1. |
- Hedlund, Joel, 1978-, et al.
(author)
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Analysis of ancient sequence motifs in the H+ -PPase family
- 2006
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In: The FEBS Journal. - : Wiley. - 1742-464X .- 1742-4658. ; 273, s. 5183-5193
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- The unique family of membrane-bound proton-pumping inorganic pyrophosphatases, involving pyrophosphate as the alternative to ATP, was investigated by characterizing 166 members of the UniProtKB ⁄ Swiss-Prot + UniProtKB ⁄TrEMBL databases and available completed genomes, using sequence comparisons and a hidden Markov model based upon a conserved 57-residue region in the loop between transmembrane segments 5 and 6. The hidden Markov model was also used to search the approximately one million sequences recently reported from a large-scale sequencing project of organisms in the Sargasso Sea, resulting in additional 164 partial pyrophosphatase sequences. The strongly conserved 57-residue region was found to contain two nonapeptidyl sequences, mainly consisting of the four ‘very early’ proteinaceous amino acid residues Gly, Ala, Val and Asp, compatible with an ancient origin of the inorganic pyrophosphatases. The nonapeptide patterns have charged amino acid residues at positions 1, 5 and 9, are apparent binding sites for the substrate and parts of the active site, and were shown to be so specific for these enzymes that they can be used for functional assignments of unannotated genomes.
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2. |
- Hedlund, Joel, 1978-
(author)
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Bioinformatic protein family characterisation
- 2010
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Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- Biological research is necessary; not only to further our understanding of the processes of life, but also to combat disease, hunger and environmental damage.Bioinformatics is the science of handling biological information. It entails integrating, structuring and analysing the ever-increasing amounts of available biological data. In practise it means using computers to analyse huge amounts of very complicated data taken from a field that is only partially understood, to see the hidden trends and connections, and to draw useful conclusions.My thesis work has mainly concerned the study of protein families, which are groups of evolutionarily related proteins. I have analysed known protein families and created predictive models for them, and developed algorithms for defining new protein families. My principal techniques have been sequence alignments and hidden Markov models (HMM). To aid my work, I have written a lot of software, including MSAView, a visualiser for multiple sequence alignments (MSA).In this thesis, the protein family of inorganic pyrophosphatases (H+-PPases) is studied, as well as the two protein superfamilies BRICHOS and MDR (medium-chain dehydrogenases/reductases). The H+-PPases are tightly membrane bound, proton pumping, dimeric enzymes with ~700-residue subunits and found in bacteria, plants and eukaryotic parasites, and which use pyrophosphate as an alternative to ATP. The BRICHOS superfamily is only present in higher eukaryotes, but encompasses at least 8 protein families with a wide range of functions and disease associations, such as respiratory distress syndrome, dementia and cancer. The sequences are typically ~200 residues with even shorter functional forms. Finally, MDR, is a large and complex protein superfamily; it currently has over 16000 members, it is present in all kingdoms of life, the pairwise sequence identity is typically around 25 %, the chain lengths vary as does the oligomericity, and the members are partaking in a multitude of biological processes. The member families include the classical liver alcohol dehydrogenase (ADH), quinone reductase, leukotriene B4 dehydrogenase, and many more forms. There are at least 25 human MDR genes excluding close homologues. There are HMMs available for detecting MDR superfamily membership, but none for the individual families.For the H+-PPase family, we characterised member sequences found using an HMM of a conserved 57-residue region thought to form part of the active site. This region was found to contain two highly conserved nonapeptides, mainly consisting of the four “very early” residues Gly, Ala, Val and Asp, compatible with an ancient origin of the family. The two patterns have charged amino acid residues at positions 1, 5 and 9, are apparent binding sites for the substrate and parts of the active site, and were shown to be so specific for these enzymes that they can be used for automated annotation of new sequences.For the BRICHOS superfamily, we were able to find three previously unknown member families; group A, which may be ancestral to the ITM2 families (integral membrane protein 2); group B, which is a close relative to the gastrokine families, and group C, which appears to be a truly novel, disjoint BRICHOS family. The C-terminal region of group C has nearly identical sequences in all species ranging from fish to man and is seemingly unique to this family, indicating critical functional or structural properties.For the MDR superfamily, we characterised and built stable HMMs for 17 member families using an empiric approach. From our experiences we were able to develop an algorithm for automated HMM refinement that uses relationships in data to produce stable and reliable classifiers, and we used it to produce HMMs for 86 distinct MDR families. We have made the program freely available and it can be readily applied to other protein families. We also developed a web site (http://mdr–enzymes.org) that makes our findings directly useful also for non-bioinformaticians.In our analyses of the 86 families, we found that MDR forms with 2 Zn2+ ions in general are dehydrogenases, while MDR forms with no Zn2+ in general are reductases. Furthermore, in Bacteria, MDRs without Zn2+ are more frequent than those with Zn2+, while the opposite is true for eukaryotic MDRs, indicating that Zn2+ has been recruited into the MDR superfamily after the initial life kingdom separations.Multiple sequence alignments (MSA) play a central part in most work on protein families, and are integral to many bioinformatic methods. With the ongoing explosive increase of available sequence data, the scales of bioinformatic projects are growing, and efficient and human-friendly data visualisation becomes increasingly challenging, but is still essential for making new interpretations and discovering unexpected properties of the data.Ideally, visualisation should be comprehensive and detailed, and never distract with irrelevant information. It needs to offer natural and responsive ways of exploring the data, as well as provide consistent views in order to facilitate comparisons between datasets. I therefore developed MSAView, which is a fast, modular, configurable and extensible package for analysing and visualising MSAs and sequence features. It has a graphical user interface and a powerful command line client, and can be imported as a package into any Python program. It has a plugin architecture and a user extendable preset library. It can integrate and display data from online sources and launch external viewers for showing additional details. It also includes two new conservation measures; alignment divergences, which indicate atypical residues or deletions, and sequence conformances, which highlight sequences that differ from their siblings at crucial positions.In conclusion, this thesis details my work in analysing two protein superfamilies and one protein family using bioinformatic methods; developing an algorithm for automated generation of stable and reliable HMMs, as well as a new conservation measure, and a software platform for working with aligned sequences.
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3. |
- Hedlund, Joel, 1978-, et al.
(author)
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Key insights in the AIDA community policy on sharing of clinical imaging data for research in Sweden
- 2020
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In: Scientific Data. - : Springer Nature. - 2052-4463. ; 7
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Development of world-class artificial intelligence (AI) for medical imaging requires access to massive amounts of training data from clinical sources, but effective data sharing is often hindered by uncertainty regarding data protection. We describe an initiative to reduce this uncertainty through a policy describing a national community consensus on sound data sharing practices.
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4. |
- Hedlund, Joel, 1978-
(author)
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MSAView : Flexible multiple sequence alignment visualisa-tion
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Other publication (other academic/artistic)abstract
- Background: The scales of bioinformatic projects are constantly growing, and in tandem, the amount of available sequence data continuously increases. Consequently, efficient and human-friendly visualisation of the data becomes increasingly challenging, but is still essential for making interpretations and discovering unexpected properties of the data. Multiple sequence alignments can provide valuable insight into the properties of protein families, and are an integral part of many bioinformatic methods. Ideally, visualisation should simultaneously be comprehensive and detailed, and never distract with irrelevant information. It also needs to oer natural and responsive ways of exploring the data, as well as provide consistent views in order to facilitate comparisons between datasets. Results: MSAView is a modular, congurable and extensible package for analysing and visualising multiple sequence alignments and sequence features. It has a fast graphical user interface that remains responsive even for large datasets, as well as a powerful command line client which allows for exible batch work. It is highly congurable and has a user extendable p reset library, as well as a plugin architecture which allows for straightforward extension of the program's capabilities. Internally, MSAView uses self-assembling functional components to construct the data ows, which both helps reduce unnecessary computation and facilitates adding new features to the program. MSAView is written in python, and all the program's functionality is directly accessible via the python API for more advanced operations. We also present two conservation measures which the program can visualise as a means to quickly find abnormalities in the alignment; alignment divergences which highlight unusual residues or deletions, and sequence conformances which can help expose sequences that dier from their siblings at crucial positions. Conclusions: MSAView is a multiple sequence alignment visualiser that has been used in several projects, both for interactive inspection of unknown protein families and to generate consistent views for hundreds of protein families at a time. It can integrate and display data from online sources, and it can launch external viewers for additional details, such as structures and database pages. The graphical user interface remains responsive on modern workstations, even for large datasets.
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5. |
- Hedlund, Joel, 1978-, et al.
(author)
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Subdivision of the MDR superfamily of medium-chain dehydrogenases/reductases through iterative hidden Markov model refinement
- 2010
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In: BMC Bioinformatics. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 1471-2105. ; 11, s. 534-
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Backgroun: The Medium-chain Dehydrogenases/Reductases (MDR) form a protein superfamily whose size and complexity defeats traditional means of subclassification; it currently has over 15000 members in the databases, the pairwise sequence identity is typically around 25%, there are members from all kingdoms of life, the chain-lengths vary as does the oligomericity, and the members are partaking in a multitude of biological processes. There are profile hidden Markov models (HMMs) available for detecting MDR superfamily members, but none for determining which MDR family each protein belongs to. The current torrential influx of new sequence data enables elucidation of more and more protein families, and at an increasingly fine granularity. However, gathering good quality training data usually requires manual attention by experts and has therefore been the rate limiting step for expanding the number of available models. Result: We have developed an automated algorithm for HMM refinement that produces stable and reliable models for protein families. This algorithm uses relationships found in data to generate confident seed sets. Using this algorithm we have produced HMMs for 86 distinct MDR families and 34 of their subfamilies which can be used in automated annotation of new sequences. We find that MDR forms with 2 Zn2+ ions in general are dehydrogenases, while MDR forms with no Zn2+ in general are reductases. Furthermore, in Bacteria MDRs without Zn2+ are more frequent than those with Zn2+, while the opposite is true for eukaryotic MDRs, indicating that Zn2+ has been recruited into the MDR superfamily after the initial life kingdom separations. We have also developed a web site http://mdr-enzymes.org webcite that provides textual and numeric search against various characterised MDR family properties, as well as sequence scan functions for reliable classification of novel MDR sequences. Conclusion: Our method of refinement can be readily applied to create stable and reliable HMMs for both MDR and other protein families, and to confidently subdivide large and complex protein superfamilies. HMMs created using this algorithm correspond to evolutionary entities, making resolution of overlapping models straightforward. The implementation and support scripts for running the algorithm on computer clusters are available as open source software, and the database files underlying the web site are freely downloadable. The web site also makes our findings directly useful also for non-bioinformaticians.
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6. |
- Immerstrand, Charlotte, 1974-, et al.
(author)
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Organelle transport in melanophores analyzed by white light image correlation spectroscopy
- 2007
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In: Journal of Microscopy. - : Wiley. - 0022-2720 .- 1365-2818. ; 225:3, s. 275-282
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Intracellular transport of organelles, vesicles and proteins is crucial in all eukaryotic cells, and is accomplished by motor proteins that move along cytoskeletal filaments. A widely used model of intracellular transport is Xenopus laevis melanophores. These cells help the frog to change color by redistributing melanin-containing organelles in the cytoplasm. The high contrast of the pigment organelles permits changes in distribution to be observed by ordinary light microscopy; other intracellular transport systems often require fluorescence labeling. Here we have developed white light Image Correlation Spectroscopy (ICS) to monitor aggregation and dispersion of pigment. Hitherto in ICS, images of fluorescent particles from Confocal Laser Scanning Microscopy (CLSM) have been used to calculate autocorrelation functions from which the density can be obtained. In the present study we show that ICS can be modified to enable analysis of light-microscopy images; it can be used to monitor pigment aggregation and dispersion, and distinguish between different stimuli. This new approach makes ICS applicable not only to fluorescent but also to black-and-white images from light or electron microscopy, and is thus very versatile in different studies of movement of particles on the membrane or in the cytoplasm of cells without potentially harmful fluorescence labeling and activation.
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