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- Fasterius, Erik, 1987-
(författare)
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Exploring genetic heterogeneity in cancer using high-throughput DNA and RNA sequencing
- 2018
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- High-throughput sequencing (HTS) technology has revolutionised the biomedical sciences, where it is used to analyse the genetic makeup and gene expression patterns of both primary patient tissue samples and models cultivated in vitro. This makes it especially useful for research on cancer, a disease that is characterised by its deadliness and genetic heterogeneity. This inherent genetic variation is an important aspect that warrants exploration, and the depth and breadth that HTS possesses makes it well-suited to investigate this facet of cancer.The types of analyses that may be accomplished with HTS technologies are many, but they may be divided into two groups: those that analyse the DNA of the sample in question, and those that work on the RNA. While DNA-based methods give information regarding the genetic landscape of the sample, RNA-based analyses yield data regarding gene expression patterns; both of these methods have already been used to investigate the heterogeneity present in cancer. While RNA-based methods are traditionally used exclusively for expression analyses, the data they yield may also be utilised to investigate the genetic variation present in the samples. This type of RNA-based analysis is seldom performed, however, and valuable information is thus ignored.The aim of this thesis is the development and application of DNA- and RNA- based HTS methods for analysing genetic heterogeneity within the context of cancer. The present investigation demonstrates that not only may RNA-based sequencing be used to successfully differentiate different in vitro cancer models through their genetic makeup, but that this may also be done for primary patient data. A pipeline for these types of analyses is established and evaluated, showing it to be both robust to several technical parameters as well as possess a broad scope of analytical possibilities. Genetic variation within cancer models in public databases are evaluated and demonstrated to affect gene expression in several cases. Both inter- and intra-patient genetic heterogeneity is shown using the established pipeline, in addition to demonstrating that cancerous cells are more heterogeneous than their normal neighbours. Finally, two bioinformatic open source software packages are presented.The results presented herein demonstrate that genetic analyses using RNA-based methods represent excellent complements to already existing DNA-based techniques, and further increase the already large scope of how HTS technologies may be utilised.
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| 2. |
- Fasterius, Erik, 1987-, et al.
(författare)
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SeqCAT : A bioconductor R-package for variant analysis of high throughput sequencing data [version 1; peer review: 1 approved with reservations, 1 not approved]
- 2018
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Ingår i: F1000 Research. - : F1000 Research Ltd. - 2046-1402. ; 7
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- High throughput sequencing technologies are flourishing in the biological sciences, enabling unprecedented insights into e.g. genetic variation, but require extensive bioinformatic expertise for the analysis. There is thus a need for simple yet effective software that can analyse both existing and novel data, providing interpretable biological results with little bioinformatic prowess. We present seqCAT, a Bioconductor toolkit for analysing genetic variation in high throughput sequencing data. It is a highly accessible, easy-to-use and well-documented R-package that enables a wide range of researchers to analyse their own and publicly available data, providing biologically relevant conclusions and publication-ready figures. SeqCAT can provide information regarding genetic similarities between an arbitrary number of samples, validate specific variants as well as define functionally similar variant groups for further downstream analyses. Its ease of use, installation, complete data-to-conclusions functionality and the inherent flexibility of the R programming language make seqCAT a powerful tool for variant analyses compared to already existing solutions. A publicly available dataset of liver cancer-derived organoids is analysed herein using the seqCAT package, demonstrating that the organoids are genetically stable. A previously known liver cancer-related mutation is additionally shown to be present in a sample though it was not listed in the original publication. Differences between DNA- and RNA-based variant calls in this dataset are also analysed revealing a high median concordance of 97.5%.
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| 6. |
- Söderhäll, Irene, et al.
(författare)
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Characterization of hemocytes and hematopoietic cells of a freshwater crayfish based on single-cell transcriptome analysis
- 2022
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Ingår i: iScience. - : Cell Press. - 2589-0042. ; 25:8
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Crustaceans constitute a species-rich and ecologically important animal group, and their circulating blood cells (hemocytes) are of critical importance in immunity as key players in pathogen recognition, phagocytosis, melanization, and antimicrobial defense. To gain a better understanding of the immune responses to different pathogens, it is crucial that we identify different hemocyte subpopulations with different functions and gain a better understanding of how these cells are formed. Here, we performed single-cell RNA sequencing of isolated hematopoietic tissue (HPT) cells and hemocytes from the crayfish Pacifastacus leniusculus to identify hitherto undescribed hemocyte types in the circulation and show that the circulating cells are more diversified than previously recognized. In addition, we discovered cell populations in the HPT with clear precursor characteristics as well as cells involved in iron homeostasis, representing a previously undiscovered cell type. These findings may improve our understanding of hematopoietic stem cell regulation in crustaceans and other animals.
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