Project description:Birds have genomic and chromosomal features that make them an attractive group to analyze the evolution of recombination rate and the distribution of crossing over. Yet, analyses are biased towards certain species, especially domestic poultry and passerines. Here we analyze for the first time the recombination rate and crossover distribution in the primitive ratite bird, Rhea americana (Rheiformes, Palaeognathae). Using a cytogenetic approach for in situ mapping of crossovers we found that the total genetic map is 3050 cM with a global recombination rate of 2.1 cM/Mb for female rheas. In the five largest macrobivalents there were 3 or more crossovers in most bivalents. Recombination rates for macrobivalents ranges between 1.8-2.1 cM/Mb and the physical length of their synaptonemal complexes is highly predictive of their genetic lengths. The crossover rate at the pseudoautosomal region is 2.1 cM/Mb, similar to those of autosomal pairs 5 and 6 and only slightly higher compared to other macroautosomes. It is suggested that the presence of multiple crossovers on the largest macrobivalents is a feature common to many avian groups, irrespective of their position throughout phylogeny. These data provide new insights to analyze the heterogeneous recombination landscape of birds.
Project description:The principal objective of this work was to investigate the somatic copy number changes that influence the risk of head and neck cancer occurrence and outcome from two large comprehensive case series in Europe and South America. A second objective was to investigate how these somatic changes interact with environmental and host risk factors such including HPV infection, alcohol and smoking.
Project description:How and when the Americas were populated remains contentious. Using ancient and modern genome-wide data, we find that the ancestors of all present-day Native Americans, including Athabascans and Amerindians, entered the Americas as a single migration wave from Siberia no earlier than 23 thousand years ago (KYA), and after no more than 8,000-year isolation period in Beringia. Native Americans diversified into two basal genetic branches around 13 KYA, one in North and South America and the other restricted to North America. Subsequent gene flow resulted in some Native Americans sharing ancestry with present-day East Asians and Australo-Melanesians, the latter possibly through the ancestors of Aleutian Islanders. Putative relict populations in South America, including the historical Pericúes and Fuego-Patagonians, are not directly related to modern Australo-Melanesians.
Project description:Esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC) is an aggressive cancer with one of the highest world incidences in the Eastern Cape region of South Africa. Several genome wide studies have been performed on ESCC cohorts from Asian countries, North America, Malawi and other parts of the world but none has been conducted on ESCC tumors from South Africa to date, where the molecular pathology and etiology of this disease remains unclear. We report here tumor associated copy number changes observed in 51 ESCC patients’ samples from the Eastern Cape province of South Africa. We extracted tumor DNA from 51 archived ESCC specimens and interrogated tumor associated DNA copy number changes using Affymetrix® 500K SNP array technology. The Genomic Identification of Significant Targets in Cancer (GISTIC) algorithm was applied to identify significant focal regions of gains and losses. Gains of the top recurrent cancer genes were validated by fluorescence in situ hybridization and their protein expression assessed by immunohistochemistry. Twenty-three significant focal gains were identified across samples. Gains involving the CCND1, MYC, EGFR and JAG1 loci recapitulated those described in studies on Asian and Malawian cohorts. The two most significant gains involved the chromosomal sub-bands 3q28, encompassing the TPRG1 gene and 11q13.3 including the CTTN, PPFIA1and SHANK2 genes. There was no significant homozygous loss and the most recurrent hemizygous deletion involved the B3GAT1 gene on chromosome11q25. Focal gains on 11q13.3 in 37% of cases (19/51), consistently involved CTTN and SHANK2 genes. Twelve of these cases (23,5%), had a broader region of gain that also included the CCND1, FGF19, FGF4 and FGF3 genes. SHANK2 and CTTN are co-amplified in several cancers, these proteins interact functionally together and are involved in cell motility. Immunohistochemistry confirmed both Shank2 (79%) and cortactin (69%) protein overexpression in samples with gains of these genes. In contrast, cyclin D1 (65%) was moderately expressed in samples with CCND1 DNA gain. This study reports copy number changes in a South African ESCC cohort and highlights similarities and differences with cohorts from Asia and Malawi. Our results strongly suggest a role for CTTN and SHANK2 in the pathogenesis of ESCC in South Africa.
Project description:If copy number variants (CNVs) are predominantly deleterious, we would expect them to be more efficiently purged from populations with a large effective population size (Ne) than from populations with a small Ne. Malaria parasites (Plasmodium falciparum) provide an excellent organism to examine this prediction, because this protozoan shows a broad spectrum of population structures within a single species, with large, stable, outbred populations in Africa, small unstable inbred populations in South America and with intermediate population characteristics in South East Asia. We characterized 122 single-clone parasites, without prior laboratory culture, from malaria-infected patients in 7 countries in Africa, SE Asia and S. America using a high density SNP/CNV microarray. We scored 134 high-confidence CNVs across the parasite exome, including 33 deletions and 102 amplifications, which ranged in size from <500bp to 59kb, as well as 10,107 flanking, biallelic SNPs. Overall, CNVs were rare, small and skewed towards low frequency variants, consistent with the deleterious model. Relative to African and SE Asian populations, CNVs were significantly more common in S. America, showed significantly less skew in allele frequencies, and were significantly larger. On this background of low frequency CNV, we also identified several high-frequency CNVs under putative positive selection using an FST outlier analysis. These included known adaptive CNVs containing rh2b and pfmdr1, and several other CNVs (e.g. DNA helicase, and 3 conserved proteins) that require further investigation. Our data are consistent with a significant impact of genetic structure on CNV burden in an important human pathogen. SNP/CGH hybridisation of 175 malaria parasite samples
Project description:If copy number variants (CNVs) are predominantly deleterious, we would expect them to be more efficiently purged from populations with a large effective population size (Ne) than from populations with a small Ne. Malaria parasites (Plasmodium falciparum) provide an excellent organism to examine this prediction, because this protozoan shows a broad spectrum of population structures within a single species, with large, stable, outbred populations in Africa, small unstable inbred populations in South America and with intermediate population characteristics in South East Asia. We characterized 122 single-clone parasites, without prior laboratory culture, from malaria-infected patients in 7 countries in Africa, SE Asia and S. America using a high density SNP/CNV microarray. We scored 134 high-confidence CNVs across the parasite exome, including 33 deletions and 102 amplifications, which ranged in size from <500bp to 59kb, as well as 10,107 flanking, biallelic SNPs. Overall, CNVs were rare, small and skewed towards low frequency variants, consistent with the deleterious model. Relative to African and SE Asian populations, CNVs were significantly more common in S. America, showed significantly less skew in allele frequencies, and were significantly larger. On this background of low frequency CNV, we also identified several high-frequency CNVs under putative positive selection using an FST outlier analysis. These included known adaptive CNVs containing rh2b and pfmdr1, and several other CNVs (e.g. DNA helicase, and 3 conserved proteins) that require further investigation. Our data are consistent with a significant impact of genetic structure on CNV burden in an important human pathogen.
Project description:In the present study, endogenous cysteine S-nitrosation site and S-nitrosated proteins were identified by iodo-TMT labeling during somatic embryogenesis in Brazilian pine, an endangered native conifer of South America.