| 1. |
- Berglund, Jonas, 1983-
(författare)
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Meiotic Recombination in Human and Dog : Targets, Consequences and Implications for Genome Evolution
- 2014
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Understanding the mechanism of recombination has important implications for genome evolution and genomic variability. The work presented in this thesis studies the properties of recombination by investigating the effects it has on genome evolution in humans and dogs.Using alignments of human genes with chimpanzee and macaque orthologues we studied substitution patterns along the human lineage and scanned for evidence of positive selection. The properties mirror the situation in human non-coding sequences with the fixation bias ‘GC-biased gene conversion’ (gBGC) as a driving force in the most rapidly evolving regions. By assigning candidate genes to distinct classes of evolutionary forces we quantified the extent of those genes affected by gBGC to 20%. This suggests that human-specific characters can be prompted by the fixation bias of gBGC, which can be mistaken for selection.The gene PRDM9 controls recombination in most mammals, but is lacking in dogs. Using whole-genome alignments of dog with related species we examined the effects of PRDM9 inactivation. Additionally, we analyzed genomic variation in the genomes of several dog breeds. We identified that non-allelic homologous recombination (NAHR) via sequence identity, often GC-rich, creates structural variants of genomic regions. We show that these regions, which are also found in dog recombination hotspots, are a subset of unmethylated CpG-islands (CGIs). We inferred that CGIs have experienced a drastic increase in biased substitution rates, concurrent with a shift of recombination to target these regions. This enables recurrent episodes of gBGC to shape their distribution.The work presented in this thesis demonstrates the importance of meiotic recombination on patterns of molecular evolution and genomic variability in humans and dogs. Bioinformatic analyses identified mechanisms that regulate genome composition. gBGC is presented as an alternative to positive selection and is revealed as a major factor affecting allele configuration and the emergence of accelerated evolution on the human lineage. Characterization of recombination-induced sequence patterns highlights the potential of non-methylation and establishes unmethylated CGIs as targets of meiotic recombination in dogs. These observations describe recombination as an interesting process in genome evolution and provide further insights into the mechanisms of genomic variability.
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| 2. |
- Jiang, Lin
(författare)
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Functional Studies of Genes Associated with Muscle Growth in Pigs and Hair Greying in Horses
- 2012
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Domestic animals have become very different from their wild ancestors during domestication and animal breeding. This provides a good model to unravel the molecular mechanisms underlying phenotypic variation. In my thesis I have studied genes affecting two important traits, leanness in pigs and hair greying-associated melanoma in horses.In the first part of the thesis, I focused on an intronic mutation leading to more muscle growth and less fat deposition in domestic pigs to identify a transcription factor (TF) that binds to the regulatory element overlapping with the mutation. The aim has been to further study the function of the previously unknown TF in mouse myoblast cells and in insulin-producing cells (Paper I-III). We discovered a new TF ZBED6 binding to intron 3 of the IGF2 gene, in which a single nucleotide substitution in pigs abrogates the binding and causes increased leanness in domestic pigs. Silencing of ZBED6 expression in mouse myoblasts increased Igf2 expression, cell proliferation and migration, and myotube formation. This result is in line with the increased leanness phenotype in mutant pigs. Chromatin Immunoprecipitation-sequencing (ChIP-seq) using an anti-ZBED6 antibody identified 1200 ZBED6 target genes besides IGF2 and many are TFs controlling fundamental biological processes. In the first follow-up study we found ZBED6 mainly affected the expression of muscle protein genes by directly regulating Igf2 and Twist2 expression, in agreement with our previous observation of faster myotube formation in ZBED6-silenced cells. ChIP-seq with antibodies against six different histone modifications revealed that ZBED6 preferentially binds to active promoters and modulates transcriptional activity by a novel mechanism rather than by recruiting repressive histone modifications. The second follow-up study revealed that ZBED6 affects the morphology and insulin content and release in pancreatic ß cells.In the second part (Paper IV), we investigate the functional significance of an intronic duplication in the Syntaxin 17 (STX17) gene causing hair greying and melanoma in horses. We found two Microphtalmia-associated transcription factor (MITF) binding sites within the duplication and showed that the duplicated sequence up-regulates reporter gene expression in a melanocyte-specific manner both by reporter assays in mouse melanocytes and in transgenic zebrafish. These results established that the intronic duplication acts as a melanocyte-specific enhancer that becomes much stronger when it is duplicated.
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| 3. |
- Nordin, Jessika
(författare)
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Human leukocyte antigen in sickness and in health : Ankylosing spondylitis and HLA in Sweden
- 2019
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The human leukocyte antigen (HLA) plays a major role in keeping us healthy, but some of the HLA alleles can contribute to disease susceptibility. One example is HLA-B*27, which confers increased susceptibility of ankylosing spondylitis and represents one of the strongest genetic associations found in any common human disease. Ankylosing spondylitis shows a strong sex ratio skew (2-3:1 male to female) and studies confirm the existence of sexual-dimorphism in the presentation of this disease. The genetic predisposition for this, however, has not previously been studied. A Swedish ankylosing spondylitis population was sequenced with a targeted array to investigate the existence of sex-specific associations. RUNX3 was revealed to be associated in males by a univariate test, while aggregate tests revealed the HLA gene MICB to be associated in females. Functional validation demonstrated that the risk variants in RUNX3 increase expression, and MICB changed the transcription factor binding sites. Interestingly, since the disease involves bone changes, both RUNX3 and one of the MICB variants had effect in the bone cell line, SaOS-2.In order to help researchers obtain more controls for HLA analysis, an HLA allele bioresource (SweHLA) was generated from 1,000 Swedish genomes. The alleles were typed with three to four HLA typing software programs and results were combined by an n-1methodology. This produced high quality alleles where the bias from each software program was diminished.The methodology from SweHLA was utilised to study HLA in ankylosing spondylitis. To investigate both sex-specific predisposition and HLA-B*27 independence, samples were subdivided into two populations (one population with mixed HLA-B*27 positive and negative samples and one with only HLA-B*27 positive samples) that in turn were grouped by sex. In the mixed population, several alleles were replicated from previous studies. This study also revealed three female-specific alleles, two of which were new and one that had previously been associated to the severity of radiological changes. The HLA-B*27 population revealed a previously unknown protective allele, HLA-A*24:02. Through deeper examination of the HLA-B*27 population, two amino acids in HLA-A, position 119 in the whole set and position 180 in the male set, were revealed to be protective.This thesis brings new insight into the genetic predisposition for a sex-skewed disease, demonstrating how sexual-dimorphism can be reflected in the genetic predisposition, hopefully leading to more similar studies. It also highlights the importance of methodology and demonstrate the drastic biases that can be imparted by software programs.
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| 4. |
- Olsson, Mia, 1978-
(författare)
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Uncovering a Novel Pathway for Autoinflammation : With a Little Help from a Wrinkled Friend
- 2012
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- A major challenge in medical genetics is to identify the mutations underlying heritable diseases. Dogs are excellent genetic models in the search for causative mutations, as they constitute a large library of naturally occurring heritable diseases many of which are analogous to those suffered by man. In addition, these animals have a genome structure well suited to gene mapping. The Shar-Pei dog has two breed-specific features; a strongly selected for wrinkled skin and a high predisposition to an autoinflammatory disease (AID). Abnormalities in the innate immune system cause this type of disease, presenting as spontaneous attacks of inflammation. Persistent inflammation puts an affected Shar-Pei at risk of amyloidosis, organ failure and premature death. In humans, similar AIDs occur and for a majority of cases, no underlying genetic cause has yet been identified. The aim of this thesis was to use the Shar-Pei as a genetic model for autoinflammation in order to find new genes and signalling pathways involved in disease. In paper I, a pleiotropic mutation was identified that could explain both the wrinkled skin and autoinflammation in Shar-Pei. The mutation is associated with an up-regulation of Hyaluronic Acid Synthase 2 (HAS2). Increased expression of HAS2 leads to abnormal depositions of hyaluronic acid (HA) in the skin, resulting in the wrinkled appearance. When fragmented, HA also function as a damage signal sensed by the innate immune system which then responds with inflammation. By selecting for the wrinkled skin, the autoinflammatory disease has inadvertently been enriched in the breed. In paper II, five different inflammatory signs could be associated with the same genetic risk factor, allowing the introduction of a new terminology: Shar-Pei autoinflammatory disease (SPAID) to describe the whole disease complex. In addition, a modifying locus containing several biologically attractive genes was suggested to contribute to varying incidence of amyloidosis in Shar-Pei. In paper III, signs of pathological changes in HA metabolism were investigated in human AID. HA concentration was found to be both higher in subjects with no molecular diagnosis and also associated to disease activity and severity. Taken together, this suggests HA is also involved in human AID.
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| 5. |
- Tengvall, Katarina, 1980-
(författare)
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Genetic Studies in Dogs Implicate Novel Genes Involved in Atopic Dermatitis and IgA Deficiency
- 2015
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This thesis presents genetic studies of atopic dermatitis (AD) and IgA deficiency in dogs.AD is a chronic inflammatory and pruritic skin disorder caused by allergic reactions against environmental allergens. Both genetic and environmental factors are involved in the development of Canine AD (CAD) and human AD. In Paper I, we performed genome-wide association studies (GWAS) and identified a locus on chromosome 27 significantly associated with CAD in German shepherd dogs (GSDs). The locus contains several genes and fine-mapping indicated strongest association close to the candidate gene PKP2. In Paper II, we performed additional fine-mapping and identified four highly associated SNPs located in regions with transcriptional regulatory potential in epithelial and immune cells. The risk alleles were associated with increased transcriptional activity and the effect on expression was cell-type dependent. These data indicate that multiple cell-type specific enhancers regulate the expression of PKP2, and/or the neighboring genes YARS2, DNM1L and FGD4, and predispose GSDs to CAD.IgA deficiency is the most common primary immune deficiency disorder in both humans and dogs, characterized by a higher risk of recurrent mucosal tract infections, allergic and other immune-mediated diseases. In Paper III, we performed the widest screening (to date) of serum IgA levels in dog breeds (Ndogs=1267, Nbreeds=22) and defined eight breeds as predisposed to low IgA levels. In Paper IV, we performed GWAS in four of the breeds defined as prone to low IgA levels. We used a novel percentile groups-approach to establish breed-specific cut-offs to perform analyses in a close to continuous manner. In total, 35 genomic loci were suggestively associated (p<0.0005) to IgA levels, and three genomic regions (including the genes KIRREL3 and SERPINA9) were genome-wide significantly associated with IgA levels in GSDs. A ~20kb long haplotype on chromosome 28, significantly associated to IgA levels in Shar-Pei dogs, was positioned within the first intron of the gene SLIT1 overlapping with a possible dog domestication sweep.This thesis suggests novel candidate genes involved in two immune-mediated disorders in the dog. Hopefully, these results will become an important resource for the genetic research of the corresponding human diseases.
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| 6. |
- Zody, Michael C., 1968-
(författare)
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Investigation of Mechanics of Mutation and Selection by Comparative Sequencing
- 2009
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The process of evolution is of both scientific and medical interest. This thesis presents several studies using complete genomic reference sequences, comparative genomic data, and intraspecific diversity data to study the two key processes of evolution: mutation and selection. Large duplications, deletions, inversions, and translocations of DNA contribute to genomic variation both between and within species. Human chromosomes 15 and 17 contain a high percentage of dispersed, recently duplicated sequences. Examination of the relationships between these sequences showed that the majority of all duplications within each chromosome could be linked through core sequences that are prone to duplication. Comparison to orthologous sequences in other mammals allowed a reconstruction of the ancestral state of the human chromosomes, revealing that regions of rearrangement specific to the human lineage are highly enriched in chromosome-specific duplications. Comparison to copy number variation data from other studies also shows that these regions are enriched in current human structural variation. One specific region, the MAPT locus at 17q21.31, known to contain an inversion polymorphism in Europeans, was resequenced completely across both human orientation haplotypes and in chimpanzee and orangutan, revealing complex duplication structures at the inversion breakpoints, with the human region being more complex than chimpanzee or orangutan. Fluorescent in-situ hybridization analysis of human, chimpanzee, and orangutan chromosomes showed inversion polymorphisms of independent origin in all three species, demonstrating that this region has been a hotspot of genomic rearrangement for at least twelve million years. These results reveal a mechanistic relationship between sequence duplication and rearrangement in the great apes. We also generated a draft sequence of the chimpanzee genome and compared it to that of the human. Among other findings, this showed that CpG dinucleotides contribute 25% of all single base mutations, with a rate of mutation ~10-fold that of other bases, and that the male mutation rate in great apes is ~5-6 times the female rate, a higher ratio than had been observed in comparisons of primates and rodents. We detected six regions of probable recent positive selection in humans with a statistical method relying on chimpanzee sequence to control for regional variation in mutation rates. Finally, resequencing of several lines of domestic chicken and comparison to the reference chicken genome identified a number of gene deletions fixed in domestic lines and also several potential selective sweeps. Of particular interest are a missense mutation in TSHR nearly fixed in all domestic chickens and a partial deletion of SH3RF2 fixed in a high growth line. The TSHR mutation may play a role in relaxation of seasonal reproduction. A high-resolution QTL mapping experiment showed that the SH3RF2 deletion is significantly associated with increased growth. This work provides important new insights into the mechanics of evolutionary change at both the single nucleotide and structural level and identifies potential targets of natural and artificial selection in humans and chickens.
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