1. |
- Loza, M. J., et al.
(author)
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Validated and longitudinally stable asthma phenotypes based on cluster analysis of the ADEPT study
- 2016
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In: Respiratory Research. - : Springer Nature. - 1465-9921 .- 1465-993X. ; 17:1
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Background: Asthma is a disease of varying severity and differing disease mechanisms. To date, studies aimed at stratifying asthma into clinically useful phenotypes have produced a number of phenotypes that have yet to be assessed for stability and to be validated in independent cohorts. The aim of this study was to define and validate, for the first time ever, clinically driven asthma phenotypes using two independent, severe asthma cohorts: ADEPT and U-BIOPRED. Methods: Fuzzy partition-around-medoid clustering was performed on pre-specified data from the ADEPT participants (n = 156) and independently on data from a subset of U-BIOPRED asthma participants (n = 82) for whom the same variables were available. Models for cluster classification probabilities were derived and applied to the 12-month longitudinal ADEPT data and to a larger subset of the U-BIOPRED asthma dataset (n = 397). High and low type-2 inflammation phenotypes were defined as high or low Th2 activity, indicated by endobronchial biopsies gene expression changes downstream of IL-4 or IL-13. Results: Four phenotypes were identified in the ADEPT (training) cohort, with distinct clinical and biomarker profiles. Phenotype 1 was "mild, good lung function, early onset", with a low-inflammatory, predominantly Type-2, phenotype. Phenotype 2 had a "moderate, hyper-responsive, eosinophilic" phenotype, with moderate asthma control, mild airflow obstruction and predominant Type-2 inflammation. Phenotype 3 had a "mixed severity, predominantly fixed obstructive, non-eosinophilic and neutrophilic" phenotype, with moderate asthma control and low Type-2 inflammation. Phenotype 4 had a "severe uncontrolled, severe reversible obstruction, mixed granulocytic" phenotype, with moderate Type-2 inflammation. These phenotypes had good longitudinal stability in the ADEPT cohort. They were reproduced and demonstrated high classification probability in two subsets of the U-BIOPRED asthma cohort. Conclusions: Focusing on the biology of the four clinical independently-validated easy-to-assess ADEPT asthma phenotypes will help understanding the unmet need and will aid in developing tailored therapies. Trial registration:NCT01274507(ADEPT), registered October 28, 2010 and NCT01982162(U-BIOPRED), registered October 30, 2013.
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2. |
- Smith, Jennifer A, et al.
(author)
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Genome-wide association study identifies 74 loci associated with educational attainment
- 2016
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In: Nature (London). - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 1476-4687 .- 0028-0836. ; 533:7604, s. 539-542
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Educational attainment is strongly influenced by social and other environmental factors, but genetic factors are estimated to account for at least 20% of the variation across individuals. Here we report the results of a genome-wide association study (GWAS) for educational attainment that extends our earlier discovery sample of 101,069 individuals to 293,723 individuals, and a replication study in an independent sample of 111,349 individuals from the UK Biobank. We identify 74 genome-wide significant loci associated with the number of years of schooling completed. Single-nucleotide polymorphisms associated with educational attainment are disproportionately found in genomic regions regulating gene expression in the fetal brain. Candidate genes are preferentially expressed in neural tissue, especially during the prenatal period, and enriched for biological pathways involved in neural development. Our findings demonstrate that, even for a behavioural phenotype that is mostly environmentally determined, a well-powered GWAS identifies replicable associated genetic variants that suggest biologically relevant pathways. Because educational attainment is measured in large numbers of individuals, it will continue to be useful as a proxy phenotype in efforts to characterize the genetic influences of related phenotypes, including cognition and neuropsychiatric diseases.
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3. |
- Zamora, Juan Carlos, et al.
(author)
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Considerations and consequences of allowing DNA sequence data as types of fungal taxa
- 2018
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In: IMA Fungus. - : INT MYCOLOGICAL ASSOC. - 2210-6340 .- 2210-6359. ; 9:1, s. 167-185
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Nomenclatural type definitions are one of the most important concepts in biological nomenclature. Being physical objects that can be re-studied by other researchers, types permanently link taxonomy (an artificial agreement to classify biological diversity) with nomenclature (an artificial agreement to name biological diversity). Two proposals to amend the International Code of Nomenclature for algae, fungi, and plants (ICN), allowing DNA sequences alone (of any region and extent) to serve as types of taxon names for voucherless fungi (mainly putative taxa from environmental DNA sequences), have been submitted to be voted on at the 11th International Mycological Congress (Puerto Rico, July 2018). We consider various genetic processes affecting the distribution of alleles among taxa and find that alleles may not consistently and uniquely represent the species within which they are contained. Should the proposals be accepted, the meaning of nomenclatural types would change in a fundamental way from physical objects as sources of data to the data themselves. Such changes are conducive to irreproducible science, the potential typification on artefactual data, and massive creation of names with low information content, ultimately causing nomenclatural instability and unnecessary work for future researchers that would stall future explorations of fungal diversity. We conclude that the acceptance of DNA sequences alone as types of names of taxa, under the terms used in the current proposals, is unnecessary and would not solve the problem of naming putative taxa known only from DNA sequences in a scientifically defensible way. As an alternative, we highlight the use of formulas for naming putative taxa (candidate taxa) that do not require any modification of the ICN.
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4. |
- Berger, Josef S., et al.
(author)
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Landscape configuration affects herbivore–parasitoid communities in oilseed rape
- 2018
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In: Journal of Pest Science. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 1612-4758 .- 1612-4766. ; 91:3, s. 1093-1105
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- It is crucial to consider the effects of large-scale drivers on species presences and ecological interactions to understand what structures communities. In our study, we investigated how the species composition and the potential interaction networks of herbivore and parasitoid communities in oilseed rape fields are affected by agricultural landscape characteristics. Insect communities of 26 winter oilseed rape fields in southern Sweden were captured in water traps over a continuous time span of 30 ± 2 days. In total, 31% of the variation in the composition of herbivore host communities was explained by a combination of the surrounding oilseed rape area in the study year and the previous year and distance to the nearest forest. The oilseed rape area in the study year and distance to forest also explained 14% of the variation in the composition of parasitoid communities. Distance to the nearest forest together with the area of oilseed rape in the previous year explained 45% of the variation in asymmetry of interaction webs. These results indicate that several measures of landscape configuration are important both for the composition of host and parasitoid communities and also for the structure of interaction networks. Our results support the view that it is an appropriate strategy to cultivate oilseed rape in landscapes that are far away from forests, in order to minimize recolonization by pest species and at the same time to attract parasitoid species from the open landscape.
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5. |
- Frazier-Wood, Alexis C., et al.
(author)
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Genetic variants associated with subjective well-being, depressive symptoms, and neuroticism identified through genome-wide analyses
- 2016
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In: Nature Genetics. - : Nature Research (part of Springer Nature). - 1061-4036 .- 1546-1718. ; 48, s. 624-
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Very few genetic variants have been associated with depression and neuroticism, likely because of limitations on sample size in previous studies. Subjective well-being, a phenotype that is genetically correlated with both of these traits, has not yet been studied with genome-wide data. We conducted genome-wide association studies of three phenotypes: subjective well-being (n = 298,420), depressive symptoms (n = 161,460), and neuroticism (n = 170,911). We identify 3 variants associated with subjective well-being, 2 variants associated with depressive symptoms, and 11 variants associated with neuroticism, including 2 inversion polymorphisms. The two loci associated with depressive symptoms replicate in an independent depression sample. Joint analyses that exploit the high genetic correlations between the phenotypes (vertical bar(p) over cap vertical bar approximate to 0.8) strengthen the overall credibility of the findings and allow us to identify additional variants. Across our phenotypes, loci regulating expression in central nervous system and adrenal or pancreas tissues are strongly enriched for association.
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6. |
- Liu, Junzhi, et al.
(author)
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Fused Dibenzo[a,m]rubicene : A New Bowl-Shaped Subunit of C-70 Containing Two Pentagons
- 2016
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In: Journal of the American Chemical Society. - : American Chemical Society (ACS). - 0002-7863 .- 1520-5126. ; 138:27, s. 8364-8367
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Total synthetic approaches of fullerenes are the holy grail for organic chemistry. So far, the main attempts have focused on the synthesis of the buckmin-sterfullerene C-60. In contrast, access to subunits of the homologue C-70 remains challenging. Here, we demonstrate an efficient bottom-up strategy toward a novel bowl-shaped polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH) C34 with two pentagons. This PAH represents a subunit for C-70 and of other higher fullerenes. The bowl-shaped structure was unambiguously determined by X-ray crystallography. A bowl-to-bowl inversion for a C-70 fragment in solution was investigated by dynamic NMR analysis, showing a bowl-to-bowl inversion energy (Delta G double dagger) of 16.7 kcal mol(-1), which is further corroborated by DFT calculations.
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7. |
- Malik, Rainer, et al.
(author)
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Low-frequency and common genetic variation in ischemic stroke : The METASTROKE collaboration
- 2016
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In: Neurology. - 1526-632X. ; 86:13, s. 26-1217
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- OBJECTIVE: To investigate the influence of common and low-frequency genetic variants on the risk of ischemic stroke (all IS) and etiologic stroke subtypes.METHODS: We meta-analyzed 12 individual genome-wide association studies comprising 10,307 cases and 19,326 controls imputed to the 1000 Genomes (1 KG) phase I reference panel. We selected variants showing the highest degree of association (p < 1E-5) in the discovery phase for replication in Caucasian (13,435 cases and 29,269 controls) and South Asian (2,385 cases and 5,193 controls) samples followed by a transethnic meta-analysis. We further investigated the p value distribution for different bins of allele frequencies for all IS and stroke subtypes.RESULTS: We showed genome-wide significance for 4 loci: ABO for all IS, HDAC9 for large vessel disease (LVD), and both PITX2 and ZFHX3 for cardioembolic stroke (CE). We further refined the association peaks for ABO and PITX2. Analyzing different allele frequency bins, we showed significant enrichment in low-frequency variants (allele frequency <5%) for both LVD and small vessel disease, and an enrichment of higher frequency variants (allele frequency 10% and 30%) for CE (all p < 1E-5).CONCLUSIONS: Our findings suggest that the missing heritability in IS subtypes can in part be attributed to low-frequency and rare variants. Larger sample sizes are needed to identify the variants associated with all IS and stroke subtypes.
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8. |
- Mullins, Niamh, et al.
(author)
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GWAS of Suicide Attempt in Psychiatric Disorders and Association With Major Depression Polygenic Risk Scores
- 2019
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In: American Journal of Psychiatry. - : American Psychiatric Association Publishing. - 0002-953X .- 1535-7228. ; 176:8, s. 651-660
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Objective: More than 90% of people who attempt suicide have a psychiatric diagnosis; however, twin and family studies suggest that the genetic etiology of suicide attempt is partially distinct from that of the psychiatric disorders themselves. The authors present the largest genome-wide association study (GWAS) on suicide attempt, using cohorts of individuals with major depressive disorder, bipolar disorder, and schizophrenia from the Psychiatric Genomics Consortium.Methods: The samples comprised 1,622 suicide attempters and 8,786 nonattempters with major depressive disorder; 3,264 attempters and 5,500 nonattempters with bipolar disorder; and 1,683 attempters and 2,946 nonattempters with schizophrenia. A GWAS on suicide attempt was performed by comparing attempters to nonattempters with each disorder, followed by a meta-analysis across disorders. Polygenic risk scoring was used to investigate the genetic relationship between suicide attempt and the psychiatric disorders.Results: Three genome-wide significant loci for suicide attempt were found: one associated with suicide attempt in major depressive disorder, one associated with suicide attempt in bipolar disorder, and one in the meta-analysis of suicide attempt in mood disorders. These associations were not replicated in independent mood disorder cohorts from the UK Biobank and iPSYCH. No significant associations were found in the meta-analysis of all three disorders. Polygenic risk scores for major depression were significantly associated with suicide attempt in major depressive disorder (R2=0.25%), bipolar disorder (R2=0.24%), and schizophrenia (R2=0.40%).Conclusions: This study provides new information on genetic associations and demonstrates that genetic liability for major depression increases risk for suicide attempt across psychiatric disorders. Further collaborative efforts to increase sample size may help to robustly identify genetic associations and provide biological insights into the etiology of suicide attempt.
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9. |
- Seidl, Christoph, et al.
(author)
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Challenges and solutions for opening small and medium-scale industrial software platforms
- 2017
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In: Proceedings of the 21st International Systems and Software Product Line Conference, SPLC 2017, Volume A. Sevilla, Spain, September 25-29, 2017. - New York, NY, USA : ACM. - 9781450352215
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Conference paper (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Establishing open software platforms is becoming increasingly important. Many vendors of large and well-known open platforms, such as Android or iOS, have successfully established huge ecosystems of platform extensions (apps). While such platforms are important role models, the practices and technologies employed by their vendors are often not applicable for smaller platform vendors, who have different goals and carry substantial legacy, such as an existing closed platform. Yet, many vendors start to open their platforms-for instance, when they alone cannot realize all incoming requirements anymore. Unfortunately, very few best practices exist to guide this opening process, especially for small and medium-scale industrial platforms with their specific solutions. We present a study of industrial organizations that successfully opened closed platforms. Using a survey, we identified 18 opened platforms, providing a broad picture, which is complemented with in-depth, qualitative insights from a case study of three organizations. We elicited the platforms' core characteristics, the organizations' opening strategies, as well as challenges and solutions. We believe that our results support practitioners seeking to open platforms, and researchers striving to build better methods and tools.
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10. |
- Wang, Xiao-Ye, et al.
(author)
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Exploration of pyrazine-embedded antiaromatic polycyclic hydrocarbons generated by solution and on-surface azomethine ylide homocoupling
- 2017
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In: Nature Communications. - : NATURE PUBLISHING GROUP. - 2041-1723. ; 8
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Nanographenes, namely polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) with nanoscale dimensions (amp;gt;1 nm), are atomically precise cutouts from graphene. They represent prime models to enhance the scope of chemical and physical properties of graphene through structural modulation and functionalization. Defined nitrogen doping in nanographenes is particularly attractive due to its potential for increasing the number of p-electrons, with the possibility of introducing localized antiaromatic ring elements. Herein we present azomethine ylide homocoupling as a strategy to afford internally nitrogen-doped, non-planar PAH in solution and planar nanographene on surfaces, with central pyrazine rings. Localized antiaromaticity of the central ring is indicated by optical absorption spectroscopy in conjunction with theoretical calculations. Our strategy opens up methods for chemically tailoring graphene and nanographenes, modified by antiaromatic dopants.
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