744 results

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• Peripheral immunoprofiling of stratifies COVID-19 patients based on disease-specific neutrophil signatures

  The SARS-CoV-2 pandemic has led to increasing numbers of COVID-19 patients all over the world. Aetiopathologies range from no symptoms, mild flu-like to severe cases succumbing to respiratory failure. Reports on a dysregulated immune system in the severe cases, showing similarities to cytokine release syndrome, calls for better characterization and understanding of the changes in the immune system as well as their variance across COVID-19 patients in order to be able to design according to host-directed therapies. Here, we profiled blood transcriptomes of 39 COVID-19 patients and 10 control donors. Enriched granulocyte signatures in whole blood samples were verified in granulocyte samples from 49 COVID-19 patients in a second cohort.

  Study EGAS00001004503

• Pathogenic variants damage cell compositions and single cell transcription in cardiomyopathies

  Pathogenic variants in genes that cause dilated (DCM) and arrhythmogenic cardiomyopathies (ACM) convey high risks for the development of heart failure (HF) through unknown mechanisms. Using single nucleus RNA sequencing (snRNAseq), we characterized the transcriptome of 880,000 nuclei from 18 control and 61 failing, non-ischemic human hearts with pathogenic variants in DCM and ACM genes or idiopathic disease. We performed genotype-stratified analyses of the ventricular cell lineages and transcriptional states. The resultant DCM and ACM ventricular cell atlas demonstrated distinct right and left ventricular responses, highlighting genotype-associated pathways, intercellular interactions, and differential gene expression at single cell resolution. Together these data illuminate both shared and distinct cellular and molecular architectures of human HF and suggest novel candidate therapeutic targets.

  Study EGAS00001006374

• Local In Time Statistics for processual research

  Background: Functional genomics in a processual analysis cover the time-dependent changes in transcriptomics and epigenetics before diagnosis of a disease, reflecting the changes in both life style and disease processes. The aim of this paper is to explore the dynamic, time-dependent mechanisms of the metastatic processes, using blood transcriptomics and including time in a continuous manner. For achieving this goal we develop new statistical methods based on statistics that are local in time. Methods: The new statistical method, Local In Time Statistics (LITS), is based on calculating statistics in moving windows and randomization. The method has been tested for the analysis of a dataset that collectively provides information on the blood transcriptome up to eight years before breast cancer diagnosis. The dataset from the NOWAC Post-genome Cohort consists of 467 case-control pairs matched on birth year and time of blood sampling. The data for a pair is the difference in log2 gene expression between the case and control. The stratified analyses are based on important biological differences like metastatic versus non-metastatic cancer, and the mode of cancer detection, i.e. screening detected versus clinically detected cancers. The dataset was used for examining whether the gene expression profile varies between cases and controls, with time, or between cases with and without metastases. Results: The null hypotheses of no differences between cases and controls, no time-dependent changes, and no differences between different strata were all rejected. For screening detected cancers the probability of correct prediction of metastasis status was best in year 1 before diagnosis compared to year 3 and 4 before diagnosis for clinically detected cancers. The predictor was not very sensitive to the number of genes included.Conclusions: Using a new statistical method, LITS, we have demonstrated time-dependent changes of the blood transcriptome up to eight years before breast cancer diagnosis.

  Study EGAS00001002520

• Polymorphisms in the mitochondrial genome are associated with bullous pemphigoid in Germans

  Bullous pemphigoid (BP) is the most prevalent autoimmune skin blistering disease and is characterized by the generation of autoantibodies against the hemidesmosomal proteins BP180 (type XVII collagen) and BP230. Most intriguingly, BP is distinct from other autoimmune diseases because it predominantly affects elderly individuals above the age of 75 years, raising the question why autoantibodies and the clinical lesions of BP emerges mostly in this later stage of life, even in individuals harboring known putative BP-associated germline gene variants. The mitochondrial genome (mtDNA) is a potential candidate to provide additional insights into the BP etiology; however, the mtDNA has not been extensively explored to date. Therefore, we sequenced the whole mtDNA of German BP patients (n=180) and age- and sex-matched healthy controls (n=188) using next generation sequencing (NGS) technology, followed by the replication study using Sanger sequencing of an additional independent BP (n=89) and control cohort (n=104). While the BP and control groups showed comparable mitochondrial haplogroup distributions, the haplogroup T exhibited a tendency of higher frequency in BP patients suffering from neurodegenerative diseases (ND) compared to BP patients without ND (p= 0.1448, Fisher’s exact test). A total of four single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in the mtDNA, namely, m.16263T>C, m.11914G>A, m.16051A>G, and m.16162A>G, were found to be significantly associated with BP based on the meta-analysis of our NGS data and the Sanger sequencing data (p=0.0017, p=0.0132, p=0.0129, and p=0.0076, respectively, Peto’s test). In summary, our study is the first to interrogate the whole mtDNA in BP patients and controls and to implicate multiple novel mtDNA variants in disease susceptibility. Studies using larger cohorts and more diverse populations are warranted to explore the functional consequences of the mtDNA variants identified in this study on immune and skin cells to understand their contributions to BP pathology.

  Study EGAS00001003932

• A circulating biomarker for severity of facioscapulohumeral muscular dystrophy

  Facioscapulohumeral muscular dystrophy (FSHD) is a prevalent, incurable skeletal myopathy. Clinical trials for FSHD are hindered by heterogeneous biomarkers poorly associated with clinical severity, requiring invasive muscle biopsy. Macroscopically FSHD presents with slow fatty replacement of muscle, rapidly accelerated by inflammation. Mis-expression of the transcription factor DUX4 is currently accepted to underlie FSHD pathogenesis and mechanisms including PAX7 target gene repression have been proposed. Here we perform RNA-sequencing on MRI guided inflamed (n=24) and isogenic non-inflamed (n=24) muscle biopsies from the same clinically characterised FSHD patients, alongside isogenic peripheral blood mononucleated cells from a subset of patients (n=13), and unaffected controls. We employ multivariate models to evaluate the clinical associations of 5 published FSHD transcriptomic biomarkers. We demonstrate that PAX7 target gene repression can discriminate control, inflamed and non-inflamed FSHD muscle independently of age and sex (p<0.013), while the discriminatory power of DUX4 target genes is limited to distinguishing FSHD muscle from control. Importantly, the level of PAX7 target gene repression in non-inflamed muscle associates with clinical assessments of FSHD severity (p=0.04). DUX4 target gene biomarkers in FSHD muscle show associations with lower limb fat fraction and D4Z4 array length, but not clinical assessment. Lastly, PAX7 target gene repression in FSHD muscle correlates with the level in isogenic peripheral blood mononucleated cells (p=0.002). A refined PAX7 target gene biomarker comprising 143/601 PAX7 target genes computed in peripheral blood (the FSHD muscle-blood biomarker) associates with clinical severity in FSHD patients (p<0.036). Our new circulating biomarker validates as a classifier of clinical severity in an independent data set of 54 FSHD patient blood samples, with improved power in older patients (p=0.03). In summary, we present the minimally invasive FSHD muscle-blood biomarker of FSHD clinical severity valid in patient muscle and blood, with potential utility in routine disease monitoring and clinical trials.

  Study EGAS00001007350

• Bulk-tissue RNA-sequencing paired nuclear and cytoplasmic fractions of anterior prefrontal cortex, cerebellar cortex and putamen tissues from post-mortem neuropathologically-confirmed control individuals.

  Gaining insight into the genetic regulation of gene expression in human brain is key to the interpretation of genome-wide association studies for major neurological and neuropsychiatric diseases. Expression quantitative trait loci (eQTL) analyses have largely been used to achieve this, providing valuable insights into the genetic regulation of steady-state RNA in human brain, but not distinguishing between molecular processes regulating transcription and stability. RNA quantification within cellular fractions can disentangle these processes in cell types and tissues which are challenging to model in vitro. We investigated the underlying molecular processes driving the genetic regulation of gene expression specific to a cellular fraction using allele-specific expression (ASE). Applying ASE analysis to genomic and transcriptomic data from paired nuclear and cytoplasmic fractions of anterior prefrontal cortex, cerebellar cortex and putamen tissues from 4 post-mortem neuropathologically-confirmed control human brains, we demonstrate that a significant proportion of genetic regulation of gene expression occurs post-transcriptionally in the cytoplasm, with genes undergoing this form of regulation more likely to be synaptic. These findings have implications for understanding the structure of gene expression regulation in human brain, and importantly the interpretation of rapidly growing single-nucleus brain RNA-sequencing and eQTL datasets, where cytoplasm-specific regulatory events could be missed.

  Study EGAS00001006380

• Genome wide association study of Coeliac Disease

  We performed a second-generation genome-wide association study of 4,533 individuals with celiac disease (cases) and 10,750 control subjects. We genotyped 113 selected SNPs with P(GWAS) < 10(-4) and 18 SNPs from 14 known loci in a further 4,918 cases and 5,684 controls. Variants from 13 new regions reached genome-wide significance (P(combined) < 5 x 10(-8)); most contain genes with immune functions (BACH2, CCR4, CD80, CIITA-SOCS1-CLEC16A, ICOSLG and ZMIZ1), with ETS1, RUNX3, THEMIS and TNFRSF14 having key roles in thymic T-cell selection. There was evidence to suggest associations for a further 13 regions. In an expression quantitative trait meta-analysis of 1,469 whole blood samples, 20 of 38 (52.6%) tested loci had celiac risk variants correlated (P < 0.0028, FDR 5%) with cis gene expression

  Study EGAS00000000057

• Spatiotemporal immune atlas of the first clinical-grade gene-edited pig-to-human kidney xenotransplant

  Pig-to-human xenotransplantation is rapidly approaching the clinical arena; however, it is unclear which immunomodulatory regimens will effectively control human immune responses to pig xenografts. We transplanted a gene-edited pig kidney into a brain-dead human recipient on pharmacologic immunosuppression and studied the human immune response to the xenograft using spatial transcriptomics and single-cell RNA sequencing. Human immune cells were uncommon in the porcine kidney cortex early after xenotransplantation and consisted of primarily myeloid cells. Both the porcine resident macrophages and human infiltrating macrophages expressed genes consistent with an alternatively activated, anti-inflammatory phenotype. No significant infiltration of human B or T cells into the porcine kidney xenograft was detected. Altogether, these findings provide proof of concept that conventional pharmacologic immunosuppression is sufficient to restrict infiltration of human immune cells into the xenograft early after compatible pig-to-human kidney xenotransplantation.

  Study EGAS50000000244

• APOL1 Risk Variants Induce Metabolic Reprogramming of Podocytes in Patient-Derived Kidney Organoids

  Apolipoprotein L1 (APOL1) high-risk genotypes G1 and G2 are responsible for the increased risk of chronic kidney disease (CKD) in the African-American population, especially in the presence of interferon gamma (IFN-γ). Here, we applied single cell transcriptomics on kidney organoids generated from patient-derived induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) to model human APOL1 nephropathy. iPSCs were generated from fibroblasts of two patients with APOL1 nephropathy homozygous for G1 or G2 risk variants, and an isogenic control (G0) was created by gene correction. Kidney organoids were generated according to previously published protocol (Takasato M et al. Nat. Protoc. 2016) and treated with IFN-γ for two days to induce APOL1. Twenty-four hours after IFN-γ removal, treated organoids from all three lines that were cultured in parallel were harvested for single cell transcriptomics.

  Study EGAS50000001223

• Multi-omic single-cell profiling of peripheral blood immune cells from COVID-19 patients and controls.

  The COVID-19 pandemic, caused by SARS coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), has resulted in excess morbidity and mortality as well as economic decline. To characterise the systemic host immune response to SARS-CoV-2, we performed single-cell RNA-sequencing coupled with analysis of cell surface proteins, providing molecular profiling of over 800,000 peripheral blood mononuclear cells from a cohort of 130 patients with COVID-19. Our cohort, from three UK centres, spans the spectrum of clinical presentations and disease severities ranging from asymptomatic to critical. Three control groups were included: healthy volunteers, patients suffering from a non-COVID-19 severe respiratory illness and healthy individuals administered with intravenous lipopolysaccharide to model an acute inflammatory response. Full single cell transcriptomes are coupled with quantification of 188 cell surface proteins, and T and B lymphocyte antigen receptor repertoires.

  Study EGAS00001005465