| 1. |
- Berglund, Eva C, et al.
(author)
-
Accurate detection of subclonal single nucleotide variants in whole genome amplified and pooled cancer samples using HaloPlex target enrichment
- 2013
-
In: BMC Genomics. - : BioMed Central. - 1471-2164. ; 14, s. 856-
-
Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Background: Target enrichment and resequencing is a widely used approach for identification of cancer genes and genetic variants associated with diseases. Although cost effective compared to whole genome sequencing, analysis of many samples constitutes a significant cost, which could be reduced by pooling samples before capture. Another limitation to the number of cancer samples that can be analyzed is often the amount of available tumor DNA. We evaluated the performance of whole genome amplified DNA and the power to detect subclonal somatic single nucleotide variants in non-indexed pools of cancer samples using the HaloPlex technology for target enrichment and next generation sequencing. Results: We captured a set of 1528 putative somatic single nucleotide variants and germline SNPs, which were identified by whole genome sequencing, with the HaloPlex technology and sequenced to a depth of 792-1752. We found that the allele fractions of the analyzed variants are well preserved during whole genome amplification and that capture specificity or variant calling is not affected. We detected a large majority of the known single nucleotide variants present uniquely in one sample with allele fractions as low as 0.1 in non-indexed pools of up to ten samples. We also identified and experimentally validated six novel variants in the samples included in the pools. Conclusion: Our work demonstrates that whole genome amplified DNA can be used for target enrichment equally well as genomic DNA and that accurate variant detection is possible in non-indexed pools of cancer samples. These findings show that analysis of a large number of samples is feasible at low cost, even when only small amounts of DNA is available, and thereby significantly increases the chances of indentifying recurrent mutations in cancer samples.
|
|
| 2. |
- Berglund, Eva C., et al.
(author)
-
Genome dynamics of Bartonella grahamii in micro-populations of woodland rodents
- 2010
-
In: BMC Genomics. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 1471-2164. ; 11, s. 152-
-
Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Background: Rodents represent a high-risk reservoir for the emergence of new human pathogens. The recent completion of the 2.3 Mb genome of Bartonella grahamii, one of the most prevalent blood-borne bacteria in wild rodents, revealed a higher abundance of genes for host-cell interaction systems than in the genomes of closely related human pathogens. The sequence variability within the global B. grahamii population was recently investigated by multi locus sequence typing, but no study on the variability of putative host-cell interaction systems has been performed. Results: To study the population dynamics of B. grahamii, we analyzed the genomic diversity on a whole-genome scale of 27 B. grahamii strains isolated from four different species of wild rodents in three geographic locations separated by less than 30 km. Even using highly variable spacer regions, only 3 sequence types were identified. This low sequence diversity contrasted with a high variability in genome content. Microarray comparative genome hybridizations identified genes for outer surface proteins, including a repeated region containing the fha gene for filamentous hemaggluttinin and a plasmid that encodes a type IV secretion system, as the most variable. The estimated generation times in liquid culture medium for a subset of strains ranged from 5 to 22 hours, but did not correlate with sequence type or presence/absence patterns of the fha gene or the plasmid. Conclusion: Our study has revealed a geographic microstructure of B. grahamii in wild rodents. Despite near-identity in nucleotide sequence, major differences were observed in gene presence/absence patterns that did not segregate with host species. This suggests that genetically similar strains can infect a range of different hosts.
|
|
| 3. |
- Berglund, Eva C, et al.
(author)
-
Next generation sequencing technologies and applications for human Genetic History and Forensics
- 2011
-
In: Investigative Genetics. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 2041-2223. ; 2:1, s. 23-
-
Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- The rapid advances in the development of sequencing technologies in recent years enable an increasing number of applications in biology and medicine. Here we review key technical aspects of the preparation of DNA templates for sequencing, the biochemical reaction principles and assay formats underlying next generation sequencing systems, methods for imaging and base calling, quality control, and bioinformatic approaches for sequence alignment, variant calling and assembly. We also discuss some of the most important advances that the new sequencing technologies have brought to the fields of human population genetics, human genetic history and forensic genetics.
|
|
| 4. |
- Berglund, Eva C., et al.
(author)
-
Rapid diversification by recombination in Bartonella grahamii from wild rodents in Asia contrasts with low levels of genomic divergence in Northern Europe and America
- 2010
-
In: Molecular Ecology. - 0962-1083 .- 1365-294X. ; 19:11, s. 2241-2255
-
Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Bartonella is a genus of vector-borne bacteria that infect the red blood cells of mammals, and includes several human-specific and zoonotic pathogens. Bartonella grahamii has a wide host range and is one of the most prevalent Bartonella species in wild rodents. We studied the population structure, genome content and genome plasticity of a collection of 26 B. grahamii isolates from 11 species of wild rodents in seven countries. We found strong geographic patterns, high recombination frequencies and large variations in genome size in B. grahamii compared with previously analysed cat- and human-associated Bartonella species. The extent of sequence divergence in B. grahamii populations was markedly lower in Europe and North America than in Asia, and several recombination events were predicted between the Asian strains. We discuss environmental and demographic factors that may underlie the observed differences.
|
|
| 5. |
- Guy, Lionel, et al.
(author)
-
A Gene Transfer Agent and a Dynamic Repertoire of Secretion Systems Hold the Keys to the Explosive Radiation of the Emerging Pathogen Bartonella
- 2013
-
In: PLOS Genetics. - : Public Library of Science (PLoS). - 1553-7390 .- 1553-7404. ; 9:3, s. e1003393-
-
Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Gene transfer agents (GTAs) randomly transfer short fragments of a bacterial genome. A novel putative GTA was recently discovered in the mouse-infecting bacterium Bartonella grahamii. Although GTAs are widespread in phylogenetically diverse bacteria, their role in evolution is largely unknown. Here, we present a comparative analysis of 16 Bartonella genomes ranging from 1.4 to 2.6 Mb in size, including six novel genomes from Bartonella isolated from a cow, two moose, two dogs, and a kangaroo. A phylogenetic tree inferred from 428 orthologous core genes indicates that the deadly human pathogen B. bacilliformis is related to the ruminant-adapted clade, rather than being the earliest diverging species in the genus as previously thought. A gene flux analysis identified 12 genes for a GTA and a phage-derived origin of replication as the most conserved innovations. These are located in a region of a few hundred kb that also contains 8 insertions of gene clusters for type III, IV, and V secretion systems, and genes for putatively secreted molecules such as cholera-like toxins. The phylogenies indicate a recent transfer of seven genes in the virB gene cluster for a type IV secretion system from a catadapted B. henselae to a dog-adapted B. vinsonii strain. We show that the B. henselae GTA is functional and can transfer genes in vitro. We suggest that the maintenance of the GTA is driven by selection to increase the likelihood of horizontal gene transfer and argue that this process is beneficial at the population level, by facilitating adaptive evolution of the host-adaptation systems and thereby expansion of the host range size. The process counters gene loss and forces all cells to contribute to the production of the GTA and the secreted molecules. The results advance our understanding of the role that GTAs play for the evolution of bacterial genomes.
|
|
| 6. |
- Guy, Lionel, et al.
(author)
-
A genome-wide study of recombination rate variation in Bartonella henselae
- 2012
-
In: BMC Evolutionary Biology. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 1471-2148. ; 12, s. 65-
-
Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Background: Rates of recombination vary by three orders of magnitude in bacteria but the reasons for this variation is unclear. We performed a genome-wide study of recombination rate variation among genes in the intracellular bacterium Bartonella henselae, which has among the lowest estimated ratio of recombination relative to mutation in prokaryotes. Results: The 1.9 Mb genomes of B. henselae strains IC11, UGA10 and Houston-1 genomes showed only minor gene content variation. Nucleotide sequence divergence levels were less than 1% and the relative rate of recombination to mutation was estimated to 1.1 for the genome overall. Four to eight segments per genome presented significantly enhanced divergences, the most pronounced of which were the virB and trw gene clusters for type IV secretion systems that play essential roles in the infection process. Consistently, multiple recombination events were identified inside these gene clusters. High recombination frequencies were also observed for a gene putatively involved in iron metabolism. A phylogenetic study of this gene in 80 strains of Bartonella quintana, B. henselae and B. grahamii indicated different population structures for each species and revealed horizontal gene transfers across Bartonella species with different host preferences. Conclusions: Our analysis has shown little novel gene acquisition in B. henselae, indicative of a closed pan-genome, but higher recombination frequencies within the population than previously estimated. We propose that the dramatically increased fixation rate for recombination events at gene clusters for type IV secretion systems is driven by selection for sequence variability.
|
|
| 7. |
- Nordlund, Jessica, et al.
(author)
-
Digital gene expression profiling of primary acute lymphoblastic leukemia cells
- 2012
-
In: Leukemia. - : Nature Publishing Group. - 0887-6924 .- 1476-5551. ; 26:6, s. 1218-1227
-
Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- We determined the genome-wide digital gene expression (DGE) profiles of primary acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) cells from 21 patients taking advantage of `second-generation sequencing technology. Patients included in this study represent four cytogenetically distinct subtypes of B-cell precursor (BCP) ALL and T-cell lineage ALL (T-ALL). The robustness of DGE combined with supervised classification by nearest shrunken centroids (NSC) was validated experimentally and by comparison with published expression data for large sets of ALL samples. Genes that were differentially expressed between BCP ALL subtypes were enriched to distinct signaling pathways with dic(9;20) enriched to TP53 signaling, t(9;22) to interferon signaling, as well as high hyperdiploidy and t(12;21) to apoptosis signaling. We also observed antisense tags expressed from the non-coding strand of similar to 50% of annotated genes, many of which were expressed in a subtype-specific pattern. Antisense tags from 17 gene regions unambiguously discriminated between the BCP ALL and T-ALL subtypes, and antisense tags from 76 gene regions discriminated between the 4 BCP subtypes. We observed a significant overlap of gene regions with alternative polyadenylation and antisense transcription (Pless than1 x 10(-15)). Our study using DGE profiling provided new insights into the RNA expression patterns in ALL cells.
|
|
| 8. |
- Nordlund, Jessica, et al.
(author)
-
Genome-wide signatures of differential DNA methylation in pediatric acute lymphoblastic leukemia
- 2013
-
In: Genome Biology. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 1465-6906 .- 1474-760X. ; 14:9, s. r105-
-
Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- BACKGROUND:Although aberrant DNA methylation has been observed previously in acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL), the patterns of differential methylation have not been comprehensively determined in all subtypes of ALL on a genome-wide scale. The relationship between DNA methylation, cytogenetic background, drug resistance and relapse in ALL is poorly understood.RESULTS:We surveyed the DNA methylation levels of 435,941 CpG sites in samples from 764 children at diagnosis of ALL and from 27 children at relapse. This survey uncovered four characteristic methylation signatures. First, compared with control blood cells, the methylomes of ALL cells shared 9,406 predominantly hypermethylated CpG sites, independent of cytogenetic background. Second, each cytogenetic subtype of ALL displayed a unique set of hyper- and hypomethylated CpG sites. The CpG sites that constituted these two signatures differed in their functional genomic enrichment to regions with marks of active or repressed chromatin. Third, we identified subtype-specific differential methylation in promoter and enhancer regions that were strongly correlated with gene expression. Fourth, a set of 6,612 CpG sites was predominantly hypermethylated in ALL cells at relapse, compared with matched samples at diagnosis. Analysis of relapse-free survival identified CpG sites with subtype-specific differential methylation that divided the patients into different risk groups, depending on their methylation status.CONCLUSIONS:Our results suggest an important biological role for DNA methylation in the differences between ALL subtypes and in their clinical outcome after treatment.
|
|
