| 1. |
- Satizabal, Claudia L., et al.
(author)
-
Genetic architecture of subcortical brain structures in 38,851 individuals
- 2019
-
In: Nature Genetics. - : Nature Publishing Group. - 1061-4036 .- 1546-1718. ; 51:11, s. 1624-
-
Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Subcortical brain structures are integral to motion, consciousness, emotions and learning. We identified common genetic variation related to the volumes of the nucleus accumbens, amygdala, brainstem, caudate nucleus, globus pallidus, putamen and thalamus, using genome-wide association analyses in almost 40,000 individuals from CHARGE, ENIGMA and UK Biobank. We show that variability in subcortical volumes is heritable, and identify 48 significantly associated loci (40 novel at the time of analysis). Annotation of these loci by utilizing gene expression, methylation and neuropathological data identified 199 genes putatively implicated in neurodevelopment, synaptic signaling, axonal transport, apoptosis, inflammation/infection and susceptibility to neurological disorders. This set of genes is significantly enriched for Drosophila orthologs associated with neurodevelopmental phenotypes, suggesting evolutionarily conserved mechanisms. Our findings uncover novel biology and potential drug targets underlying brain development and disease.
|
|
| 2. |
- Sønderby, Ida E., et al.
(author)
-
1q21.1 distal copy number variants are associated with cerebral and cognitive alterations in humans
- 2021
-
In: Translational Psychiatry. - : Nature Publishing Group. - 2158-3188. ; 11:1
-
Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Low-frequency 1q21.1 distal deletion and duplication copy number variant (CNV) carriers are predisposed to multiple neurodevelopmental disorders, including schizophrenia, autism and intellectual disability. Human carriers display a high prevalence of micro- and macrocephaly in deletion and duplication carriers, respectively. The underlying brain structural diversity remains largely unknown. We systematically called CNVs in 38 cohorts from the large-scale ENIGMA-CNV collaboration and the UK Biobank and identified 28 1q21.1 distal deletion and 22 duplication carriers and 37,088 non-carriers (48% male) derived from 15 distinct magnetic resonance imaging scanner sites. With standardized methods, we compared subcortical and cortical brain measures (all) and cognitive performance (UK Biobank only) between carrier groups also testing for mediation of brain structure on cognition. We identified positive dosage effects of copy number on intracranial volume (ICV) and total cortical surface area, with the largest effects in frontal and cingulate cortices, and negative dosage effects on caudate and hippocampal volumes. The carriers displayed distinct cognitive deficit profiles in cognitive tasks from the UK Biobank with intermediate decreases in duplication carriers and somewhat larger in deletion carriers-the latter potentially mediated by ICV or cortical surface area. These results shed light on pathobiological mechanisms of neurodevelopmental disorders, by demonstrating gene dose effect on specific brain structures and effect on cognitive function.
|
|
| 3. |
- Dima, Danai, et al.
(author)
-
Subcortical volumes across the lifespan : Data from 18,605 healthy individuals aged 3-90 years.
- 2022
-
In: Human Brain Mapping. - : Wiley. - 1065-9471 .- 1097-0193. ; 43:1, s. 452-469
-
Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Age has a major effect on brain volume. However, the normative studies available are constrained by small sample sizes, restricted age coverage and significant methodological variability. These limitations introduce inconsistencies and may obscure or distort the lifespan trajectories of brain morphometry. In response, we capitalized on the resources of the Enhancing Neuroimaging Genetics through Meta-Analysis (ENIGMA) Consortium to examine age-related trajectories inferred from cross-sectional measures of the ventricles, the basal ganglia (caudate, putamen, pallidum, and nucleus accumbens), the thalamus, hippocampus and amygdala using magnetic resonance imaging data obtained from 18,605 individuals aged 3-90 years. All subcortical structure volumes were at their maximum value early in life. The volume of the basal ganglia showed a monotonic negative association with age thereafter; there was no significant association between age and the volumes of the thalamus, amygdala and the hippocampus (with some degree of decline in thalamus) until the sixth decade of life after which they also showed a steep negative association with age. The lateral ventricles showed continuous enlargement throughout the lifespan. Age was positively associated with inter-individual variability in the hippocampus and amygdala and the lateral ventricles. These results were robust to potential confounders and could be used to examine the functional significance of deviations from typical age-related morphometric patterns.
|
|
| 4. |
- Blanton, Michael R., et al.
(author)
-
Sloan Digital Sky Survey IV : Mapping the Milky Way, Nearby Galaxies, and the Distant Universe
- 2017
-
In: Astronomical Journal. - : IOP Publishing Ltd. - 0004-6256 .- 1538-3881. ; 154:1
-
Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- We describe the Sloan Digital Sky Survey IV (SDSS-IV), a project encompassing three major spectroscopic programs. The Apache Point Observatory Galactic Evolution Experiment 2 (APOGEE-2) is observing hundreds of thousands of Milky Way stars at high resolution and. high signal-to-noise ratios in the near-infrared. The Mapping Nearby Galaxies at Apache Point Observatory (MaNGA) survey is obtaining spatially resolved spectroscopy for thousands of nearby galaxies (median z similar to 0.03). The extended Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (eBOSS) is mapping the galaxy, quasar, and neutral gas distributions between z similar to 0.6 and 3.5 to constrain cosmology using baryon acoustic oscillations, redshift space distortions, and the shape of the power spectrum. Within eBOSS, we are conducting two major subprograms: the SPectroscopic IDentification of eROSITA Sources (SPIDERS), investigating X-ray AGNs. and galaxies in X-ray clusters, and the Time Domain Spectroscopic Survey (TDSS), obtaining spectra of variable sources. All programs use the 2.5 m Sloan Foundation Telescope at the. Apache Point Observatory; observations there began in Summer 2014. APOGEE-2 also operates a second near-infrared spectrograph at the 2.5 m du Pont Telescope at Las Campanas Observatory, with observations beginning in early 2017. Observations at both facilities are scheduled to continue through 2020. In keeping with previous SDSS policy, SDSS-IV provides regularly scheduled public data releases; the first one, Data Release 13, was made available in 2016 July.
|
|
| 5. |
- Schijven, Dick, et al.
(author)
-
Large-scale analysis of structural brain asymmetries in schizophrenia via the ENIGMA consortium
- 2023
-
In: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. - : Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). - 0027-8424 .- 1091-6490. ; 120:14
-
Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Left-right asymmetry is an important organizing feature of the healthy brain that may be altered in schizophrenia, but most studies have used relatively small samples and heterogeneous approaches, resulting in equivocal findings. We carried out the largest case-control study of structural brain asymmetries in schizophrenia, with MRI data from 5,080 affected individuals and 6,015 controls across 46 datasets, using a single image analysis protocol. Asymmetry indexes were calculated for global and regional cortical thickness, surface area, and subcortical volume measures. Differences of asymmetry were calculated between affected individuals and controls per dataset, and effect sizes were meta-analyzed across datasets. Small average case-control differences were observed for thickness asymmetries of the rostral anterior cingulate and the middle temporal gyrus, both driven by thinner left-hemispheric cortices in schizophrenia. Analyses of these asymmetries with respect to the use of antipsychotic medication and other clinical variables did not show any significant associations. Assessment of age- and sex-specific effects revealed a stronger average leftward asymmetry of pallidum volume between older cases and controls. Case-control differences in a multivariate context were assessed in a subset of the data (N = 2,029), which revealed that 7% of the variance across all structural asymmetries was explained by case-control status. Subtle case-control differences of brain macrostructural asymmetry may reflect differences at the molecular, cytoarchitectonic, or circuit levels that have functional relevance for the disorder. Reduced left middle temporal cortical thickness is consistent with altered left-hemisphere language network organization in schizophrenia.
|
|
| 6. |
- Abolfathi, Bela, et al.
(author)
-
The Fourteenth Data Release of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey : First Spectroscopic Data from the Extended Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey and from the Second Phase of the Apache Point Observatory Galactic Evolution Experiment
- 2018
-
In: Astrophysical Journal Supplement Series. - : IOP Publishing Ltd. - 0067-0049 .- 1538-4365. ; 235:2
-
Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- The fourth generation of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS-IV) has been in operation since 2014 July. This paper describes the second data release from this phase, and the 14th from SDSS overall (making this Data Release Fourteen or DR14). This release makes the data taken by SDSS-IV in its first two years of operation (2014-2016 July) public. Like all previous SDSS releases, DR14 is cumulative, including the most recent reductions and calibrations of all data taken by SDSS since the first phase began operations in 2000. New in DR14 is the first public release of data from the extended Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey; the first data from the second phase of the Apache Point Observatory (APO) Galactic Evolution Experiment (APOGEE-2), including stellar parameter estimates from an innovative data-driven machine-learning algorithm known as "The Cannon"; and almost twice as many data cubes from the Mapping Nearby Galaxies at APO (MaNGA) survey as were in the previous release (N = 2812 in total). This paper describes the location and format of the publicly available data from the SDSS-IV surveys. We provide references to the important technical papers describing how these data have been taken (both targeting and observation details) and processed for scientific use. The SDSS web site (www.sdss.org) has been updated for this release and provides links to data downloads, as well as tutorials and examples of data use. SDSS-IV is planning to continue to collect astronomical data until 2020 and will be followed by SDSS-V.
|
|
| 7. |
- Barrett, Jennifer H., et al.
(author)
-
Genome-wide association study identifies three new melanoma susceptibility loci
- 2011
-
In: Nature Genetics. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 1546-1718 .- 1061-4036. ; 43:11, s. 1108-1113
-
Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- We report a genome-wide association study for melanoma that was conducted by the GenoMEL Consortium. Our discovery phase included 2,981 individuals with melanoma and 1,982 study-specific control individuals of European ancestry, as well as an additional 6,426 control subjects from French or British populations, all of whom were genotyped for 317,000 or 610,000 single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs). Our analysis replicated previously known melanoma susceptibility loci. Seven new regions with at least one SNP with P < 10(-5) and further local imputed or genotyped support were selected for replication using two other genome-wide studies (from Australia and Texas, USA). Additional replication came from case-control series from the UK and The Netherlands. Variants at three of the seven loci replicated at P < 10(-3): an SNP in ATM (rs1801516, overall P = 3.4 x 10(-9)), an SNP in MX2 (rs45430, P = 2.9 x 10-9) and an SNP adjacent to CASP8 (rs13016963, P = 8.6 x 10(-10)). A fourth locus near CCND1 remains of potential interest, showing suggestive but inconclusive evidence of replication (rs1485993, overall P = 4.6 x 10(-7) under a fixed-effects model and P = 1.2 x 10(-3) under a random-effects model). These newly associated variants showed no association with nevus or pigmentation phenotypes in a large British case-control series.
|
|
| 8. |
- Caporale, N., et al.
(author)
-
From cohorts to molecules: Adverse impacts of endocrine disrupting mixtures
- 2022
-
In: Science. - : American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). - 0036-8075 .- 1095-9203. ; 375:6582
-
Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Convergent evidence associates exposure to endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs) with major human diseases, even at regulation-compliant concentrations. This might be because humans are exposed to EDC mixtures, whereas chemical regulation is based on a risk assessment of individual compounds. Here, we developed a mixture-centered risk assessment strategy that integrates epidemiological and experimental evidence. We identified that exposure to an EDC mixture in early pregnancy is associated with language delay in offspring. At human-relevant concentrations, this mixture disrupted hormone-regulated and disease-relevant regulatory networks in human brain organoids and in the model organisms Xenopus leavis and Danio rerio, as well as behavioral responses. Reinterrogating epidemiological data, we found that up to 54% of the children had prenatal exposures above experimentally derived levels of concern, reaching, for the upper decile compared with the lowest decile of exposure, a 3.3 times higher risk of language delay. © 2022 American Association for the Advancement of Science. All rights reserved.
|
|
| 9. |
- Beltran-Pardo, Eliana, et al.
(author)
-
Sequence analysis of the DNA-repair gene rad51 in the tardigrades Milnesium cf. tardigradum, Hypsibius dujardini and Macrobiotus cf. harmsworthi
- 2013
-
In: Journal of limnology. - 1129-5767 .- 1723-8633. ; 72:s1, s. 80-91
-
Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Tardigrades are known for being resistant to extreme conditions, including tolerance to ionising and UV radiation in both the hydratedand the dehydrated state. It is known that these factors may cause damage to DNA. It has recently been shown that single and double DNAstrand breaks occur when tardigrades are maintained for a long time in the anhydrobiotic state. This may suggest that perhaps tardigrades rely on efficient DNA repair mechanisms. Among all proteins that comprise the DNA repair system, recombinases such as RecA or Rad51 have a very important function: DNA exchange activity. This enzyme is used in the homologous recombination and allows repair of thedamaged strand using homologous non-damaged strands as a template. In this study, Rad51 induction was evaluated by western blot in Milnesium cf. tardigradum, after exposure to gamma radiation. The Rad51 protein was highly induced by radiation, when compared to the control. The rad51 genes were searched in three tardigrades: Milnesium cf. tardigradum, Hypsibius dujardini and Macrobiotus cf. harmsworthi. The gene sequences were obtained by preparing and sequencing transcriptome libraries for H. dujardini and M. cf. harmsworthi and designing rad51 degenerate primers specific for M. cf. tardigradum. Comparison of Rad51 putative proteins from tardigrades with other organisms showed that they are highly similar to the corresponding sequence from the nematode Trichinella spiralis. A structure-based sequence alignment from tardigrades and other organisms revealed that putative Rad51 predicted proteins from tardigrades contain the expected motifs for these important recombinases. In a cladogram tree based on this alignment, tardigrades tend to cluster together suggesting that they have selective differences in these genes that make them diverge between species. Predicted Rad51 structures from tardigrades were also compared with crystalline structure of Rad51 in Saccharomyces cerevisiae. These results reveal that S. cerevisiae Rad51 structure is very similar to that of the three analysed tardigrades. On the other hand the predicted structure of Rad51 from M. cf. harmsworthi and H. dujardini are closer related to each other, than each of them to that of M. cf. tardigradum.
|
|
| 10. |
- Blanco, Fabiana, et al.
(author)
-
In vivo inhibition of nuclear factor of activated T-cells leads to atherosclerotic plaque regression in IGF-II/LDLR -/-ApoB100/100 mice
- 2018
-
In: Diabetes and Vascular Disease Research. - : SAGE Publications. - 1752-8984 .- 1479-1641. ; 15:4, s. 302-313
-
Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- AIMS: Despite vast clinical experience linking diabetes and atherosclerosis, the molecular mechanisms leading to accelerated vascular damage are still unclear. Here, we investigated the effects of nuclear factor of activated T-cells inhibition on plaque burden in a novel mouse model of type 2 diabetes that better replicates human disease.METHODS & RESULTS: IGF-II/LDLR-/-ApoB100/100mice were generated by crossbreeding low-density lipoprotein receptor-deficient mice that synthesize only apolipoprotein B100 (LDLR-/-ApoB100/100) with transgenic mice overexpressing insulin-like growth factor-II in pancreatic β cells. Mice have mild hyperglycaemia and hyperinsulinaemia and develop complex atherosclerotic lesions. In vivo treatment with the nuclear factor of activated T-cells blocker A-285222 for 4 weeks reduced atherosclerotic plaque area and degree of stenosis in the brachiocephalic artery of IGF-II/LDLR-/-ApoB100/100mice, as assessed non-invasively using ultrasound biomicroscopy prior and after treatment, and histologically after termination. Treatment had no impact on plaque composition (i.e. muscle, collagen, macrophages). The reduced plaque area could not be explained by effects of A-285222 on plasma glucose, insulin or lipids. Inhibition of nuclear factor of activated T-cells was associated with increased expression of atheroprotective NOX4 and of the anti-oxidant enzyme catalase in aortic vascular smooth muscle cells.CONCLUSION: Targeting the nuclear factor of activated T-cells signalling pathway may be an attractive approach for the treatment of diabetic macrovascular complications.
|
|
