PHACTboost: A Phylogeny-aware Pathogenicity Predictor for the Missense Mutations via Boosting.

Most algorithms that are used to predict the effects of variants rely on evolutionary conservation. However, a majority of such techniques compute evolutionary conservation by solely using the alignment of multiple sequences while overlooking the evolutionary context of substitution events. We had introduced PHACT, a scoring-based pathogenicity predictor for missense mutations that can leverage phylogenetic trees, in our previous study. By building on this foundation, we now propose PHACTboost, a gradient boosting tree-based classifier that combines PHACT scores with information from multiple sequence alignments, phylogenetic trees, and ancestral reconstruction. By learning from data PHACTboost outperforms PHACT. Furthermore, the results of comprehensive experiments on carefully constructed sets of variants demonstrated that PHACTboost can outperform 40 prevalent pathogenicity predictors reported in the dbNSFP, including conventional tools, meta-predictors, and deep learning-based approaches as well as more recent tools such as, AlphaMissense, EVE, and CPT-1. The superiority of PHACTboost over these methods was particularly evident in case of hard variants for which different pathogenicity predictors offered conflicting results. We provide predictions of 215 million amino acid alterations over 20,191 proteins. PHACTboost is available at https://github.com/CompGenomeLab/PHACTboost. PHACTboost can improve our understanding of genetic diseases and facilitate more accurate diagnoses.

Global repair is the primary nucleotide excision repair subpathway for the removal of pyrimidine-pyrimidone (6-4) damage from the Arabidopsis genome.

Ultraviolet (UV) component of solar radiation impairs genome stability by inducing the formation of pyrimidine-pyrimidone (6-4) photoproducts [(6-4)PPs] in plant genomes. (6-4)PPs disrupt growth and development by interfering with transcription and DNA replication. To resist UV stress, plants employ both photoreactivation and nucleotide excision repair that excises oligonucleotide containing (6-4)PPs through two subpathways: global and transcription-coupled excision repair (TCR). Here, we analyzed the genome-wide excision repair-mediated repair of (6-4)PPs in Arabidopsis thaliana and found that (6-4)PPs can be repaired by TCR; however, the main subpathway to remove (6-4)PPs from the genome is global repair. Our analysis showed that open chromatin genome regions are more rapidly repaired than heterochromatin regions, and the repair level peaks at the promoter, transcription start site and transcription end site of genes. Our study revealed that the repair of (6-4)PP in plants showed a distinct genome-wide repair profile compared to the repair of other major UV-induced DNA lesion called cyclobutane pyrimidine dimers (CPDs).

Cross-species investigation into the requirement of XPA for nucleotide excision repair.

After reconstitution of nucleotide excision repair (excision repair) with XPA, RPA, XPC, TFIIH, XPF-ERCC1 and XPG, it was concluded that these six factors are the minimal essential components of the excision repair machinery. All six factors are highly conserved across diverse organisms spanning yeast to humans, yet no identifiable homolog of the XPA gene exists in many eukaryotes including green plants. Nevertheless, excision repair is reported to be robust in the XPA-lacking organism, Arabidopsis thaliana, which raises a fundamental question of whether excision repair could occur without XPA in other organisms. Here, we performed a phylogenetic analysis of XPA across all species with annotated genomes and then quantitatively measured excision repair in the absence of XPA using the sensitive whole-genome qXR-Seq method in human cell lines and two model organisms, Caenorhabditis elegans and Drosophila melanogaster. We find that although the absence of XPA results in inefficient excision repair and UV-sensitivity in humans, flies, and worms, excision repair of UV-induced DNA damage is detectable over background. These studies have yielded a significant discovery regarding the evolution of XPA protein and its mechanistic role in nucleotide excision repair.

Downregulated NPAS4 in multiple brain regions is associated with major depressive disorder.

Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) is a commonly observed psychiatric disorder that affects more than 2% of the world population with a rising trend. However, disease-associated pathways and biomarkers are yet to be fully comprehended. In this study, we analyzed previously generated RNA-seq data across seven different brain regions from three distinct studies to identify differentially and co-expressed genes for patients with MDD. Differential gene expression (DGE) analysis revealed that NPAS4 is the only gene downregulated in three different brain regions. Furthermore, co-expressing gene modules responsible for glutamatergic signaling are negatively enriched in these regions. We used the results of both DGE and co-expression analyses to construct a novel MDD-associated pathway. In our model, we propose that disruption in glutamatergic signaling-related pathways might be associated with the downregulation of NPAS4 and many other immediate-early genes (IEGs) that control synaptic plasticity. In addition to DGE analysis, we identified the relative importance of KEGG pathways in discriminating MDD phenotype using a machine learning-based approach. We anticipate that our study will open doors to developing better therapeutic approaches targeting glutamatergic receptors in the treatment of MDD.

Boquila: NGS read simulator to eliminate read nucleotide bias in sequence analysis.

Sequence content is heterogeneous throughout genomes. Therefore, genome-wide next-generation sequencing (NGS) reads biased towards specific nucleotide profiles are affected by the genome-wide heterogeneous nucleotide distribution. Boquila generates sequences that mimic the nucleotide profile of true reads, which can be used to correct the nucleotide-based bias of genome-wide distribution of NGS reads. Boquila can be configured to generate reads from only specified regions of the reference genome. It also allows the use of input DNA sequencing to correct the bias due to the copy number variations in the genome. Boquila uses standard file formats for input and output data, and it can be easily integrated into any workflow for high-throughput sequencing applications.

The interplay of 3D genome organization with UV-induced DNA damage and repair.

The 3D organization of the eukaryotic genome is crucial for various cellular processes such as gene expression and epigenetic regulation, as well as for maintaining genome integrity. However, the interplay between UV-induced DNA damage and repair with the 3D structure of the genome is not well understood. Here, we used state-of-the-art Hi-C, Damage-seq, and XR-seq datasets and in silico simulations to investigate the synergistic effects of UV damage and 3D genome organization. Our findings demonstrate that the peripheral 3D organization of the genome shields the central regions of genomic DNA from UV-induced damage. Additionally, we observed that potential damage sites of pyrimidine-pyrimidone (6-4) photoproducts are more prevalent in the nucleus center, possibly indicating an evolutionary pressure against those sites at the periphery. Interestingly, we found no correlation between repair efficiency and 3D structure after 12 min of irradiation, suggesting that UV radiation alters the genome's 3D organization in a short period of time. Interestingly, however, 2 h after UV induction, we observed more efficient repair levels in the center of the nucleus relative to the periphery. These results have implications for understanding the etiology of cancer and other diseases, as the interplay between UV radiation and the 3D genome may play a role in the development of genetic mutations and genomic instability.

The Mfd protein is the transcription-repair coupling factor (TRCF) in Mycobacterium smegmatis.

In vitro and in vivo experiments with Escherichia coli have shown that the Mfd translocase is responsible for transcription-coupled repair, a subpathway of nucleotide excision repair involving the faster rate of repair of the transcribed strand than the nontranscribed strand. Even though the mfd gene is conserved in all bacterial lineages, there is only limited information on whether it performs the same function in other bacterial species. Here, by genome scale analysis of repair of UV-induced cyclobutane pyrimidine dimers, we find that the Mfd protein is the transcription-repair coupling factor in Mycobacterium smegmatis. This finding, combined with the inverted strandedness of UV-induced mutations in WT and mfd-E. coli and Bacillus subtilis indicate that the Mfd protein is the universal transcription-repair coupling factor in bacteria.

Common and selective signal transduction mechanisms of GPCRs.

G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) are coupled by four major subfamilies of G proteins. GPCR coupling is processed through a combination of common and selective activation mechanisms together. Common mechanisms are shared for a group of receptors. Recently, researchers managed to identify shared activation pathways for the GPCRs belonging to the same subfamilies. On the other hand, selective mechanisms are responsible for the variations within activation mechanisms. Selective processes can regulate subfamily-specific interactions between the receptor and the G proteins, and intermediate receptor conformations are required to couple particular G proteins through G protein-specific activation mechanisms. Moreover, G proteins can also selectively interact with RGS (regulators of G protein signaling) proteins as well. Selective processes modulate the signaling profile of the receptor and the tissue they are present. This chapter summarizes the recent research conducted on common and selective signal transduction mechanisms within GPCRs from an evolutionary perspective.

Discovering misannotated lncRNAs using deep learning training dynamics.

MOTIVATION: Recent experimental evidence has shown that some long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) contain small open reading frames (sORFs) that are translated into functional micropeptides, suggesting that these lncRNAs are misannotated as non-coding. Current methods to detect misannotated lncRNAs rely on ribosome-profiling (Ribo-Seq) and mass-spectrometry experiments, which are cell-type dependent and expensive. RESULTS: Here, we propose a computational method to identify possible misannotated lncRNAs from sequence information alone. Our approach first builds deep learning models to discriminate coding and non-coding transcripts and leverages these models' training dynamics to identify misannotated lncRNAs-i.e. lncRNAs with coding potential. The set of misannotated lncRNAs we identified significantly overlap with experimentally validated ones and closely resemble coding protein sequences as evidenced by significant BLAST hits. Our analysis on a subset of misannotated lncRNA candidates also shows that some ORFs they contain yield high confidence folded structures as predicted by AlphaFold2. This methodology offers promising potential for assisting experimental efforts in characterizing the hidden proteome encoded by misannotated lncRNAs and for curating better datasets for building coding potential predictors. AVAILABILITY AND IMPLEMENTATION: Source code is available at https://github.com/nabiafshan/DetectingMisannotatedLncRNAs. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.

Sibling rivalry among the ZBTB transcription factor family: homodimers versus heterodimers.

The BTB domain is an oligomerization domain found in over 300 proteins encoded in the human genome. In the family of BTB domain and zinc finger-containing (ZBTB) transcription factors, 49 members share the same protein architecture. The N-terminal BTB domain is structurally conserved among the family members and serves as the dimerization site, whereas the C-terminal zinc finger motifs mediate DNA binding. The available BTB domain structures from this family reveal a natural inclination for homodimerization. In this study, we investigated the potential for heterodimer formation in the cellular environment. We selected five BTB homodimers and four heterodimer structures. We performed cell-based binding assays with fluorescent protein-BTB domain fusions to assess dimer formation. We tested the binding of several BTB pairs, and we were able to confirm the heterodimeric physical interaction between the BTB domains of PATZ1 and PATZ2, previously reported only in an interactome mapping experiment. We also found this pair to be co-expressed in several immune system cell types. Finally, we used the available structures of BTB domain dimers and newly constructed models in extended molecular dynamics simulations (500 ns) to understand the energetic determinants of homo- and heterodimer formation. We conclude that heterodimer formation, although frequently described as less preferred than homodimers, is a possible mechanism to increase the combinatorial specificity of this transcription factor family.

Effects of replication domains on genome-wide UV-induced DNA damage and repair.

Nucleotide excision repair is the primary repair mechanism that removes UV-induced DNA lesions in placentals. Unrepaired UV-induced lesions could result in mutations during DNA replication. Although the mutagenesis of pyrimidine dimers is reasonably well understood, the direct effects of replication fork progression on nucleotide excision repair are yet to be clarified. Here, we applied Damage-seq and XR-seq techniques and generated replication maps in synchronized UV-treated HeLa cells. The results suggest that ongoing replication stimulates local repair in both early and late replication domains. Additionally, it was revealed that lesions on lagging strand templates are repaired slower in late replication domains, which is probably due to the imbalanced sequence context. Asymmetric relative repair is in line with the strand bias of melanoma mutations, suggesting a role of exogenous damage, repair, and replication in mutational strand asymmetry.

PHACT: Phylogeny-Aware Computing of Tolerance for Missense Mutations.

Evolutionary conservation is a fundamental resource for predicting the substitutability of amino acids and the loss of function in proteins. The use of multiple sequence alignment alone-without considering the evolutionary relationships among sequences-results in the redundant counting of evolutionarily related alteration events, as if they were independent. Here, we propose a new method, PHACT, that predicts the pathogenicity of missense mutations directly from the phylogenetic tree of proteins. PHACT travels through the nodes of the phylogenetic tree and evaluates the deleteriousness of a substitution based on the probability differences of ancestral amino acids between neighboring nodes in the tree. Moreover, PHACT assigns weights to each node in the tree based on their distance to the query organism. For each potential amino acid substitution, the algorithm generates a score that is used to calculate the effect of substitution on protein function. To analyze the predictive performance of PHACT, we performed various experiments over the subsets of two datasets that include 3,023 proteins and 61,662 variants in total. The experiments demonstrated that our method outperformed the widely used pathogenicity prediction tools (i.e., SIFT and PolyPhen-2) and achieved a better predictive performance than other conventional statistical approaches presented in dbNSFP. The PHACT source code is available at https://github.com/CompGenomeLab/PHACT.

Evolutionary association of receptor-wide amino acids with G protein-coupling selectivity in aminergic GPCRs.

G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) induce signal transduction pathways through coupling to four main subtypes of G proteins (Gs, Gi, Gq, and G12/13), selectively. However, G protein selective activation mechanisms and residual determinants in GPCRs have remained obscure. Herein, we performed extensive phylogenetic analysis and identified specifically conserved residues for the aminergic receptors having similar coupling profiles. By integrating our methodology of differential evolutionary conservation of G protein-specific amino acids with structural analyses, we identified specific activation networks for Gs, Gi1, Go, and Gq To validate that these networks could determine coupling selectivity we further analyzed Gs-specific activation network and its association with Gs selectivity. Through molecular dynamics simulations, we showed that previously uncharacterized Glycine at position 7x41 plays an important role in receptor activation and it may determine Gs coupling selectivity by facilitating a larger TM6 movement. Finally, we gathered our results into a comprehensive model of G protein selectivity called "sequential switches of activation" describing three main molecular switches controlling GPCR activation: ligand binding, G protein selective activation mechanisms, and G protein contact.

CSB-independent, XPC-dependent transcription-coupled repair in Drosophila.

Drosophila melanogaster has been extensively used as a model system to study ionizing radiation and chemical-induced mutagenesis, double-strand break repair, and recombination. However, there are only limited studies on nucleotide excision repair in this important model organism. An early study reported that Drosophila lacks the transcription-coupled repair (TCR) form of nucleotide excision repair. This conclusion was seemingly supported by the Drosophila genome sequencing project, which revealed that Drosophila lacks a homolog to CSB, which is known to be required for TCR in mammals and yeasts. However, by using excision repair sequencing (XR-seq) genome-wide repair mapping technology, we recently found that the Drosophila S2 cell line performs TCR comparable to human cells. Here, we have extended this work to Drosophila at all its developmental stages. We find TCR takes place throughout the life cycle of the organism. Moreover, we find that in contrast to humans and other multicellular organisms previously studied, the XPC repair factor is required for both global and transcription-coupled repair in Drosophila.

Genome-wide Excision Repair Map of Cyclobutane Pyrimidine Dimers in Arabidopsis and the Roles of CSA1 and CSA2 Proteins in Transcription-coupled Repair.

Plants depend on light for energy production. However, the UV component in sunlight also inflicts DNA damage, mostly in the form of cyclobutane pyrimidine dimers (CPD) and (6-4) pyrimidine-pyrimidone photoproducts, which are mutagenic and lethal to the plant cells. These lesions are repaired by blue-light-dependent photolyases and the nucleotide excision repair enzymatic systems. Here, we characterize nucleotide excision repair in Arabidopsis thaliana genome-wide and at single nucleotide resolution with special focus on transcription-coupled repair and the role of the CSA1 and CSA2 genes/proteins in dictating the efficiency and the strand preference of repair of transcribed genes. We demonstrate that CSA1 is the dominant protein in coupling repair to transcription with minor contribution from CSA2.

Comparative analyses of two primate species diverged by more than 60 million years show different rates but similar distribution of genome-wide UV repair events.

BACKGROUND: Nucleotide excision repair is the primary DNA repair mechanism that removes bulky DNA adducts such as UV-induced pyrimidine dimers. Correspondingly, genome-wide mapping of nucleotide excision repair with eXcision Repair sequencing (XR-seq), provides comprehensive profiling of DNA damage repair. A number of XR-seq experiments at a variety of conditions for different damage types revealed heterogenous repair in the human genome. Although human repair profiles were extensively studied, how repair maps vary between primates is yet to be investigated. Here, we characterized the genome-wide UV-induced damage repair in gray mouse lemur, Microcebus murinus, in comparison to human. RESULTS: We derived fibroblast cell lines from mouse lemur, exposed them to UV irradiation, and analyzed the repair events genome-wide using the XR-seq protocol. Mouse lemur repair profiles were analyzed in comparison to the equivalent human fibroblast datasets. We found that overall UV sensitivity, repair efficiency, and transcription-coupled repair levels differ between the two primates. Despite this, comparative analysis of human and mouse lemur fibroblasts revealed that genome-wide repair profiles of the homologous regions are highly correlated, and this correlation is stronger for highly expressed genes. With the inclusion of an additional XR-seq sample derived from another human cell line in the analysis, we found that fibroblasts of the two primates repair UV-induced DNA lesions in a more similar pattern than two distinct human cell lines do. CONCLUSION: Our results suggest that mouse lemurs and humans, and possibly primates in general, share a homologous repair mechanism as well as genomic variance distribution, albeit with their variable repair efficiency. This result also emphasizes the deep homologies of individual tissue types across the eukaryotic phylogeny.

The Mutation Profile of SARS-CoV-2 Is Primarily Shaped by the Host Antiviral Defense.

Understanding SARS-CoV-2 evolution is a fundamental effort in coping with the COVID-19 pandemic. The virus genomes have been broadly evolving due to the high number of infected hosts world-wide. Mutagenesis and selection are two inter-dependent mechanisms of virus diversification. However, which mechanisms contribute to the mutation profiles of SARS-CoV-2 remain under-explored. Here, we delineate the contribution of mutagenesis and selection to the genome diversity of SARS-CoV-2 isolates. We generated a comprehensive phylogenetic tree with representative genomes. Instead of counting mutations relative to the reference genome, we identified each mutation event at the nodes of the phylogenetic tree. With this approach, we obtained the mutation events that are independent of each other and generated the mutation profile of SARS-CoV-2 genomes. The results suggest that the heterogeneous mutation patterns are mainly reflections of host (i) antiviral mechanisms that are achieved through APOBEC, ADAR, and ZAP proteins, and (ii) probable adaptation against reactive oxygen species.

The utility of next-generation sequencing technologies in diagnosis of Mendelian mitochondrial diseases and reflections on clinical spectrum.

OBJECTIVES: Diagnostic process of mitochondrial disorders (MD) is challenging because of the clinical variability and genetic heterogeneity of these conditions. Next-Generation Sequencing (NGS) technology offers a high-throughput platform for nuclear MD. METHODS: We included 59 of 72 patients that undergone WES and targeted exome sequencing panel suspected to have potential PMDs. Patients who were included in the analysis considering the possible PMD were reviewed retrospectively and scored according to the Mitochondrial Disease Criteria Scale. RESULTS: Sixty-one percent of the patients were diagnosed with whole-exome sequencing (WES) (36/59) and 15% with targeted exome sequencing (TES) (9/59). Patients with MD-related gene defects were included in the mito group, patients without MD-related gene defects were included in the nonmito group, and patients in whom no etiological cause could be identified were included in the unknown etiology group. In 11 out of 36 patients diagnosed with WES, a TES panel was applied prior to WES. In 47 probands in 39 genes (SURF1, SDHAF1, MTO1, FBXL4, SLC25A12, GLRX5, C19oRF12, NDUFAF6, DARS2, BOLA3, SLC19A3, SCO1, HIBCH, PDHA1, PDHAX, PC, ETFA, TRMU, TUFM, NDUFS6, WWOX, UBCD TREX1, ATL1, VAC14, GFAP, PLA2G6, TPRKB, ATP8A2, PEX13, IGHMBP2, LAMB2, LPIN1, GFPT1, CLN5, DOLK) (20 mito group, 19 nonmito group) 59 variants (31 mito group, 18 nonmito group) were detected. Seven novel variants in the mito group (SLC25A12, GLRX5, DARS2, SCO1, PC, ETFA, NDUFS6), nine novel variants in the nonmito group (IVD, GCDH, COG4, VAC14, GFAP, PLA2G6, ATP8A2, PEX13, LPIN1) were detected. CONCLUSIONS: We explored the feasibility of identifying pathogenic alleles using WES and TES in MD. Our results show that WES is the primary method of choice in the diagnosis of MD until at least all genes responsible for PMD are found and are highly effective in facilitating the diagnosis process.

Phylostat: a web-based tool to analyze paralogous clade divergence in phylogenetic trees.

Phylogenetic trees are useful tools to infer evolutionary relationships between genetic entities. Phylogenetics enables not only evolution-based gene clustering but also the assignment of gene duplication and deletion events to the nodes when coupled with statistical approaches such as bootstrapping. However, extensive gene duplication and deletion events bring along a challenge in interpreting phylogenetic trees and require manual inference. In particular, there has been no robust method of determining whether one of the paralog clades systematically shows higher divergence following the gene duplication event as a sign of functional divergence. Here, we provide Phylostat, a graphical user interface that enables clade divergence analysis, visually and statistically. Phylostat is a web-based tool built on phylo.io to allow comparative clade divergence analysis, which is available at https://phylostat.adebalilab.org under an MIT open-source licence.

SURF1 related Leigh syndrome: Clinical and molecular findings of 16 patients from Turkey.

INTRODUCTION: Pathogenic variants in SURF1, a nuclear-encoded gene encoding a mitochondrial chaperone involved in COX assembly, are one of the most common causes of Leigh syndrome (LS). MATERIAL-METHODS: Sixteen patients diagnosed to have SURF1-related LS between 2012 and 2020 were included in the study. Their clinical, biochemical and molecular findings were recorded. 10/16 patients were diagnosed using whole-exome sequencing (WES), 4/16 by Sanger sequencing of SURF1, 1/16 via targeted exome sequencing and 1/16 patient with whole-genome sequencing (WGS). The pathogenicity of SURF1 variants was evaluated by phylogenetic studies and modelling on the 3D structure of the SURF1 protein. RESULTS: We identified 16 patients from 14 unrelated families who were either homozygous or compound heterozygous for SURF1 pathogenic variants. Nine different SURF1 variants were detected The c.769G > A was the most common variant with an allelic frequency of 42.8% (12/28), c.870dupT [(p.Lys291*); (8/28 28.5%)], c.169delG [(p.Glu57Lysfs*15), (2/24; 7.1%)], c.532 T > A [(p.Tyr178Asn); (2/28, 7.1%)], c.653_654delCT [(p.Pro218Argfs*29); (4/28, 14.2%)] c.595_597delGGA [(p.Gly199del); (1/28, 3.5%)], c.751 + 1G > A (2/28, 4.1%), c.356C > T [(p.Pro119Leu); (2/28, 3.5%)] were the other detected variants. Two pathogenic variants, C.595_597delGGA and c.356C > T, were detected for the first time. The c.769 G > A variant detected in 6 patients from 5 families was evaluated in terms of phenotype-genotype correlation. There was no definite genotype - phenotype correlation. CONCLUSIONS: To date, more than 120 patients of LS with SURF1 pathogenic variants have been reported. We shared the clinical, molecular data and natural course of 16 new SURF1 defect patients from our country. This study is the first comprehensive research from Turkey that provides information about disease-causing variants in the SURF1 gene. The identification of common variants and phenotype of the SURF1 gene is important for understanding SURF1 related LS. SYNOPSIS: SURF1 gene defects are one of the most important causes of LS; patients have a homogeneous clinical and biochemical phenotype.