Project description:Lung adenocarcinoma (LUAD) is the most common type of lung cancer. A recent genome-wide association study (GWAS) of LUAD in East Asia reported 28 independent susceptibility variants across 25 loci and identified 2 genes whose genetically predicted expression levels are associated with LUAD risk, using an ancestry-matched lung tissue expression quantitative trait loci (eQTL) dataset. It is desirable to identify additional susceptibility loci and to understand their underlying biological mechanisms. Using an expanded GWAS of LUAD in East Asia and ancestry-matched lung tissue eQTL and DNA methylation QTL datasets, we performed transcriptome-wide association studies and DNA methylome-wide association studies simultaneously and examined the association between measured expression of genes and DNA methylation of nearby CpGs (eQTM). Genes and nearby CpGs are termed CpG–gene–LUAD trios if these three associations hold simultaneously. At Bonferroni-corrected P<0.05, we identified a new susceptibility locus (6p21.31; lead SNP rs7772643), 10 LUAD-associated genes and 86 LUAD-associated CpGs. At false discovery rate q<0.05, we identified 28 LUAD-associated genes, 220 LUAD-associated CpGs, and 45 CpG–gene–LUAD trios; among them, 43 were direction-matched regarding these three associations. These show that 23 of the known 28 susceptibility variants for LUAD in East Asia are near these genes or CpGs and MARCH3, ELF5, IKZF3, GSDMB, CCDC116, and DSP are putative novel susceptibility loci. Few of them was reported in LUAD in European populations. This study substantially advances our understanding of the etiology of LUAD in East Asia and could be useful in developing translational applications.
Project description:Lung adenocarcinoma (LUAD) is the most common type of lung cancer. A recent genome-wide association study (GWAS) of LUAD in East Asia reported 28 independent susceptibility variants across 25 loci and identified 2 genes whose genetically predicted expression levels are associated with LUAD risk, using an ancestry-matched lung tissue expression quantitative trait loci (eQTL) dataset. It is desirable to identify additional susceptibility loci and to understand their underlying biological mechanisms. Using an expanded GWAS of LUAD in East Asia and ancestry-matched lung tissue eQTL and DNA methylation QTL datasets, we performed transcriptome-wide association studies and DNA methylome-wide association studies simultaneously and examined the association between measured expression of genes and DNA methylation of nearby CpGs (eQTM). Genes and nearby CpGs are termed CpG–gene–LUAD trios if these three associations hold simultaneously. At Bonferroni-corrected P<0.05, we identified a new susceptibility locus (6p21.31; lead SNP rs7772643), 10 LUAD-associated genes and 86 LUAD-associated CpGs. At false discovery rate q<0.05, we identified 28 LUAD-associated genes, 220 LUAD-associated CpGs, and 45 CpG–gene–LUAD trios; among them, 43 were direction-matched regarding these three associations. These show that 23 of the known 28 susceptibility variants for LUAD in East Asia are near these genes or CpGs and MARCH3, ELF5, IKZF3, GSDMB, CCDC116, and DSP are putative novel susceptibility loci. Few of them was reported in LUAD in European populations. This study substantially advances our understanding of the etiology of LUAD in East Asia and could be useful in developing translational applications.
Project description:A 23,000-year-old southern-Iberian individual links human groups that lived in Western Europe before and after the Last Glacial Maximum
Project description:Spotted hyena (Crocuta crocuta) is the only extant species of the genus Crocuta, which once occupied a much wider range during the Pliocene and Pleistocene. However, its origin and evolutionary history is somewhat contentious due to discordances being found between morphological, nuclear, and mitochondrial data. Due to the limited molecular data from east Asian Crocuta, and the difficulty of extracting ancient DNA from this area, here we present proteomic analysis of cave hyenas from three locations in northern China. This marks the first proteomic data generated from cave hyenas, adding new molecular data to the east Asian populations. Phylogenetic analysis based on these protein sequences reveals two different groups of cave hyenas in east Asia, one of which could not be distinguished from modern spotted hyenas from northern Africa, tentatively the result of previously suggested gene flow between these lineages. With developments of instrumentation and analytical methods, proteomics holds promising potential for the phylogenetic reconstruction of ancient fauna previously thought to be unreachable using ancient DNA.
Project description:Affymetrix single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) array data were collected to study genome-wide patterns of genomic variation across a broad geographical range of Island Southeast Asian populations. This region has experienced an extremely complex admixture history. Initially settled ~50,000 years ago, Island Southeast Asia has since been the recipient of multiple waves of population movements, most recently by Austronesian-speaking groups ultimately from Neolithic mainland Asia and later arrivals during the historic era from India and the Middle East. We have genotyped SNPs in ~500 individuals from 30 populations spanning this entire geographical region, from communities close to mainland Asia through to New Guinea. Particular attention has been paid to genomic data that are informative for population history, including the role of recent arrivals during the historic era and admixture with archaic hominins.