Project description:<p>Human embryonic stem cells (hESCs) are a powerful tool for the study of human development and can form the basis of cellular disease models or therapies. However, the genetic make-up and stability of hESCs has not been systematically studied at a genome-wide level with single nucleotide resolution. We therefore sequenced the whole exomes of widely available hESCs. The data generated has provided new insights about the nature of acquired variation and the genomic integrity of the cell lines. We anticipate that this online resource will enable investigators to access raw sequencing data in order to interrogate cell lines for different disease and trait-associated genetic variants.</p>
Project description:<p>In this study we used next generation deep sequencing technologies to analyze the genomes of Harvard University Stem Cell lines 63 and 64. We performed 101-bp paired-end whole genome sequencing of the two cell lines using Illumina HiSeq platforms. The sequence reads obtained were analyzed for copy number and used for replication timing analysis. Our data suggests that read depth profiles can be used to map replication timing in Embryonic Stem Cells (ESCs). Further we observe that replication profiles are highly correlated across ESCs but distinct from those of other cell types such as Lymphoblastoid Cell Lines (LCLs). These results demonstrated that read depth data from whole genome sequencing can be used to study variation in replication timing within the human population and across different cell types. Whole genome sequences from HUES63 and HUES64 used for this study are being submitted.</p>
