Molecular Analysis of Fetal and Adult Primary Human Liver Sinusoidal Endothelial Cells: A Comparison to Other Endothelial Cells.

In humans, Factor VIII (F8) deficiency leads to hemophilia A and F8 is largely synthesized and secreted by the liver sinusoidal endothelial cells (LSECs). However, the specificity and characteristics of these cells in comparison to other endothelial cells is not well known. In this study, we performed genome wide expression and CpG methylation profiling of fetal and adult human primary LSECs together with other fetal primary endothelial cells from lung (micro-vascular and arterial), and heart (micro-vascular). Our results reveal expression and methylation markers distinguishing LSECs at both fetal and adult stages. Differential gene expression of fetal LSECs in comparison to other fetal endothelial cells pointed to several differentially regulated pathways and biofunctions in fetal LSECs. We used targeted bisulfite resequencing to confirm selected top differentially methylated regions. We further designed an assay where we used the selected methylation markers to test the degree of similarity of in-house iPS generated vascular endothelial cells to primary LSECs; a higher similarity was found to fetal than to adult LSECs. In this study, we provide a detailed molecular profile of LSECs and a guide to testing the effectiveness of production of in vitro differentiated LSECs.

Use of the QIAGEN GeneReader NGS system for detection of KRAS mutations, validated by the QIAGEN Therascreen PCR kit and alternative NGS platform.

BACKGROUND: The detection of somatic mutations in primary tumors is critical for the understanding of cancer evolution and targeting therapy. Multiple technologies have been developed to enable the detection of such mutations. Next generation sequencing (NGS) is a new platform that is gradually becoming the technology of choice for genotyping cancer samples, owing to its ability to simultaneously interrogate many genomic loci at massively high efficiency and increasingly lower cost. However, multiple barriers still exist for its broader adoption in clinical research practice, such as fragmented workflow and complex bioinformatics analysis and interpretation. METHODS: We performed validation of the QIAGEN GeneReader NGS System using the QIAact Actionable Insights Tumor Panel, focusing on clinically meaningful mutations by using DNA extracted from formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded (FFPE) colorectal tissue with known KRAS mutations. The performance of the GeneReader was evaluated and compared to data generated from alternative technologies (PCR and pyrosequencing) as well as an alternative NGS platform. The results were further confirmed with Sanger sequencing. RESULTS: The data generated from the GeneReader achieved 100% concordance with reference technologies. Furthermore, the GeneReader workflow provides a truly integrated workflow, eliminating artifacts resulting from routine sample preparation; and providing up-to-date interpretation of test results. CONCLUSION: The GeneReader NGS system offers an effective and efficient method to identify somatic (KRAS) cancer mutations.

A phylogenomic approach to resolve the arthropod tree of life.

Arthropods were the first animals to conquer land and air. They encompass more than three quarters of all described living species. This extraordinary evolutionary success is based on an astoundingly wide array of highly adaptive body organizations. A lack of robustly resolved phylogenetic relationships, however, currently impedes the reliable reconstruction of the underlying evolutionary processes. Here, we show that phylogenomic data can substantially advance our understanding of arthropod evolution and resolve several conflicts among existing hypotheses. We assembled a data set of 233 taxa and 775 genes from which an optimally informative data set of 117 taxa and 129 genes was finally selected using new heuristics and compared with the unreduced data set. We included novel expressed sequence tag (EST) data for 11 species and all published phylogenomic data augmented by recently published EST data on taxonomically important arthropod taxa. This thorough sampling reduces the chance of obtaining spurious results due to stochastic effects of undersampling taxa and genes. Orthology prediction of genes, alignment masking tools, and selection of most informative genes due to a balanced taxa-gene ratio using new heuristics were established. Our optimized data set robustly resolves major arthropod relationships. We received strong support for a sister group relationship of onychophorans and euarthropods and strong support for a close association of tardigrades and cycloneuralia. Within pancrustaceans, our analyses yielded paraphyletic crustaceans and monophyletic hexapods and robustly resolved monophyletic endopterygote insects. However, our analyses also showed for few deep splits that were recently thought to be resolved, for example, the position of myriapods, a remarkable sensitivity to methods of analyses.

TonB-dependent transporters and their occurrence in cyanobacteria.

BACKGROUND: Different iron transport systems evolved in Gram-negative bacteria during evolution. Most of the transport systems depend on outer membrane localized TonB-dependent transporters (TBDTs), a periplasma-facing TonB protein and a plasma membrane localized machinery (ExbBD). So far, iron chelators (siderophores), oligosaccharides and polypeptides have been identified as substrates of TBDTs. For iron transport, three uptake systems are defined: the lactoferrin/transferrin binding proteins, the porphyrin-dependent transporters and the siderophore-dependent transporters. However, for cyanobacteria almost nothing is known about possible TonB-dependent uptake systems for iron or other substrates. RESULTS: We have screened all publicly available eubacterial genomes for sequences representing (putative) TBDTs. Based on sequence similarity, we identified 195 clusters, where elements of one cluster may possibly recognize similar substrates. For Anabaena sp. PCC 7120 we identified 22 genes as putative TBDTs covering almost all known TBDT subclasses. This is a high number of TBDTs compared to other cyanobacteria. The expression of the 22 putative TBDTs individually depends on the presence of iron, copper or nitrogen. CONCLUSION: We exemplified on TBDTs the power of CLANS-based classification, which demonstrates its importance for future application in systems biology. In addition, the tentative substrate assignment based on characterized proteins will stimulate the research of TBDTs in different species. For cyanobacteria, the atypical dependence of TBDT gene expression on different nutrition points to a yet unknown regulatory mechanism. In addition, we were able to clarify a hypothesis of the absence of TonB in cyanobacteria by the identification of according sequences.

A phylogenomic approach to resolve the basal pterygote divergence.

One of the most fascinating Bauplan transitions in the animal kingdom was the invention of insect wings, a change that also contributed to the success and enormous diversity of this animal group. However, the origin of insect flight and the relationships of basal winged insect orders are still controversial. Three hypotheses have been proposed to explain the phylogeny of winged insects: 1) the traditional Palaeoptera hypothesis (Ephemeroptera + Odonata, Neoptera), 2) the Metapterygota hypothesis (Ephemeroptera, Odonata + Neoptera), and 3) the Chiastomyaria hypothesis (Odonata, Ephemeroptera + Neoptera). Neither phylogenetic analyses of single genes nor even multiple marker systems (e.g., molecular markers + morphological characters) have yet been able to conclusively resolve basal pterygote divergences. A possible explanation for the lack of resolution is that the divergences took place in the mid-Devonian within a short period of time and attempts to solve this problem have been confounded by the major challenge of finding molecular markers to accurately track these short ancient internodes. Although phylogenomic data are available for Neoptera and some wingless (apterygote) orders, they are lacking for the crucial Odonata and Ephemeroptera orders. We adopt a multigene approach including data from two new expressed sequence tag projects-from the orders Ephemeroptera (Baetis sp.) and Odonata (Ischnura elegans)-to evaluate the potential of phylogenomic analyses in clarifying this unresolved issue. We analyzed two data sets that differed in represented taxa, genes, and overall sequence lengths: maxspe (15 taxa, 125 genes, and 31,643 amino acid positions) and maxgen (8 taxa, 150 genes, and 42,541 amino acid positions). Maximum likelihood and Bayesian inference analyses both place the Odonata at the base of the winged insects. Furthermore, statistical hypotheses testing rejected both the Palaeoptera and the Metapterygota hypotheses. The comprehensive molecular data set developed here provides conclusive support for odonates as the most basal winged insect order (Chiastomyaria hypothesis). Data quality assessment indicates that proteins involved in cellular processes and signaling harbor the most informative phylogenetic signal.

HaMStR: profile hidden markov model based search for orthologs in ESTs.

BACKGROUND: EST sequencing is a versatile approach for rapidly gathering protein coding sequences. They provide direct access to an organism's gene repertoire bypassing the still error-prone procedure of gene prediction from genomic data. Therefore, ESTs are often the only source for biological sequence data from taxa outside mainstream interest. The widespread use of ESTs in evolutionary studies and particularly in molecular systematics studies is still hindered by the lack of efficient and reliable approaches for automated ortholog predictions in ESTs. Existing methods either depend on a known species tree or cannot cope with redundancy in EST data. RESULTS: We present a novel approach (HaMStR) to mine EST data for the presence of orthologs to a curated set of genes. HaMStR combines a profile Hidden Markov Model search and a subsequent BLAST search to extend existing ortholog cluster with sequences from further taxa. We show that the HaMStR results are consistent with those obtained with existing orthology prediction methods that require completely sequenced genomes. A case study on the phylogeny of 35 fungal taxa illustrates that HaMStR is well suited to compile informative data sets for phylogenomic studies from ESTs and protein sequence data. CONCLUSION: HaMStR extends in a standardized manner a pre-defined set of orthologs with ESTs from further taxa. In the same fashion HaMStR can be applied to protein sequence data, and thus provides a comprehensive approach to compile ortholog cluster from any protein coding data. The resulting orthology predictions serve as the data basis for a variety of evolutionary studies. Here, we have demonstrated the application of HaMStR in a molecular systematics study. However, we envision that studies tracing the evolutionary fate of individual genes or functional complexes of genes will greatly benefit from HaMStR orthology predictions as well.

Predictive bioinformatic identification of minor receptor group human rhinoviruses.

Major group HRVs bind intercellular adhesion molecule 1 and minor group HRVs bind members of the low-density lipoprotein receptor (LDLR) family for cell entry. Whereas the former share common sequence motives in their viral capsid proteins (VPs), in the latter only a lysine residue within the binding epitope in VP1 is conserved; this lysine is also present in "K-type" major group HRVs that fail to use LDLR for infection. By using the available sequences three-dimensional models of VP1 of all HRVs were built and binding energies, with respect to module 3 of the very-low-density lipoprotein receptor, were calculated. Based on the predicted affinities K-type HRVs and minor group HRVs were correctly classified.