1. |
- Breeur, Marie, et al.
(author)
-
Pan-cancer analysis of pre-diagnostic blood metabolite concentrations in the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition
- 2022
-
In: BMC Medicine. - : BioMed Central (BMC). - 1741-7015. ; 20:1
-
Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Background: Epidemiological studies of associations between metabolites and cancer risk have typically focused on specific cancer types separately. Here, we designed a multivariate pan-cancer analysis to identify metabolites potentially associated with multiple cancer types, while also allowing the investigation of cancer type-specific associations.Methods: We analysed targeted metabolomics data available for 5828 matched case-control pairs from cancer-specific case-control studies on breast, colorectal, endometrial, gallbladder, kidney, localized and advanced prostate cancer, and hepatocellular carcinoma nested within the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition (EPIC) cohort. From pre-diagnostic blood levels of an initial set of 117 metabolites, 33 cluster representatives of strongly correlated metabolites and 17 single metabolites were derived by hierarchical clustering. The mutually adjusted associations of the resulting 50 metabolites with cancer risk were examined in penalized conditional logistic regression models adjusted for body mass index, using the data-shared lasso penalty.Results: Out of the 50 studied metabolites, (i) six were inversely associated with the risk of most cancer types: glutamine, butyrylcarnitine, lysophosphatidylcholine a C18:2, and three clusters of phosphatidylcholines (PCs); (ii) three were positively associated with most cancer types: proline, decanoylcarnitine, and one cluster of PCs; and (iii) 10 were specifically associated with particular cancer types, including histidine that was inversely associated with colorectal cancer risk and one cluster of sphingomyelins that was inversely associated with risk of hepatocellular carcinoma and positively with endometrial cancer risk.Conclusions: These results could provide novel insights for the identification of pathways for cancer development, in particular those shared across different cancer types.
|
|
2. |
- Crawford, Tim, et al.
(author)
-
Specific functions for Mediator complex subunits from different modules in the transcriptional response of Arabidopsis thaliana to abiotic stress
- 2020
-
In: Scientific Reports. - : Nature Publishing Group. - 2045-2322. ; 10:1
-
Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Adverse environmental conditions are detrimental to plant growth and development. Acclimation to abiotic stress conditions involves activation of signaling pathways which often results in changes in gene expression via networks of transcription factors (TFs). Mediator is a highly conserved co-regulator complex and an essential component of the transcriptional machinery in eukaryotes. Some Mediator subunits have been implicated in stress-responsive signaling pathways; however, much remains unknown regarding the role of plant Mediator in abiotic stress responses. Here, we use RNA-seq to analyze the transcriptional response of Arabidopsis thaliana to heat, cold and salt stress conditions. We identify a set of common abiotic stress regulons and describe the sequential and combinatorial nature of TFs involved in their transcriptional regulation. Furthermore, we identify stress-specific roles for the Mediator subunits MED9, MED16, MED18 and CDK8, and putative TFs connecting them to different stress signaling pathways. Our data also indicate different modes of action for subunits or modules of Mediator at the same gene loci, including a co-repressor function for MED16 prior to stress. These results illuminate a poorly understood but important player in the transcriptional response of plants to abiotic stress and identify target genes and mechanisms as a prelude to further biochemical characterization.
|
|
3. |
- Danielsson, Karin, 1965-, et al.
(author)
-
Autoantibodies and decreased expression of the transcription factor ELF-3 together with increased chemokine pathways support an autoimmune phenotype and altered differentiation in lichen planus located in oral mucosa
- 2013
-
In: Journal of the European Academy of Dermatology and Venereology. - : Wiley-Blackwell. - 0926-9959 .- 1468-3083. ; 27:11, s. 1410-1416
-
Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Background The pathogenesis of oral lichen planus (OLP), a chronic inflammatory disease, is not fully understood. It is known that OLP has autoimmune features, and it is suggested to be an autoimmune disease. ELF-3 is involved in differentiation of keratinocytes and deregulated in different tumours and inflammatory diseases. CXCR-3 and its ligands CXCL-10 and CXCL-11 are increased in autoimmune diseases and linked to Th-1 immune response. Objectives To analyse and compare expression of ELF-3, CXCR-3, CXCL-10 and CXCL-11 in OLP lesions and controls in whole and microdissected epithelium. Methods Tissue biopsies from 20 patients clinically and histologically diagnosed with OLP and 20 healthy controls were studied using whole tissues or microdissected epithelium. By the use of qRT-PCR, mRNA levels of ELF-3, CXCR-3, CXCL-10 and CXCL-11 were studied. Western blot was used for analysis of ELF-3 protein expression. Sera from 19 OLP patients and 20 controls were analysed with ELISA in search for autoantibodies. Results The upregulation of CXCR-3, CXCL-10 and CXCL-11 found in OLP is similar to previous findings showing an autoimmune phenotype in lichen planus (LP) and lichen sclerosus. Decreased expression of the differentiation-related transcription factor ELF-3 was also seen in OLP lesions, and we further demonstrate presence of circulating autoantibodies against the ELF-3 protein in sera from 3 of 19 (16%) LP patients tested. Conclusions On the basis of these findings, we confirm that OLP shows features of an autoimmune disease and suggest deregulated differentiation of keratinocytes to be one of the causes of the disease phenotype.
|
|
4. |
- Fahlén, Jessica, 1973-, et al.
(author)
-
MicroRNA-microarray data analysis in the precence of FFPE storage time effects
- 2010
-
Other publication (other academic/artistic)abstract
- Background: The standard method for preserving patient samples for diagnostic purposes is fixation in formalin followed by embedding in paraffin (FFPE). The use of FFPE blocks makes it possible to include a large number of patients in the experimental studies since millions of FFPE blocks are stored around the world. However, FFPE storage can cause degradation and modifications of nucleic acids. In order to draw reliable biological conclusions it is therefore important to know what effect FFPE-storage have on the tissues and to have procedures that normalize this effect. In this paper, we study the effect that FFPE-storage has on microRNA-microarray data from tongue-cancer patients and propose a novel procedure for normalizing the bias introduced by FFPE-storage.Results: MicroRNA-microarray data from 21 tongue-cancer patients and 8 control patients were used. The samples were stored in FFPE blocks and had been in storage for up to 11 years. The data contained a large amount of biological relevant variation, yet the largest variation was due to the samples storage times. The storage effect was shown to be significant and some results suggested that it may be causal. Moreover, the microRNAs were unequally affected by storage and this could partially be explained by sequence characteristics. The novel normalization procedure was shown to have a large impact in the analysis ability to identify differentially expressed microRNAs between young and old cancer patients as well as between cancer and control patients. The p-values for the top microRNAs candidates were much lower for the proposed novel normalization compared to a standard normalization procedure which suggested that the novel normalization made the analysis more efficient.Conclusions: MicroRNA-microarray data can be seriously affected by FFPE-storage and the introduced variation cannot be removed by standard normalizations. The proposed normalization removes the bias introduced by FFPE-storage and gives higher sensitivity than the standard normalization.
|
|
5. |
|
|
6. |
- Matilda, Rentoft, 1981-
(author)
-
The use of formalin fixed paraffin embedded tissue and global gene expression profiling for increased understanding of squamous cell carcinoma of the tongue
- 2012
-
Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- Head and neck cancer is the 6th most common malignancy worldwide, with tumours of the tongue being one of the most prevalent sites. Despite advances in surgery and radiotherapy, the five-year survival has not changed during the last decades and remains at approximately 50%. Identification of novel biomarkers for more personalized treatment is important for increasing survival in these patients. One of the most commonly used methods in the search for new biomarkers is microarray analysis. A substantial limitation with this technique is the requirement for fresh frozen samples from which high quality RNA can be extracted. This becomes particularly problematic when attempting to discover differences associated with individual sub-types or rare cancers. Recent developments, including the DASL microarray platform, have provided the possibility of analysing RNA of poorer quality from formalin fixed paraffin embedded (FFPE) samples. FFPE is the standard way of preserving tissue from patients and millions of samples are stored around the world. In this thesis we have evaluated the use of FFPE samples and global gene expression profiling for increasing basic knowledge in a subgroup of oral cancer patients with tumours of the tongue. As confirmation of microarray results using qPCR is of outmost importance for conclusive data evaluation, we first aimed at finding a housekeeping gene stably expressed across malignant and non-malignant FFPE oral tissue. TUBA6, which belongs to the tubulin family was detected as being the most stable out of eight possible genes and was thus used for qPCR normalization throughout the following studies. We have performed three separate microarray experiments. Initially only a focused DASL array covering 502 cancer related genes was available and we used it to analyze a smaller cohort of patients and controls (n=36). A similar cohort (n=29) was also analyzed for expression of 836 micoRNAs. In 2009 a whole genome DASL array was launched, covering over 20,000 genes, and all tongue tumour samples available between 1997 and 2010 (n=87) were analysed using this array. Similar to other research groups we observed very high replicate reproducibility using both DASL arrays. When using the microRNA array and the whole genome DASL array an effect of sample quality on the detected expression level of individual genes was noticed. While the expression of some genes severely decreased with a decrease in sample quality others were not changed. This will impair normalization, leading to a residual non-biological variation within the data. Based on our findings we have presented some recommendations for minimizing the effect of sample quality and maximizing the level of biologically relevant information obtained from these experiments, e.g. ensuring that samples in groups to be compared are of the same quality range. For the microRNA data we also introduced an additional normalization step to the standard normalizations. We could show that lists of differentially expressed genes generated when taking these precautions were enriched for genes involved in cancer related processes and contained for tongue carcinoma previously identified changes. A number of differentially expressed genes, novel for tongue carcinoma, were also confirmed in high quality fresh frozen samples, including BCL2A1 (apoptosis), CXCL10 (immune response), SLC2A6 (energy transport) and miR-424 (angiogenesis). In conclusion microarrays can be used to analyze FFPE samples but should be performed with care. Standard normalization methods will not remove the variation introduced by samples being of different quality, leading to spurious results. Taking a few precautions, however, led to the identification of differentially expressed genes relevant in tumour development and maintenance. The recommendations we make can facilitate design of future studies using FFPE samples. The genes we identified as being differentially expressed in tumour tissue now need to be further evaluated for their potential as biomarkers in tongue carcinoma.
|
|
7. |
- Obi, Ikenna, et al.
(author)
-
Stabilization of G-quadruplex DNA structures in Schizosaccharomyces pombe causes single-strand DNA lesions and impedes DNA replication
- 2020
-
In: Nucleic Acids Research. - : Oxford University Press. - 0305-1048 .- 1362-4962. ; 48:19, s. 10998-11015
-
Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- G-quadruplex (G4) structures are stable noncanonical DNA structures that are implicated in the regulation of many cellular pathways. We show here that the G4-stabilizing compound PhenDC3 causes growth defects in Schizosaccharomyces pombe cells, especially during S-phase in synchronized cultures. By visualizing individual DNA molecules, we observed shorter DNA fragments of newly replicated DNA in the PhenDC3-treated cells, suggesting that PhenDC3 impedes replication fork progression. Furthermore, a novel single DNA molecule damage assay revealed increased single-strand DNA lesions in the PhenDC3-treated cells. Moreover, chromatin immunoprecipitation showed enrichment of the leading-strand DNA polymerase at sites of predicted G4 structures, suggesting that these structures impede DNA replication. We tested a subset of these sites and showed that they form G4 structures, that they stall DNA synthesis in vitro and that they can be resolved by the breast cancerassociated Pif1 family helicases. Our results thus suggest that G4 structures occur in S. pombe and that stabilized/unresolved G4 structures are obstacles for the replication machinery. The increased levels of DNA damage might further highlight the association of the human Pif1 helicase with familial breast cancer and the onset of other human diseases connected to unresolved G4 structures.
|
|
8. |
- Rentoft, Matilda, et al.
(author)
-
A geographically matched control population efficiently limits the number of candidate disease-causing variants in an unbiased whole-genome analysis
- 2019
-
In: PLoS ONE. - : Public Library of Science (PLoS). - 1932-6203 .- 1932-6203. ; 14:3
-
Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Whole-genome sequencing is a promising approach for human autosomal dominant disease studies. However, the vast number of genetic variants observed by this method constitutes a challenge when trying to identify the causal variants. This is often handled by restricting disease studies to the most damaging variants, e. g. those found in coding regions, and overlooking the remaining genetic variation. Such a biased approach explains in part why the genetic causes of many families with dominantly inherited diseases, in spite of being included in whole-genome sequencing studies, are left unsolved today. Here we explore the use of a geographically matched control population to minimize the number of candidate disease-causing variants without excluding variants based on assumptions on genomic position or functional predictions. To exemplify the benefit of the geographically matched control population we apply a typical disease variant filtering strategy in a family with an autosomal dominant form of colorectal cancer. With the use of the geographically matched control population we end up with 26 candidate variants genome wide. This is in contrast to the tens of thousands of candidates left when only making use of available public variant datasets. The effect of the local control population is dual, it (1) reduces the total number of candidate variants shared between affected individuals, and more importantly (2) increases the rate by which the number of candidate variants are reduced as additional affected family members are included in the filtering strategy. We demonstrate that the application of a geographically matched control population effectively limits the number of candidate disease-causing variants and may provide the means by which variants suitable for functional studies are identified genome wide.
|
|
9. |
|
|
10. |
- Rentoft, Matilda, et al.
(author)
-
Enhancer requirement for histone methylation linked with gene activation
- 2008
-
In: The FEBS Journal. - Malden : Wiley-Blackwell. - 1742-464X .- 1742-4658. ; 275:23, s. 5994-6001
-
Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Enhancers cause a high level of transcription and activation of chromatin structure at target genes. Hyperacetylation of histones H3 and H4, a mark of active chromatin, is established broadly across target loci by enhancers that function over long distances. In the present study, we studied the role of an enhancer in methylation of various lysine residues on H3 by comparing a model gene locus having an active enhancer with one in which the enhancer has been inactivated within the context of minichromosomes. The intact enhancer affected histone methylation at K4, K9 and K36 in distinct ways depending on the methylation level and the location in the locus. All three lysine residues were highly tri-methylated in the coding region of the gene linked to the active enhancer but not the inactive enhancer. However di-methylation of K9 and K36 was not affected by the enhancer. The enhancer region itself was marked by mono-methylation at K4 and K9, distinguishing it from the methyl marks in the gene coding region. These results indicate that an enhancer has roles in establishing active histone methylation patterns linked with gene transcription rather than removing methylation linked with gene inactivation.
|
|
11. |
- Rentoft, Matilda, et al.
(author)
-
Expression of CXCL10 is associated with response to radiotherapy and overall survival in squamous cell carcinoma of the tongue
- 2014
-
In: Tumor Biology. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 1010-4283 .- 1423-0380. ; 35:5, s. 4191-4198
-
Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Five-year survival for patients with oral cancer has been disappointingly stable during the last decades, creating a demand for new biomarkers and treatment targets. Lately, much focus has been set on immunomodulation as a possible treatment or an adjuvant increasing sensitivity to conventional treatments. The objective of this study was to evaluate the prognostic importance of response to radiotherapy in tongue carcinoma patients as well as the expression of the CXC-chemokines in correlation to radiation response in the same group of tumours. Thirty-eight patients with tongue carcinoma that had received radiotherapy followed by surgery were included. The prognostic impact of pathological response to radiotherapy, N-status, T-stage, age and gender was evaluated using Cox's regression models, Kaplan-Meier survival curves and chi-square test. The expression of 23 CXC-chemokine ligands and their receptors were evaluated in all patients using microarray and qPCR and correlated with response to treatment using logistic regression. Pathological response to radiotherapy was independently associated to overall survival with a 2-year survival probability of 81% for patients showing a complete pathological response, while patients with a non-complete response only had a probability of 42% to survive for 2 years (p = 0.016). The expression of one CXC-chemokine, CXCL10, was significantly associated with response to radiotherapy and the group of patients with the highest CXCL10 expression responded, especially poorly (p = 0.01). CXCL10 is a potential marker for response to radiotherapy and overall survival in patients with squamous cell carcinoma of the tongue.
|
|
12. |
- Rentoft, Matilda, et al.
(author)
-
Gene expression profiling of archival tongue squamous cell carcinomas provides sub-classification based on DNA repair genes
- 2009
-
In: International Journal of Oncology. - : Spandidos Publications. - 1019-6439 .- 1791-2423. ; 35:6, s. 1321-1330
-
Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- A subgroup of patients with squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck (SCCHN) comprise young persons under the age of 40, who have not been heavily exposed to the classical risk factors, smoking and alcohol. The number of SCCHN in young adults, particularly tongue tumours, is increasing in several parts of the world. Here we employed a novel gene expression array methodology specifically developed for analysis of degraded RNA and investigated the expression of 502 cancer-related genes in archival paraffin-embedded SCCHN of the tongue from young (< or =40) and elderly patients (> or =50). Genes detected as de-regulated in tumours compared to non-malignant controls were in concordance with results from earlier studies of fresh frozen material. No genes were detected as significantly differentially expressed between young and old patients suggesting that the overall pathobiology of SCCHN is similar in young and old. Unsupervised clustering divided tumours into three groups, irrespective of age, where several differentially expressed DNA repair genes were a prominent separation factor. High levels of DNA repair genes associated with impaired therapeutic response to radiation, suggesting that DNA repair genes play a role in clinical outcome after radiotherapy.
|
|
13. |
- Rentoft, Matilda, et al.
(author)
-
Heterozygous colon cancer-associated mutations of SAMHD1 have functional significance
- 2016
-
In: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. - : Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. - 0027-8424 .- 1091-6490. ; 113:17, s. 4723-4728
-
Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Even small variations in dNTP concentrations decrease DNA replication fidelity, and this observation prompted us to analyze genomic cancer data for mutations in enzymes involved in dNTP metabolism. We found that sterile alpha motif and histidine-aspartate domain-containing protein 1 (SAMHD1), a deoxyribonucleoside triphosphate triphosphohydrolase that decreases dNTP pools, is frequently mutated in colon cancers, that these mutations negatively affect SAMHD1 activity, and that severalSAMHD1mutations are found in tumors with defective mismatch repair. We show that minor changes in dNTP pools in combination with inactivated mismatch repair dramatically increase mutation rates. Determination of dNTP pools in mouse embryos revealed that inactivation of oneSAMHD1allele is sufficient to elevate dNTP pools. These observations suggest that heterozygous cancer-associatedSAMHD1mutations increase mutation rates in cancer cells.
|
|
14. |
- Rentoft, Matilda, et al.
(author)
-
miRNA analysis of formalin-fixed squamous cell carcinomas of the tongue is affected by age of the samples
- 2011
-
In: International Journal of Oncology. - : Spandidos Publ. Ltd. - 1019-6439 .- 1791-2423. ; 38:1, s. 61-69
-
Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Global miRNA expression arrays were used for analysis of 836 miRNAs in formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded samples from 21 tongue cancer patients and 8 controls. Samples had been stored for one to eleven years. Results separated tumour samples from controls, however, the largest variation was correlated to sample storage time, detectable already after one year. With the use of a linear regression model we could adjust for the storage-dependent effect, leading to the identification of 54 differentially expressed miRNAs in tongue cancer, compared to 16 when using standard normalization, including up-regulation of a novel miRNA, miR-424.
|
|
15. |
|
|
16. |
- Rentoft, Matilda, et al.
(author)
-
Robusta biomarkörer för prediktion av risk och sjukdom : en utvärdering av reproducerbarheten hos de stora kommersiella omik-plattformarna
- 2022
-
Reports (pop. science, debate, etc.)abstract
- I och med utveckling inom storskalig analys av blodprover har man idag insett nyttan av att omvandla biobanker med lagrade humanprover till data-banker där forskare snabbt kan få tillgång till data för att svara på forsknings-frågor. Problemet är att många av teknikerna för att skapa storskaliga data är semikvantitativa, värdena går inte att relatera till en absolut koncentration och är därmed svåra att slå samman och jämföra över tid. Randomisering, det vill säga att proverna analyseras i slumpvis inbördes ordning, är en av de viktigas-te aspekterna för att skapa data som går att slå samman och återanvända för många forskningsfrågor. Detta underlättar korrigering av oönskade analysva-riationer över tid. Utöver detta kan man använda sig av bryggningsprover, QC-prov (kvalitetskontrollprov) eller ankarprover, som analyseras upprepat både inom och mellan analystillfällen, vilket underlättar att lägga samman dataset som analyseras vid olika tillfällen.Många kommersiella analysplattformar inkluderar ett eget QC-prov i analysen och vissa delar med sig av data för dessa prover. Det vore värdefullt om alla plattformar delade dessa data för kvalitetsutvärdering och eventuell korrige-ring av analysvariationer över tid. För alla semikvantitativa plattformar som undersöktes (Olink, Somalogic, Metabolon och Biocrates) var den tekniska variabiliteten mellan QC-proverna betydligt lägre än variabiliteten mellan ana-lyserade plasmaprover. Detta var tydligast för proteomikplattformarna, vilket antyder att förutsättningarna att upptäcka biologiska skillnader är bättre i pro-teomikdata. Undantaget från detta är en femte plattform, Nightingale, en kvan-titativ men smalare metabololmikmetod som anses generera stabila mätningar.Vid all utveckling av biomarkörpaneler för att prediktera sjukdom behöver man göra upptäcktsanalyser, sedan valideringsstudier och därefter tester i den situation man tänker att testet ska fungera. De breda omikplattformarna läm-par sig för upptäckt och eventuellt validering, men för det faktiska kliniska tes-tet behövs en kvantitativ analys för att verkligen utvärdera att de proteiner eller metaboliter man vill använda är stabilt uppmätbara och fungerar för att pre-diktera sjukdom eller risk för sjukdom.
|
|
17. |
- Rentoft, Matilda, et al.
(author)
-
Transcriptional profiling of formalin fixed paraffin embedded tissue : pitfalls and recommendations for identifying biologically relevant changes
- 2012
-
In: PLOS ONE. - : Public Library of Science (PLoS). - 1932-6203. ; 7:4, s. e35276-
-
Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Expression profiling techniques have been used to study the biology of many types of cancer but have been limited to some extent by the requirement for collection of fresh tissue. In contrast, formalin fixed paraffin embedded (FFPE) samples are widely available and represent a vast resource of potential material. The techniques used to handle the degraded and modified RNA from these samples are relatively new and all the pitfalls and limitations of this material for whole genome expression profiling are not yet clarified. Here, we analyzed 70 FFPE tongue carcinoma samples and 17 controls using the whole genome DASL array covering nearly 21000 genes. We identified that sample age is related to quality of extracted RNA and that sample quality influences apparent expression levels in a non-random manner related to gene probe sequence, leading to spurious results. However, by removing sub-standard samples and analysing only those 28 cancers and 15 controls that had similar quality we were able to generate a list of 934 genes significantly altered in tongue cancer compared to control samples of tongue. This list contained previously identified changes and was enriched for genes involved in many cancer-related processes such as tissue remodelling, inflammation, differentiation and apoptosis. Four novel genes of potential importance in tongue cancer development and maintenance, SH3BGL2, SLC2A6, SLC16A3 and CXCL10, were independently confirmed, validating our data. Hence, gene expression profiling can be performed usefully on archival material if appropriate quality assurance steps are taken to ensure sample consistency and we present some recommendations for the use of FFPE material based on our findings.
|
|
18. |
- Rentoft, Matilda, et al.
(author)
-
Tubulin-α-6-chain is a stably expressed reference gene in archival samples of normal oral tissue and squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck
- 2010
-
In: Experimental and Therapeutic Medicine. - : Spandidos Publications. - 1792-0981 .- 1792-1015. ; 1:3, s. 419-423
-
Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- One of the most critical factors in gene expression studies using quantitative real-time PCR is the choice of reference gene. Many of the commonly used reference genes have been shown to vary during a number of biological processes as well as between tissues. It is therefore important to always verify the stability of the gene of choice for all new tissues and experimental conditions. Here, we used two publicly available computer software packages (GeNorm and NormFinder) to investigate the stability of eight potential reference genes in formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded (FFPE) samples from normal oral tissue of different origin as well as from oral squamous cell carcinomas. Both programs found the tubulin α-6 chain (TUBA6) and ribosomal protein S13 (RPS13) to have the most stable expression between malignant and non-malignant tissue. NormFinder also found TUBA6 to be the most stable gene when samples were grouped according to tissue origin. FFPE samples constitute a large research resource, which considerably increases the number of samples available for analysis, leading to more reliable conclusions. Verification of a proper reference gene in oral FFPE tissue is therefore of great importance for future studies.
|
|
19. |
- Svensson, Daniel, et al.
(author)
-
A whole-genome sequenced control population in northern Sweden reveals subregional genetic differences
- 2020
-
In: PLOS ONE. - : Public Library Science. - 1932-6203. ; 15:9
-
Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- The number of national reference populations that are whole-genome sequenced are rapidly increasing. Partly driving this development is the fact that genetic disease studies benefit from knowing the genetic variation typical for the geographical area of interest. A whole-genome sequenced Swedish national reference population (n = 1000) has been recently published but with few samples from northern Sweden. In the present study we have whole-genome sequenced a control population (n = 300) (ACpop) from Västerbotten County, a sparsely populated region in northern Sweden previously shown to be genetically different from southern Sweden. The aggregated variant frequencies within ACpop are publicly available (DOI 10.17044/NBIS/G000005) to function as a basic resource in clinical genetics and for genetic studies. Our analysis of ACpop, representing approximately 0.11% of the population in Västerbotten, indicates the presence of a genetic substructure within the county. Furthermore, a demographic analysis showed that the population from which samples were drawn was to a large extent geographically stationary, a finding that was corroborated in the genetic analysis down to the level of municipalities. Including ACpop in the reference population when imputing unknown variants in a Västerbotten cohort resulted in a strong increase in the number of high-confidence imputed variants (up to 81% for variants with minor allele frequency < 5%). ACpop was initially designed for cancer disease studies, but the genetic structure within the cohort will be of general interest for all genetic disease studies in northern Sweden.
|
|
20. |
- Viallon, Vivian, et al.
(author)
-
A new pipeline for the normalization and pooling of metabolomics data
- 2021
-
In: Metabolites. - : MDPI. - 2218-1989. ; 11:9
-
Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Pooling metabolomics data across studies is often desirable to increase the statistical power of the analysis. However, this can raise methodological challenges as several preanalytical and analytical factors could introduce differences in measured concentrations and variability between datasets. Specifically, different studies may use variable sample types (e.g., serum versus plasma) collected, treated, and stored according to different protocols, and assayed in different laboratories using different instruments. To address these issues, a new pipeline was developed to normalize and pool metabolomics data through a set of sequential steps: (i) exclusions of the least informative observations and metabolites and removal of outliers; imputation of missing data; (ii) identification of the main sources of variability through principal component partial R-square (PC-PR2) analysis; (iii) application of linear mixed models to remove unwanted variability, including samples’ originating study and batch, and preserve biological variations while accounting for potential differences in the residual variances across studies. This pipeline was applied to targeted metabolomics data acquired using Biocrates AbsoluteIDQ kits in eight case-control studies nested within the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition (EPIC) cohort. Comprehensive examination of metabolomics measurements indicated that the pipeline improved the comparability of data across the studies. Our pipeline can be adapted to normalize other molecular data, including biomarkers as well as proteomics data, and could be used for pooling molecular datasets, for example in international consortia, to limit biases introduced by inter-study variability. This versatility of the pipeline makes our work of potential interest to molecular epidemiologists.
|
|