCR model was found. CONCLUSIONS The findings presented here further support the association of the HR-DSCR with the diagnosis of DS, representing an unbiased validation of the original model. Further studies are needed to identify and characterize genetic determinants presumably located in the HR-DSCR and functionally associated to the critical manifestations of DS.
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Affiliation(s)
- Maria Chiara Pelleri
- Department of Experimental, Diagnostic and Specialty Medicine (DIMES), Unit of Histology, Embryology and Applied BiologyUniversity of BolognaBologna (BO)Italy
| | - Elena Cicchini
- Department of Experimental, Diagnostic and Specialty Medicine (DIMES), Unit of Histology, Embryology and Applied BiologyUniversity of BolognaBologna (BO)Italy
| | - Michael B. Petersen
- Department of GeneticsAalborg University HospitalAalborgDenmark
- Department of Clinical GeneticsAalborg UniversityAalborgDenmark
| | - Lisbeth Tranebjærg
- Department of Clinical Genetics/RigshospitaletThe Kennedy CentreGlostrupDenmark
- University of Copenhagen, Institute of Clinical Medicine, The Panum InstituteCopenhagen NDenmark
| | - Teresa Mattina
- Department of PediatricsMedical Genetics University of CataniaItaly
| | - Pamela Magini
- Medical Genetics UnitSt. Orsola‐Malpighi PolyclinicBologna (BO)Italy
| | - Francesca Antonaros
- Department of Experimental, Diagnostic and Specialty Medicine (DIMES), Unit of Histology, Embryology and Applied BiologyUniversity of BolognaBologna (BO)Italy
| | - Maria Caracausi
- Department of Experimental, Diagnostic and Specialty Medicine (DIMES), Unit of Histology, Embryology and Applied BiologyUniversity of BolognaBologna (BO)Italy
| | - Lorenza Vitale
- Department of Experimental, Diagnostic and Specialty Medicine (DIMES), Unit of Histology, Embryology and Applied BiologyUniversity of BolognaBologna (BO)Italy
| | | | - Marco Seri
- Medical Genetics Unit, Department of Medical and Surgical Sciences (DIMEC)St. Orsola‐Malpighi Polyclinic, University of BolognaBologna (BO)Italy
| | - Pierluigi Strippoli
- Department of Experimental, Diagnostic and Specialty Medicine (DIMES), Unit of Histology, Embryology and Applied BiologyUniversity of BolognaBologna (BO)Italy
| | - Allison Piovesan
- Department of Experimental, Diagnostic and Specialty Medicine (DIMES), Unit of Histology, Embryology and Applied BiologyUniversity of BolognaBologna (BO)Italy
| | - Guido Cocchi
- Neonatology Unit, Department of Medical and Surgical Sciences (DIMEC)St. Orsola‐Malpighi Polyclinic, University of BolognaBologna (BO)Italy
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18
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Reference quantitative transcriptome dataset for adult Caenorhabditis elegans. Data Brief 2019; 25:104152. [PMID: 31440537 PMCID: PMC6700341 DOI: 10.1016/j.dib.2019.104152] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/19/2019] [Revised: 06/05/2019] [Accepted: 06/06/2019] [Indexed: 02/06/2023] Open
Abstract
Caenorhabditis elegans is a nematode widely used in biology and genomics as a model organism. We provide an integrated, quantitative reference map for the transcriptome of whole, wild type Bristol N2 strain C. elegans worms. The map has been obtained by meta-analysis of 110 gene expression profiles available in Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) repository and integrated using the computational biology tool Transcriptome Mapper (TRAM). Following probe assignment to the relative locus and intra- and inter-sample normalization (in particular using the scaled quantile method), a mean, consensus reference value is provided for 45,932 transcripts, along with standard deviation. Expression values are all mapped in the context of genomic coordinates. The map provides easy access to relationships among expression values of different genes in this standard condition, highlights genomic segments with relatively high over-/under-expression and may serve as a reference to test for gene expression variation for both individual genes and the whole transcriptome in specific biological conditions (e.g. mutated strains or differently grown worms).
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19
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Piovesan A, Antonaros F, Vitale L, Strippoli P, Pelleri MC, Caracausi M. Human protein-coding genes and gene feature statistics in 2019. BMC Res Notes 2019; 12:315. [PMID: 31164174 PMCID: PMC6549324 DOI: 10.1186/s13104-019-4343-8] [Citation(s) in RCA: 86] [Impact Index Per Article: 17.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/26/2019] [Accepted: 05/23/2019] [Indexed: 12/11/2022] Open
Abstract
Objective A well-known limit of genome browsers is that the large amount of genome and gene data is not organized in the form of a searchable database, hampering full management of numerical data and free calculations. Due to the continuous increase of data deposited in genomic repositories, their content revision and analysis is recommended. Using GeneBase, a software with a graphical interface able to import and elaborate National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) Gene database entries, we provide tabulated spreadsheets updated to 2019 about human nuclear protein-coding gene data set ready to be used for any type of analysis about genes, transcripts and gene organization. Results Comparison with previous reports reveals substantial change in the number of known nuclear protein-coding genes (now 19,116), the protein-coding non-redundant transcriptome space [now 59,281,518 base pair (bp), 10.1% increase], the number of exons (now 562,164, 36.2% increase) due to a relevant increase of the RNA isoforms recorded. Other parameters such as gene, exon or intron mean and extreme length appear to have reached a stability that is unlikely to be substantially modified by human genome data updates, at least regarding protein-coding genes. Finally, we confirm that there are no human introns shorter than 30 bp.
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Affiliation(s)
- Allison Piovesan
- Unit of Histology, Embryology and Applied Biology, Department of Experimental, Diagnostic and Specialty Medicine (DIMES), University of Bologna, Bologna, BO, Italy
| | - Francesca Antonaros
- Unit of Histology, Embryology and Applied Biology, Department of Experimental, Diagnostic and Specialty Medicine (DIMES), University of Bologna, Bologna, BO, Italy
| | - Lorenza Vitale
- Unit of Histology, Embryology and Applied Biology, Department of Experimental, Diagnostic and Specialty Medicine (DIMES), University of Bologna, Bologna, BO, Italy
| | - Pierluigi Strippoli
- Unit of Histology, Embryology and Applied Biology, Department of Experimental, Diagnostic and Specialty Medicine (DIMES), University of Bologna, Bologna, BO, Italy
| | - Maria Chiara Pelleri
- Unit of Histology, Embryology and Applied Biology, Department of Experimental, Diagnostic and Specialty Medicine (DIMES), University of Bologna, Bologna, BO, Italy.
| | - Maria Caracausi
- Unit of Histology, Embryology and Applied Biology, Department of Experimental, Diagnostic and Specialty Medicine (DIMES), University of Bologna, Bologna, BO, Italy
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20
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Vitale L, Piovesan A, Antonaros F, Strippoli P, Pelleri MC, Caracausi M. Dataset of differential gene expression between total normal human thyroid and histologically normal thyroid adjacent to papillary thyroid carcinoma. Data Brief 2019; 24:103835. [PMID: 31049370 PMCID: PMC6479735 DOI: 10.1016/j.dib.2019.103835] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/20/2018] [Revised: 02/28/2019] [Accepted: 03/07/2019] [Indexed: 12/16/2022] Open
Abstract
This article contains further data and information from our published manuscript [1]. We aim to identify significant transcriptome alterations of total normal human thyroid vs. histologically normal thyroid adjacent to papillary thyroid carcinoma. We performed a systematic meta-analysis of all the available gene expression profiles for the whole organ also collecting gene expression data for the normal thyroid adjacent to papillary thyroid carcinoma. A differential quantitative transcriptome reference map was generated by using TRAM (Transcriptome Mapper) software able to combine, normalize and integrate a total of 35 datasets from total normal thyroid and 40 datasets from histologically normal thyroid adjacent to papillary thyroid carcinoma from different sources. This analysis identified genes and genome segments that significantly discriminated the two groups of samples. Differentially expressed genes were grouped and enrichment function analyses were performed identifying the main features of the differentially expressed genes between total normal thyroid and histologically normal thyroid adjacent to papillary thyroid carcinoma. The search for housekeeping genes retrieved 414 loci.
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21
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Piovesan A, Pelleri MC, Antonaros F, Strippoli P, Caracausi M, Vitale L. On the length, weight and GC content of the human genome. BMC Res Notes 2019; 12:106. [PMID: 30813969 PMCID: PMC6391780 DOI: 10.1186/s13104-019-4137-z] [Citation(s) in RCA: 113] [Impact Index Per Article: 22.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/07/2018] [Accepted: 02/15/2019] [Indexed: 01/08/2023] Open
Abstract
Objective Basic parameters commonly used to describe genomes including length, weight and relative guanine-cytosine (GC) content are widely cited in absence of a primary source. By using updated data and original software we determined these values to the best of our knowledge as standard reference for the whole human nuclear genome, for each chromosome and for mitochondrial DNA. We also devised a method to calculate the relative GC content in the whole messenger RNA sequence set and in transcriptomes by multiplying the GC content of each gene by its mean expression level. Results The male nuclear diploid genome extends for 6.27 Gigabase pairs (Gbp), is 205.00 cm (cm) long and weighs 6.41 picograms (pg). Female values are 6.37 Gbp, 208.23 cm, 6.51 pg. The individual variability and the implication for the DNA informational density in terms of bits/volume were discussed. The genomic GC content is 40.9%. Following analysis in different transcriptomes and species, we showed that the greatest deviation was observed in the pathological condition analysed (trisomy 21 leukaemic cells) and in Caenorhabditis elegans. Our results may represent a solid basis for further investigation on human structural and functional genomics while also providing a framework for other genome comparative analysis. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (10.1186/s13104-019-4137-z) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
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Affiliation(s)
- Allison Piovesan
- Department of Experimental, Diagnostic and Specialty Medicine (DIMES), Unit of Histology, Embryology and Applied Biology, University of Bologna, Via Belmeloro 8, 40126, Bologna, BO, Italy
| | - Maria Chiara Pelleri
- Department of Experimental, Diagnostic and Specialty Medicine (DIMES), Unit of Histology, Embryology and Applied Biology, University of Bologna, Via Belmeloro 8, 40126, Bologna, BO, Italy
| | - Francesca Antonaros
- Department of Experimental, Diagnostic and Specialty Medicine (DIMES), Unit of Histology, Embryology and Applied Biology, University of Bologna, Via Belmeloro 8, 40126, Bologna, BO, Italy
| | - Pierluigi Strippoli
- Department of Experimental, Diagnostic and Specialty Medicine (DIMES), Unit of Histology, Embryology and Applied Biology, University of Bologna, Via Belmeloro 8, 40126, Bologna, BO, Italy
| | - Maria Caracausi
- Department of Experimental, Diagnostic and Specialty Medicine (DIMES), Unit of Histology, Embryology and Applied Biology, University of Bologna, Via Belmeloro 8, 40126, Bologna, BO, Italy.
| | - Lorenza Vitale
- Department of Experimental, Diagnostic and Specialty Medicine (DIMES), Unit of Histology, Embryology and Applied Biology, University of Bologna, Via Belmeloro 8, 40126, Bologna, BO, Italy
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22
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Pucker B, Brockington SF. Genome-wide analyses supported by RNA-Seq reveal non-canonical splice sites in plant genomes. BMC Genomics 2018; 19:980. [PMID: 30594132 PMCID: PMC6310983 DOI: 10.1186/s12864-018-5360-z] [Citation(s) in RCA: 30] [Impact Index Per Article: 5.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/11/2018] [Accepted: 12/10/2018] [Indexed: 12/19/2022] Open
Abstract
BACKGROUND Most eukaryotic genes comprise exons and introns thus requiring the precise removal of introns from pre-mRNAs to enable protein biosynthesis. U2 and U12 spliceosomes catalyze this step by recognizing motifs on the transcript in order to remove the introns. A process which is dependent on precise definition of exon-intron borders by splice sites, which are consequently highly conserved across species. Only very few combinations of terminal dinucleotides are frequently observed at intron ends, dominated by the canonical GT-AG splice sites on the DNA level. RESULTS Here we investigate the occurrence of diverse combinations of dinucleotides at predicted splice sites. Analyzing 121 plant genome sequences based on their annotation revealed strong splice site conservation across species, annotation errors, and true biological divergence from canonical splice sites. The frequency of non-canonical splice sites clearly correlates with their divergence from canonical ones indicating either an accumulation of probably neutral mutations, or evolution towards canonical splice sites. Strong conservation across multiple species and non-random accumulation of substitutions in splice sites indicate a functional relevance of non-canonical splice sites. The average composition of splice sites across all investigated species is 98.7% for GT-AG, 1.2% for GC-AG, 0.06% for AT-AC, and 0.09% for minor non-canonical splice sites. RNA-Seq data sets of 35 species were incorporated to validate non-canonical splice site predictions through gaps in sequencing reads alignments and to demonstrate the expression of affected genes. CONCLUSION We conclude that bona fide non-canonical splice sites are present and appear to be functionally relevant in most plant genomes, although at low abundance.
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Affiliation(s)
- Boas Pucker
- Evolution and Diversity, Department of Plant Sciences, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK
- Genetics and Genomics of Plants, CeBiTec & Faculty of Biology, Bielefeld University, Bielefeld, Germany
| | - Samuel F. Brockington
- Evolution and Diversity, Department of Plant Sciences, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK
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SpliceVec: Distributed feature representations for splice junction prediction. Comput Biol Chem 2018; 74:434-441. [DOI: 10.1016/j.compbiolchem.2018.03.009] [Citation(s) in RCA: 18] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/08/2018] [Accepted: 03/12/2018] [Indexed: 12/12/2022]
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24
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Pelleri MC, Cattani C, Vitale L, Antonaros F, Strippoli P, Locatelli C, Cocchi G, Piovesan A, Caracausi M. Integrated Quantitative Transcriptome Maps of Human Trisomy 21 Tissues and Cells. Front Genet 2018; 9:125. [PMID: 29740474 PMCID: PMC5928158 DOI: 10.3389/fgene.2018.00125] [Citation(s) in RCA: 32] [Impact Index Per Article: 5.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/31/2017] [Accepted: 03/27/2018] [Indexed: 12/17/2022] Open
Abstract
Down syndrome (DS) is due to the presence of an extra full or partial chromosome 21 (Hsa21). The identification of genes contributing to DS pathogenesis could be the key to any rational therapy of the associated intellectual disability. We aim at generating quantitative transcriptome maps in DS integrating all gene expression profile datasets available for any cell type or tissue, to obtain a complete model of the transcriptome in terms of both expression values for each gene and segmental trend of gene expression along each chromosome. We used the TRAM (Transcriptome Mapper) software for this meta-analysis, comparing transcript expression levels and profiles between DS and normal brain, lymphoblastoid cell lines, blood cells, fibroblasts, thymus and induced pluripotent stem cells, respectively. TRAM combined, normalized, and integrated datasets from different sources and across diverse experimental platforms. The main output was a linear expression value that may be used as a reference for each of up to 37,181 mapped transcripts analyzed, related to both known genes and expression sequence tag (EST) clusters. An independent example in vitro validation of fibroblast transcriptome map data was performed through “Real-Time” reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction showing an excellent correlation coefficient (r = 0.93, p < 0.0001) with data obtained in silico. The availability of linear expression values for each gene allowed the testing of the gene dosage hypothesis of the expected 3:2 DS/normal ratio for Hsa21 as well as other human genes in DS, in addition to listing genes differentially expressed with statistical significance. Although a fraction of Hsa21 genes escapes dosage effects, Hsa21 genes are selectively over-expressed in DS samples compared to genes from other chromosomes, reflecting a decisive role in the pathogenesis of the syndrome. Finally, the analysis of chromosomal segments reveals a high prevalence of Hsa21 over-expressed segments over the other genomic regions, suggesting, in particular, a specific region on Hsa21 that appears to be frequently over-expressed (21q22). Our complete datasets are released as a new framework to investigate transcription in DS for individual genes as well as chromosomal segments in different cell types and tissues.
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Affiliation(s)
- Maria Chiara Pelleri
- Department of Experimental, Diagnostic and Specialty Medicine, Unit of Histology, Embryology and Applied Biology, University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy
| | - Chiara Cattani
- Department of Experimental, Diagnostic and Specialty Medicine, Unit of Histology, Embryology and Applied Biology, University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy
| | - Lorenza Vitale
- Department of Experimental, Diagnostic and Specialty Medicine, Unit of Histology, Embryology and Applied Biology, University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy
| | - Francesca Antonaros
- Department of Experimental, Diagnostic and Specialty Medicine, Unit of Histology, Embryology and Applied Biology, University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy
| | - Pierluigi Strippoli
- Department of Experimental, Diagnostic and Specialty Medicine, Unit of Histology, Embryology and Applied Biology, University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy
| | - Chiara Locatelli
- Neonatology Unit, Sant'Orsola-Malpighi Polyclinic, Bologna, Italy
| | - Guido Cocchi
- Neonatology Unit, Sant'Orsola-Malpighi Polyclinic, Department of Medical and Surgical Sciences, University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy
| | - Allison Piovesan
- Department of Experimental, Diagnostic and Specialty Medicine, Unit of Histology, Embryology and Applied Biology, University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy
| | - Maria Caracausi
- Department of Experimental, Diagnostic and Specialty Medicine, Unit of Histology, Embryology and Applied Biology, University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy
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25
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Caracausi M, Ghini V, Locatelli C, Mericio M, Piovesan A, Antonaros F, Pelleri MC, Vitale L, Vacca RA, Bedetti F, Mimmi MC, Luchinat C, Turano P, Strippoli P, Cocchi G. Plasma and urinary metabolomic profiles of Down syndrome correlate with alteration of mitochondrial metabolism. Sci Rep 2018; 8:2977. [PMID: 29445163 PMCID: PMC5813015 DOI: 10.1038/s41598-018-20834-y] [Citation(s) in RCA: 48] [Impact Index Per Article: 8.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/11/2017] [Accepted: 01/22/2018] [Indexed: 01/16/2023] Open
Abstract
Down syndrome (DS) is caused by the presence of a supernumerary copy of the human chromosome 21 (Hsa21) and is the most frequent genetic cause of intellectual disability (ID). Key traits of DS are the distinctive facies and cognitive impairment. We conducted for the first time an analysis of the Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR)-detectable part of the metabolome in plasma and urine samples, studying 67 subjects with DS and 29 normal subjects as controls selected among DS siblings. Multivariate analysis of the NMR metabolomic profiles showed a clear discrimination (up to of 80% accuracy) between the DS and the control groups. The univariate analysis of plasma and urine revealed a significant alteration for some interesting metabolites. Remarkably, most of the altered concentrations were consistent with the 3:2 gene dosage model, suggesting effects caused by the presence of three copies of Hsa21 rather than two: DS/normal ratio in plasma was 1.23 (pyruvate), 1.47 (succinate), 1.39 (fumarate), 1.33 (lactate), 1.4 (formate). Several significantly altered metabolites are produced at the beginning or during the Krebs cycle. Accounting for sex, age and fasting state did not significantly affect the main result of both multivariate and univariate analysis.
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Affiliation(s)
- Maria Caracausi
- Department of Experimental, Diagnostic and Specialty Medicine, (DIMES), Unit of Histology, Embryology and Applied Biology, University of Bologna, Via Belmeloro 8, 40126, Bologna, BO, Italy
| | - Veronica Ghini
- CERM, Center of Magnetic Resonance, University of Florence, Via Luigi Sacconi 6, 50019, Sesto Fiorentino, Florence, Italy.,CIRMMP, Consorzio Interuniversitario Risonanze Magnetiche Metallo Proteine, Via Luigi Sacconi 6, 50019, Sesto Fiorentino, Florence, Italy
| | - Chiara Locatelli
- Neonatology Unit, St. Orsola-Malpighi Polyclinic, Via Massarenti 9, 40138, Bologna, BO, Italy
| | - Martina Mericio
- Neonatology Unit, St. Orsola-Malpighi Polyclinic, Department of Medical and Surgical Sciences (DIMEC), University of Bologna, Via Massarenti 9, 40138, Bologna, BO, Italy
| | - Allison Piovesan
- Department of Experimental, Diagnostic and Specialty Medicine, (DIMES), Unit of Histology, Embryology and Applied Biology, University of Bologna, Via Belmeloro 8, 40126, Bologna, BO, Italy
| | - Francesca Antonaros
- Department of Experimental, Diagnostic and Specialty Medicine, (DIMES), Unit of Histology, Embryology and Applied Biology, University of Bologna, Via Belmeloro 8, 40126, Bologna, BO, Italy
| | - Maria Chiara Pelleri
- Department of Experimental, Diagnostic and Specialty Medicine, (DIMES), Unit of Histology, Embryology and Applied Biology, University of Bologna, Via Belmeloro 8, 40126, Bologna, BO, Italy
| | - Lorenza Vitale
- Department of Experimental, Diagnostic and Specialty Medicine, (DIMES), Unit of Histology, Embryology and Applied Biology, University of Bologna, Via Belmeloro 8, 40126, Bologna, BO, Italy
| | - Rosa Anna Vacca
- Institute of Biomembranes, Bioenergetics and Molecular Biotechnologies, National Council of Research, Via Amendola 165/A, I-70126, Bari, Italy
| | - Federica Bedetti
- Neonatology Unit, St. Orsola-Malpighi Polyclinic, Department of Medical and Surgical Sciences (DIMEC), University of Bologna, Via Massarenti 9, 40138, Bologna, BO, Italy
| | - Maria Chiara Mimmi
- Department of Medical and Biological Sciences, University of Udine, P.le Massimiliano Kolbe 4, 33100, Udine, Italy
| | - Claudio Luchinat
- CERM, Center of Magnetic Resonance, University of Florence, Via Luigi Sacconi 6, 50019, Sesto Fiorentino, Florence, Italy.,Department of Chemistry, University of Florence, Via della Lastruccia 3, 50019, Sesto Fiorentino, Florence, Italy
| | - Paola Turano
- CERM, Center of Magnetic Resonance, University of Florence, Via Luigi Sacconi 6, 50019, Sesto Fiorentino, Florence, Italy.,Department of Chemistry, University of Florence, Via della Lastruccia 3, 50019, Sesto Fiorentino, Florence, Italy
| | - Pierluigi Strippoli
- Department of Experimental, Diagnostic and Specialty Medicine, (DIMES), Unit of Histology, Embryology and Applied Biology, University of Bologna, Via Belmeloro 8, 40126, Bologna, BO, Italy.
| | - Guido Cocchi
- Neonatology Unit, St. Orsola-Malpighi Polyclinic, Department of Medical and Surgical Sciences (DIMEC), University of Bologna, Via Massarenti 9, 40138, Bologna, BO, Italy
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26
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Vitale L, Piovesan A, Antonaros F, Strippoli P, Pelleri MC, Caracausi M. A molecular view of the normal human thyroid structure and function reconstructed from its reference transcriptome map. BMC Genomics 2017; 18:739. [PMID: 28923001 PMCID: PMC5604164 DOI: 10.1186/s12864-017-4049-z] [Citation(s) in RCA: 13] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.9] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/06/2017] [Accepted: 08/10/2017] [Indexed: 12/17/2022] Open
Abstract
BACKGROUND The thyroid is the earliest endocrine structure to appear during human development, and thyroid hormones are necessary for proper organism development, in particular for the nervous system and heart, normal growth and skeletal maturation. To date a quantitative, validated transcriptional atlas of the whole normal human thyroid does not exist and the availability of a detailed expression map might be an excellent occasion to investigate the many features of the thyroid transcriptome. RESULTS We present a view at the molecular level of the normal human thyroid histology and physiology obtained by a systematic meta-analysis of all the available gene expression profiles for the whole organ. A quantitative transcriptome reference map was generated by using the TRAM (Transcriptome Mapper) software able to combine, normalize and integrate a total of 35 suitable datasets from different sources thus providing a typical reference expression value for each of the 27,275 known, mapped transcripts obtained. The experimental in vitro validation of data was performed by "Real-Time" reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction showing an excellent correlation coefficient (r = 0.93) with data obtained in silico. CONCLUSIONS Our study provides a quantitative global reference portrait of gene expression in the normal human thyroid and highlights differential expression between normal human thyroid and a pool of non-thyroid tissues useful for modeling correlations between thyroidal gene expression and specific thyroid functions and diseases. The experimental in vitro validation supports the possible usefulness of the human thyroid transcriptome map as a reference for molecular studies of the physiology and pathology of this organ.
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Affiliation(s)
- Lorenza Vitale
- Department of Experimental, Diagnostic and Specialty Medicine, (DIMES), Unit of Histology, Embryology and Applied Biology, University of Bologna, Via Belmeloro 8, 40126, Bologna, BO, Italy
| | - Allison Piovesan
- Department of Experimental, Diagnostic and Specialty Medicine, (DIMES), Unit of Histology, Embryology and Applied Biology, University of Bologna, Via Belmeloro 8, 40126, Bologna, BO, Italy
| | - Francesca Antonaros
- Department of Experimental, Diagnostic and Specialty Medicine, (DIMES), Unit of Histology, Embryology and Applied Biology, University of Bologna, Via Belmeloro 8, 40126, Bologna, BO, Italy
| | - Pierluigi Strippoli
- Department of Experimental, Diagnostic and Specialty Medicine, (DIMES), Unit of Histology, Embryology and Applied Biology, University of Bologna, Via Belmeloro 8, 40126, Bologna, BO, Italy
| | - Maria Chiara Pelleri
- Department of Experimental, Diagnostic and Specialty Medicine, (DIMES), Unit of Histology, Embryology and Applied Biology, University of Bologna, Via Belmeloro 8, 40126, Bologna, BO, Italy.
| | - Maria Caracausi
- Department of Experimental, Diagnostic and Specialty Medicine, (DIMES), Unit of Histology, Embryology and Applied Biology, University of Bologna, Via Belmeloro 8, 40126, Bologna, BO, Italy
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27
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Wei H, Lou Q, Xu K, Yan M, Xia H, Ma X, Yu X, Luo L. Alternative splicing complexity contributes to genetic improvement of drought resistance in the rice maintainer HuHan2B. Sci Rep 2017; 7:11686. [PMID: 28916800 PMCID: PMC5601427 DOI: 10.1038/s41598-017-12020-3] [Citation(s) in RCA: 18] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/31/2017] [Accepted: 09/01/2017] [Indexed: 12/19/2022] Open
Abstract
Water-saving and drought-resistantce rice (WDR) breeding practices have greatly increased grain yield and drought resistance. To study the genetic basis of adaptation to drought, transcriptome sequences from the WDR maintainer line HuHan2B and the recurrent parent HanFengB were analyzed for alternative splicing (AS) complexity. Intron retention, the dominant AS type, accounted for 42% of the observed AS events. Differential expression analysis revealed transcripts were preferentially expressed in different varieties and conditions. Based on gene ontology predictions, the biological functions of drought-induced transcripts were significantly enriched in genes involved in transcription regulation, chloroplast components and response to abiotic stimulus in HuHan2B, whereas developmental processes for reproduction were primarily enriched in HanFengB. The regulatory network of transcription factors was driven by cohorts of transcript splicing targets, resulting in more diversified regulatory relationships due to AS complexity than in our previous findings. Moreover, several genes were validated to accumulate novel splicing transcripts in a drought-induced manner. Together, these results suggest that HuHan2B and HanFengB share similar AS features but that a subset of genes with increased levels of AS involved in transcription regulatory networks may contribute an additional level of control for genetic improvement of drought resistance in rice maintainer HuHan2B through breeding.
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Affiliation(s)
- Haibin Wei
- Shanghai Agrobiological Gene Center, Shanghai, 201106, China
| | - Qiaojun Lou
- Shanghai Agrobiological Gene Center, Shanghai, 201106, China
| | - Kai Xu
- Shanghai Agrobiological Gene Center, Shanghai, 201106, China
| | - Ming Yan
- Shanghai Agrobiological Gene Center, Shanghai, 201106, China
| | - Hui Xia
- Shanghai Agrobiological Gene Center, Shanghai, 201106, China
| | - Xiaosong Ma
- Shanghai Agrobiological Gene Center, Shanghai, 201106, China
| | | | - Lijun Luo
- Shanghai Agrobiological Gene Center, Shanghai, 201106, China.
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28
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Soens ZT, Branch J, Wu S, Yuan Z, Li Y, Li H, Wang K, Xu M, Rajan L, Motta FL, Simões RT, Lopez-Solache I, Ajlan R, Birch DG, Zhao P, Porto FB, Sallum J, Koenekoop RK, Sui R, Chen R. Leveraging splice-affecting variant predictors and a minigene validation system to identify Mendelian disease-causing variants among exon-captured variants of uncertain significance. Hum Mutat 2017; 38:1521-1533. [PMID: 28714225 DOI: 10.1002/humu.23294] [Citation(s) in RCA: 19] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/16/2017] [Revised: 06/20/2017] [Accepted: 07/11/2017] [Indexed: 12/11/2022]
Abstract
The genetic heterogeneity of Mendelian disorders results in a significant proportion of patients that are unable to be assigned a confident molecular diagnosis after conventional exon sequencing and variant interpretation. Here, we evaluated how many patients with an inherited retinal disease (IRD) have variants of uncertain significance (VUS) that are disrupting splicing in a known IRD gene by means other than affecting the canonical dinucleotide splice site. Three in silico splice-affecting variant predictors were leveraged to annotate and prioritize variants for splicing functional validation. An in vitro minigene system was used to assay each variant's effect on splicing. Starting with 745 IRD patients lacking a confident molecular diagnosis, we validated 23 VUS as splicing variants that likely explain disease in 26 patients. Using our results, we optimized in silico score cutoffs to guide future variant interpretation. Variants that alter base pairs other than the canonical GT-AG dinucleotide are often not considered for their potential effect on RNA splicing but in silico tools and a minigene system can be utilized for the prioritization and validation of such splice-disrupting variants. These variants can be overlooked causes of human disease but can be identified using conventional exon sequencing with proper interpretation guidelines.
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Affiliation(s)
- Zachry T Soens
- Department of Molecular and Human Genetics, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, Texas.,Human Genome Sequencing Center, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, Texas
| | - Justin Branch
- Department of Molecular and Human Genetics, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, Texas.,Human Genome Sequencing Center, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, Texas
| | - Shijing Wu
- Department of Ophthalmology, Peking Union Medical College Hospital, Peking Union Medical College, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences, Beijing, China
| | - Zhisheng Yuan
- Department of Ophthalmology, Peking Union Medical College Hospital, Peking Union Medical College, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences, Beijing, China
| | - Yumei Li
- Department of Molecular and Human Genetics, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, Texas.,Human Genome Sequencing Center, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, Texas
| | - Hui Li
- Department of Ophthalmology, Peking Union Medical College Hospital, Peking Union Medical College, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences, Beijing, China
| | - Keqing Wang
- Department of Molecular and Human Genetics, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, Texas.,Human Genome Sequencing Center, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, Texas
| | - Mingchu Xu
- Department of Molecular and Human Genetics, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, Texas.,Human Genome Sequencing Center, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, Texas
| | - Lavan Rajan
- Department of Molecular and Human Genetics, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, Texas.,Human Genome Sequencing Center, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, Texas
| | - Fabiana L Motta
- Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences, Paulista School of Medicine, Federal University of São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil
| | - Renata T Simões
- Department of Retina and Vitreous, Ophthalmologic Center of Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais, Brazil.,Instituto de Ensino e Pesquisa da Santa Casa de Belo Horizonte Hospital - IEP/SCBH, Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais, Brazil
| | - Irma Lopez-Solache
- McGill Ocular Genetics Laboratory and Centre, Department of Paediatric Surgery, Human Genetics, and Ophthalmology, McGill University Health Centre, Montreal, Quebec, Canada
| | - Radwan Ajlan
- McGill Ocular Genetics Laboratory and Centre, Department of Paediatric Surgery, Human Genetics, and Ophthalmology, McGill University Health Centre, Montreal, Quebec, Canada
| | - David G Birch
- Retina Foundation of the Southwest and Department of Ophthalmology, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, Texas
| | - Peiquan Zhao
- Department of Ophthalmology, Xin Hua Hospital affiliated to Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, Shanghai, China
| | - Fernanda B Porto
- Department of Retina and Vitreous, Ophthalmologic Center of Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais, Brazil.,Instituto de Ensino e Pesquisa da Santa Casa de Belo Horizonte Hospital - IEP/SCBH, Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais, Brazil
| | - Juliana Sallum
- Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences, Paulista School of Medicine, Federal University of São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil
| | - Robert K Koenekoop
- McGill Ocular Genetics Laboratory and Centre, Department of Paediatric Surgery, Human Genetics, and Ophthalmology, McGill University Health Centre, Montreal, Quebec, Canada
| | - Ruifang Sui
- Department of Ophthalmology, Peking Union Medical College Hospital, Peking Union Medical College, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences, Beijing, China
| | - Rui Chen
- Department of Molecular and Human Genetics, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, Texas.,Human Genome Sequencing Center, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, Texas.,Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, Texas.,Department of Structural and Computational Biology & Molecular Biophysics, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, Texas
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29
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Caracausi M, Piovesan A, Antonaros F, Strippoli P, Vitale L, Pelleri MC. Systematic identification of human housekeeping genes possibly useful as references in gene expression studies. Mol Med Rep 2017; 16:2397-2410. [PMID: 28713914 PMCID: PMC5548050 DOI: 10.3892/mmr.2017.6944] [Citation(s) in RCA: 44] [Impact Index Per Article: 6.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/15/2016] [Accepted: 03/16/2017] [Indexed: 12/21/2022] Open
Abstract
The ideal reference, or control, gene for the study of gene expression in a given organism should be expressed at a medium-high level for easy detection, should be expressed at a constant/stable level throughout different cell types and within the same cell type undergoing different treatments, and should maintain these features through as many different tissues of the organism. From a biological point of view, these theoretical requirements of an ideal reference gene appear to be best suited to housekeeping (HK) genes. Recent advancements in the quality and completeness of human expression microarray data and in their statistical analysis may provide new clues toward the quantitative standardization of human gene expression studies in biology and medicine, both cross- and within-tissue. The systematic approach used by the present study is based on the Transcriptome Mapper tool and exploits the automated reassignment of probes to corresponding genes, intra- and inter-sample normalization, elaboration and representation of gene expression values in linear form within an indexed and searchable database with a graphical interface recording quantitative levels of expression, expression variability and cross-tissue width of expression for more than 31,000 transcripts. The present study conducted a meta-analysis of a pool of 646 expression profile data sets from 54 different human tissues and identified actin γ 1 as the HK gene that best fits the combination of all the traditional criteria to be used as a reference gene for general use; two ribosomal protein genes, RPS18 and RPS27, and one aquaporin gene, POM121 transmembrane nucleporin C, were also identified. The present study provided a list of tissue- and organ-specific genes that may be most suited for the following individual tissues/organs: Adipose tissue, bone marrow, brain, heart, kidney, liver, lung, ovary, skeletal muscle and testis; and also provides in these cases a representative, quantitative portrait of the relative, typical gene-expression profile in the form of searchable database tables.
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Affiliation(s)
- Maria Caracausi
- Department of Experimental, Diagnostic and Specialty Medicine (DIMES), Unit of Histology, Embryology and Applied Biology, University of Bologna, I‑40126 Bologna, Italy
| | - Allison Piovesan
- Department of Experimental, Diagnostic and Specialty Medicine (DIMES), Unit of Histology, Embryology and Applied Biology, University of Bologna, I‑40126 Bologna, Italy
| | - Francesca Antonaros
- Department of Experimental, Diagnostic and Specialty Medicine (DIMES), Unit of Histology, Embryology and Applied Biology, University of Bologna, I‑40126 Bologna, Italy
| | - Pierluigi Strippoli
- Department of Experimental, Diagnostic and Specialty Medicine (DIMES), Unit of Histology, Embryology and Applied Biology, University of Bologna, I‑40126 Bologna, Italy
| | - Lorenza Vitale
- Department of Experimental, Diagnostic and Specialty Medicine (DIMES), Unit of Histology, Embryology and Applied Biology, University of Bologna, I‑40126 Bologna, Italy
| | - Maria Chiara Pelleri
- Department of Experimental, Diagnostic and Specialty Medicine (DIMES), Unit of Histology, Embryology and Applied Biology, University of Bologna, I‑40126 Bologna, Italy
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30
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Piovesan A, Caracausi M, Antonaros F, Pelleri MC, Vitale L. GeneBase 1.1: a tool to summarize data from NCBI gene datasets and its application to an update of human gene statistics. DATABASE-THE JOURNAL OF BIOLOGICAL DATABASES AND CURATION 2016; 2016:baw153. [PMID: 28025344 PMCID: PMC5199132 DOI: 10.1093/database/baw153] [Citation(s) in RCA: 77] [Impact Index Per Article: 9.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/21/2016] [Revised: 10/28/2016] [Accepted: 10/31/2016] [Indexed: 11/25/2022]
Abstract
We release GeneBase 1.1, a local tool with a graphical interface useful for parsing, structuring and indexing data from the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) Gene data bank. Compared to its predecessor GeneBase (1.0), GeneBase 1.1 now allows dynamic calculation and summarization in terms of median, mean, standard deviation and total for many quantitative parameters associated with genes, gene transcripts and gene features (exons, introns, coding sequences, untranslated regions). GeneBase 1.1 thus offers the opportunity to perform analyses of the main gene structure parameters also following the search for any set of genes with the desired characteristics, allowing unique functionalities not provided by the NCBI Gene itself. In order to show the potential of our tool for local parsing, structuring and dynamic summarizing of publicly available databases for data retrieval, analysis and testing of biological hypotheses, we provide as a sample application a revised set of statistics for human nuclear genes, gene transcripts and gene features. In contrast with previous estimations strongly underestimating the length of human genes, a ‘mean’ human protein-coding gene is 67 kbp long, has eleven 309 bp long exons and ten 6355 bp long introns. Median, mean and extreme values are provided for many other features offering an updated reference source for human genome studies, data useful to set parameters for bioinformatic tools and interesting clues to the biomedical meaning of the gene features themselves. Database URL: http://apollo11.isto.unibo.it/software/
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Affiliation(s)
- Allison Piovesan
- Department of Experimental, Diagnostic and Specialty Medicine (DIMES), Unit of Histology, Embryology and Applied Biology, University of Bologna, Via Belmeloro 8, 40126 Bologna, Italy
| | - Maria Caracausi
- Department of Experimental, Diagnostic and Specialty Medicine (DIMES), Unit of Histology, Embryology and Applied Biology, University of Bologna, Via Belmeloro 8, 40126 Bologna, Italy
| | - Francesca Antonaros
- Department of Experimental, Diagnostic and Specialty Medicine (DIMES), Unit of Histology, Embryology and Applied Biology, University of Bologna, Via Belmeloro 8, 40126 Bologna, Italy
| | - Maria Chiara Pelleri
- Department of Experimental, Diagnostic and Specialty Medicine (DIMES), Unit of Histology, Embryology and Applied Biology, University of Bologna, Via Belmeloro 8, 40126 Bologna, Italy
| | - Lorenza Vitale
- Department of Experimental, Diagnostic and Specialty Medicine (DIMES), Unit of Histology, Embryology and Applied Biology, University of Bologna, Via Belmeloro 8, 40126 Bologna, Italy
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31
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Caracausi M, Piovesan A, Vitale L, Pelleri MC. Integrated Transcriptome Map Highlights Structural and Functional Aspects of the Normal Human Heart. J Cell Physiol 2016; 232:759-770. [PMID: 27345625 DOI: 10.1002/jcp.25471] [Citation(s) in RCA: 14] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/16/2016] [Accepted: 06/24/2016] [Indexed: 12/22/2022]
Abstract
A systematic meta-analysis of the available gene expression profiling datasets for the whole normal human heart generated a quantitative transcriptome reference map of this organ. Transcriptome Mapper (TRAM) software integrated 32 gene expression profile datasets from different sources returning a reference value of expression for each of the 43,360 known, mapped transcripts assayed by any of the experimental platforms used in this regard. Main findings include the visualization at the gene and chromosomal levels of the classical description of the basic histology and physiology of the heart, the identification of suitable housekeeping reference genes, the analysis of stoichiometry of gene products, and the focusing on chromosome 21 genes, which are present in one excess copy in Down syndrome subjects, presenting cardiovascular defects in 30-40% of cases. Independent in vitro validation showed an excellent correlation coefficient (r = 0.98) with the in silico data. Remarkably, heart/non-cardiac tissue expression ratio may also be used to anticipate that effects of mutations will most probably affect or not the heart. The quantitative reference global portrait of gene expression in the whole normal human heart illustrates the structural and functional aspects of the whole organ and is a general model to understand the mechanisms underlying heart pathophysiology. J. Cell. Physiol. 232: 759-770, 2017. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
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Affiliation(s)
- Maria Caracausi
- Unit of Histology, Embryology and Applied Biology, Department of Experimental, Diagnostic and Specialty Medicine (DIMES), University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy
| | - Allison Piovesan
- Unit of Histology, Embryology and Applied Biology, Department of Experimental, Diagnostic and Specialty Medicine (DIMES), University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy
| | - Lorenza Vitale
- Unit of Histology, Embryology and Applied Biology, Department of Experimental, Diagnostic and Specialty Medicine (DIMES), University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy
| | - Maria Chiara Pelleri
- Unit of Histology, Embryology and Applied Biology, Department of Experimental, Diagnostic and Specialty Medicine (DIMES), University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy
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Pelleri MC, Cicchini E, Locatelli C, Vitale L, Caracausi M, Piovesan A, Rocca A, Poletti G, Seri M, Strippoli P, Cocchi G. Systematic reanalysis of partial trisomy 21 cases with or without Down syndrome suggests a small region on 21q22.13 as critical to the phenotype. Hum Mol Genet 2016; 25:2525-2538. [PMID: 27106104 PMCID: PMC5181629 DOI: 10.1093/hmg/ddw116] [Citation(s) in RCA: 39] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.9] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/02/2016] [Revised: 04/12/2016] [Accepted: 04/12/2016] [Indexed: 01/13/2023] Open
Abstract
A 'Down Syndrome critical region' (DSCR) sufficient to induce the most constant phenotypes of Down syndrome (DS) had been identified by studying partial (segmental) trisomy 21 (PT21) as an interval of 0.6-8.3 Mb within human chromosome 21 (Hsa21), although its existence was later questioned. We propose an innovative, systematic reanalysis of all described PT21 cases (from 1973 to 2015). In particular, we built an integrated, comparative map from 125 cases with or without DS fulfilling stringent cytogenetic and clinical criteria. The map allowed to define or exclude as candidates for DS fine Hsa21 sequence intervals, also integrating duplication copy number variants (CNVs) data. A highly restricted DSCR (HR-DSCR) of only 34 kb on distal 21q22.13 has been identified as the minimal region whose duplication is shared by all DS subjects and is absent in all non-DS subjects. Also being spared by any duplication CNV in healthy subjects, HR-DSCR is proposed as a candidate for the typical DS features, the intellectual disability and some facial phenotypes. HR-DSCR contains no known gene and has relevant homology only to the chimpanzee genome. Searching for HR-DSCR functional loci might become a priority for understanding the fundamental genotype-phenotype relationships in DS.
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Affiliation(s)
- Maria Chiara Pelleri
- Department of Experimental, Diagnostic and Specialty Medicine (DIMES), Unit of Histology, Embryology and Applied Biology, University of Bologna, Via Belmeloro 8, 40126 Bologna, BO, Italy
| | - Elena Cicchini
- Department of Experimental, Diagnostic and Specialty Medicine (DIMES), Unit of Histology, Embryology and Applied Biology, University of Bologna, Via Belmeloro 8, 40126 Bologna, BO, Italy
| | - Chiara Locatelli
- Neonatology Unit, St. Orsola-Malpighi Polyclinic, Via Massarenti 9, 40138 Bologna, BO, Italy
| | - Lorenza Vitale
- Department of Experimental, Diagnostic and Specialty Medicine (DIMES), Unit of Histology, Embryology and Applied Biology, University of Bologna, Via Belmeloro 8, 40126 Bologna, BO, Italy
| | - Maria Caracausi
- Department of Experimental, Diagnostic and Specialty Medicine (DIMES), Unit of Histology, Embryology and Applied Biology, University of Bologna, Via Belmeloro 8, 40126 Bologna, BO, Italy
| | - Allison Piovesan
- Department of Experimental, Diagnostic and Specialty Medicine (DIMES), Unit of Histology, Embryology and Applied Biology, University of Bologna, Via Belmeloro 8, 40126 Bologna, BO, Italy
| | - Alessandro Rocca
- Neonatology Unit, St. Orsola-Malpighi Polyclinic, Via Massarenti 9, 40138 Bologna, BO, Italy
| | - Giulia Poletti
- Neonatology Unit, St. Orsola-Malpighi Polyclinic, Via Massarenti 9, 40138 Bologna, BO, Italy
| | | | - Pierluigi Strippoli
- Department of Experimental, Diagnostic and Specialty Medicine (DIMES), Unit of Histology, Embryology and Applied Biology, University of Bologna, Via Belmeloro 8, 40126 Bologna, BO, Italy
| | - Guido Cocchi
- Neonatology Unit, St. Orsola-Malpighi Polyclinic, Department of Medical and Surgical Sciences (DIMEC), University of Bologna, Via Massarenti 9, 40138 Bologna, BO, Italy
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