Project description:To investigate the extent of similarity in epigenetic programming among human, baboon and mouse PSCs, we examined genome-wide patterns of four chromatin modifications (H3K4me3, H3K9me3, H3K27me3, H3K27ac) and DNA methylation in baboon iPSC and ESCs. We show that baboon pluripotent cells (PSCs) recapitulate key molecular features of human PSCs with much greater accuracy than that found in PSCs from non-primate species. Specifically, baboon and human PSCs exhibit significantly greater conservation of gene expression patterns, higher sequence and structural homology among pluripotency factors, more equivalent genome-wide patterns of histone and DNA methylation modifications, and similar maintenance of bivalent programming of developmental genes than that found between human and non-primate PSCs.
Project description:Cancer cells exhibit rewired transcriptional regulatory networks that promote tumor growth and survival. However, the processes that configure these pathological networks remain poorly understood. Through a pan-cancer epigenomic analysis, we found that primate-specific endogenous retroviruses (ERVs) are an abundant source of enhancers that mediate transcriptional dysregulation in cancer. In colorectal cancer and other epithelial tumors, AP1 signaling drives aberrant activation of enhancers derived from the primate-specific ERV family LTR10. CRISPR studies revealed that LTR10 elements control colorectal cancer-specific gene expression at multiple loci associated with tumorigenesis. Within the human population, individual LTR10 elements show extensive structural variation due to repeat instability of an internal variable number tandem repeat (VNTR) region that affects AP1 binding. Our findings reveal that ERV-derived enhancers link oncogenic signaling to transcriptional dysregulation and shape the evolution of cancer-specific regulatory networks.
Project description:To investigate the extent of similarity in epigenetic programming among human, baboon and mouse PSCs, we examined genome-wide patterns of four chromatin modifications (H3K4me3, H3K9me3, H3K27me3, H3K27ac) and DNA methylation in baboon iPSC and ESCs. We show that baboon pluripotent cells (PSCs) recapitulate key molecular features of human PSCs with much greater accuracy than that found in PSCs from non-primate species. Specifically, baboon and human PSCs exhibit significantly greater conservation of gene expression patterns, higher sequence and structural homology among pluripotency factors, more equivalent genome-wide patterns of histone and DNA methylation modifications, and similar maintenance of bivalent programming of developmental genes than that found between human and non-primate PSCs.
Project description:To investigate the extent of similarity in epigenetic programming among human, baboon and mouse PSCs, we examined genome-wide patterns of four chromatin modifications (H3K4me3, H3K9me3, H3K27me3, H3K27ac) and DNA methylation in baboon iPSC and ESCs. We show that baboon pluripotent cells (PSCs) recapitulate key molecular features of human PSCs with much greater accuracy than that found in PSCs from non-primate species. Specifically, baboon and human PSCs exhibit significantly greater conservation of gene expression patterns, higher sequence and structural homology among pluripotency factors, more equivalent genome-wide patterns of histone and DNA methylation modifications, and similar maintenance of bivalent programming of developmental genes than that found between human and non-primate PSCs.
Project description:This set includes individuals from 10 different primate species whose genomic DNA was used in an array-based comparative genomic hybridization (aCGH)using human cDNA microarrays to detect gene copy number variation across 10 primate species. An organism part comparison experiment design type compares tissues, regions, organs within or between organisms. Keywords: organism_part_comparison_design, array CGH
Project description:Genetic variation amongst individual humans occurs on many different scales, ranging from gross alterations in the human karyotype to single-nucleotide changes. In this manuscript we explore variation on an intermediate scale-particularly insertions, deletions, and inversions affecting from a few thousand to a few million base pairs. We employed a clone-based method to interrogate this intermediate structural variation in eight individuals of diverse geographic ancestry. Our analysis provides a comprehensive overview of the normal pattern of structural variation present in these genomes, refining the location of 1695 structural variants. We find that 50% were seen in more than one individual and that nearly half lay outside regions of the genome previously described as structurally variant. We discover 525 new insertion sequences that are not present in the human reference genome and show that many of these are variable in copy number among individuals. Sequencing of a subset of structural variants reveals considerable locus complexity and provides insights into the different mutational processes that have shaped the human genome. These data provide the first high-resolution sequence-map of human structural variation-an important standard for genotyping platforms and a prelude to future individual genome sequencing projects. Keywords: comparitive genomic hybridization, copy number variation, structural variation, fosmid end sequencing