IMAGE ANALYSIS OF OPTICAL COHERENCE TOMOGRAPHY SCANS TO EXPLORE ESTABLISHED AND NOVEL CHOROIDAL FEATURES IN PATIENTS WITH CENTRAL SEROUS CHORIORETINOPATHY.

PURPOSE: To explore the characteristics of choroidal tissue in patients with and without central serous chorioretinopathy (CSC) using an automated system of image analysis to determine known and novel metrics. METHODS: This was a retrospective case-control analysis of optical coherence tomography scans of patients seen at Manchester Royal Eye Hospital, UK, comparing patients with active CSC to an age-matched and gender-matched group with no CSC using a purpose-built automated system of image analysis. The expert system segments and measures established and novel features of choroid using a combination of thresholding, noise removal, and morphological techniques. RESULTS: A total of 72 patients were included in this study, with 40 included in the group with CSC and 32 patient controls with no CSC. There were significant increases from normal to CSC of median choroidal vascularity index, 54.7(median absolute deviation = 9.8) to 61.2(4.3), and all choroidal thickness indices including maximum depth, from 249.0(90.1) µm to 372.3(80.3) µm. For novel measures, there was a significant increase in tissue entropy from 6.68(0.28) to 6.95(0.17) and area of the largest five vessels from 6.28(3.04) mm2 to 9.10(3.49) mm2. The ratio of vessel lumen to stromal tissue intensity was conversely significantly reduced from 0.674(0.11) in normal patients to 0.59(0.06) in CSC. CONCLUSION: The automated system of choroidal analysis expands on the utility of known measures and introduces novel metrics. These findings contribute pathophysiological insights and metrics for further assessment and research on conditions affecting choroidal tissue.

Genome-wide analysis of longevity in nutrient-deprived Saccharomyces cerevisiae reveals importance of recycling in maintaining cell viability.

Although typically cosseted in the laboratory with constant temperatures and plentiful nutrients, microbes are frequently exposed to much more stressful conditions in their natural environments where survival and competitive fitness depend upon both growth rate when conditions are favourable and on persistence in a viable and recoverable state when they are not. In order to determine the role of genetic heterogeneity in environmental fitness we present a novel approach that combines the power of fluorescence-activated cell sorting with barcode microarray analysis and apply this to determining the importance of every gene in the Saccharomyces cerevisiae genome in a high-throughput, genome-wide fitness screen. We have grown > 6000 heterozygous mutants together and exposed them to a starvation stress before using fluorescence-activated cell sorting to identify and isolate those individual cells that have not survived the stress applied. Barcode array analysis of the sorted and total populations reveals the importance of cellular recycling mechanisms (autophagy, pexophagy and ribosome breakdown) in maintaining cell viability during starvation and provides compelling evidence for an important role for fatty acid degradation in maintaining viability. In addition, we have developed a semi-batch fermentor system that is a more realistic model of environmental fitness than either batch or chemostat culture. Barcode array analysis revealed that arginine biosynthesis was important for fitness in semi-batch culture and modelling of this regime showed that rapid emergence from lag phase led to greatly increased fitness. One hundred and twenty-five strains with deletions in unclassified proteins were identified as being over-represented in the sorted fraction, while 27 unclassified proteins caused a haploinsufficient phenotype in semi-batch culture. These methods thus provide a screen to identifying other genes and pathways that have a role in maintaining cell viability.

Translating the Machine: Skills that Human Clinicians Must Develop in the Era of Artificial Intelligence.

In coming decades, artificial intelligence (AI) platforms are expected to build on the profound achievements demonstrated in research papers towards implementation in real-world medicine. The implementation of AI systems is likely to be as an adjunct to clinicians rather than a replacement, but it still has the potential for a revolutionary impact on ophthalmology specifically and medicine in general in terms of addressing crucial scientific, socioeconomic and capacity challenges facing populations worldwide. In this paper we discuss the broad range of skills that clinicians should develop or refine to be able to fully embrace the opportunities that this technology will bring. We highlight the need for an awareness to identify AI systems that might already be in place and the need to be able to properly assess the utility of their outputs to correctly incorporate the AI system into clinical workflows. In a second section we discuss the need for clinicians to cultivate those human skills that are beyond the capabilities of the AI platforms and which should be just as important as ever. We describe the need for such an awareness by providing clinical examples of situations that might in the future arise in human interactions with machine algorithms. We also envisage a harmonious future in which an educated human and machine interaction can be optimised for the best possible patient experience and care.

Statistical Modelling of the Visual Impact of Subretinal Fluid and Associated Features.

INTRODUCTION: The aim of this study was to develop a statistical model to determine the visual significance of subretinal fluid (SRF) in combination with other constructed optical coherence tomography (OCT) features in patients with wet age-related macular degeneration. METHODS: The project used labelled data from 1211 OCTs of patients with neovascular macular degeneration (nAMD) attending the macular treatment centre of Manchester Royal Eye Hospital to build a statistical model to determine vision for any virtual, constructed OCT. A four-dimensional plot was created to represent the visual impact of SRF in OCTs in the context of the associated OCT characteristics of atrophy and subretinal hyperreflective material (SHRM). RESULTS: The plot illustrates that at levels of SRF below 150 µm, the impact of SRF on vision is very low. Increasing the amount of fluid to 200 µm and beyond increases the impact on vision, but only if there is little atrophy or SHRM. CONCLUSIONS: This study suggests that levels of SRF up to around 150 µm thickness on OCT have minimal impact on vision. Greater levels of SRF have greater impact on vision, unless associated with significant amounts of atrophy or SHRM, when the additional effect of the SRF on vision remains low.

Shared genomics: high performance computing for distributed insights in genomic medical research.

The study of the genetics of diseases is entering a new era. Increasingly, genome-wide association studies are being used to identify positions within the human genome that have a link with a disease condition. The number of genomic locations studied means that High Performance Computing (HPC) solutions will have to increasingly be used in the statistical analysis of these data sets. Understanding the biomedical implications of the statistical analysis will also require heavy use of bioinformatics annotation tools. In this paper we report the outcome of developing HPC statistical genetics analysis codes for use by clinical researchers. Statistical results are automatically annotated with relevant biological information by calling multiple web-services orchestrated via pre-existing scientific workflows. Access to the HPC codes and bioinformatics annotation processes is via a client Workbench which hides as much as possible from the user the HPC infrastructure and bioinformatics annotation processes, whilst aiding the exchange of ideas and results between stakeholders.

Strong position-dependent effects of sequence mismatches on signal ratios measured using long oligonucleotide microarrays.

BACKGROUND: Microarrays are an important and widely used tool. Applications include capturing genomic DNA for high-throughput sequencing in addition to the traditional monitoring of gene expression and identifying DNA copy number variations. Sequence mismatches between probe and target strands are known to affect the stability of the probe-target duplex, and hence the strength of the observed signals from microarrays. RESULTS: We describe a large-scale investigation of microarray hybridisations to murine probes with known sequence mismatches, demonstrating that the effect of mismatches is strongly position-dependent and for small numbers of sequence mismatches is correlated with the maximum length of perfectly matched probe-target duplex. Length of perfect match explained 43% of the variance in log2 signal ratios between probes with one and two mismatches. The correlation with maximum length of perfect match does not conform to expectations based on considering the effect of mismatches purely in terms of reducing the binding energy. However, it can be explained qualitatively by considering the entropic contribution to duplex stability from configurations of differing perfect match length. CONCLUSION: The results of this study have implications in terms of array design and analysis. They highlight the significant effect that short sequence mismatches can have upon microarray hybridisation intensities even for long oligonucleotide probes. All microarray data presented in this study are available from the GEO database 1, under accession number [GEO: GSE9669]

A model-based analysis of microarray experimental error and normalisation.

A statistical model is proposed for the analysis of errors in microarray experiments and is employed in the analysis and development of a combined normalisation regime. Through analysis of the model and two-dye microarray data sets, this study found the following. The systematic error introduced by microarray experiments mainly involves spot intensity-dependent, feature-specific and spot position-dependent contributions. It is difficult to remove all these errors effectively without a suitable combined normalisation operation. Adaptive normalisation using a suitable regression technique is more effective in removing spot intensity-related dye bias than self-normalisation, while regional normalisation (block normalisation) is an effective way to correct spot position-dependent errors. However, dye-flip replicates are necessary to remove feature-specific errors, and also allow the analyst to identify the experimentally introduced dye bias contained in non-self-self data sets. In this case, the bias present in the data sets may include both experimentally introduced dye bias and the biological difference between two samples. Self-normalisation is capable of removing dye bias without identifying the nature of that bias. The performance of adaptive normalisation, on the other hand, depends on its ability to correctly identify the dye bias. If adaptive normalisation is combined with an effective dye bias identification method then there is no systematic difference between the outcomes of the two methods.

Machine learning in bioinformatics: a brief survey and recommendations for practitioners.

Machine learning is used in a large number of bioinformatics applications and studies. The application of machine learning techniques in other areas such as pattern recognition has resulted in accumulated experience as to correct and principled approaches for their use. The aim of this paper is to give an account of issues affecting the application of machine learning tools, focusing primarily on general aspects of feature and model parameter selection, rather than any single specific algorithm. These aspects are discussed in the context of published bioinformatics studies in leading journals over the last 5 years. We assess to what degree the experience gained by the pattern recognition research community pervades these bioinformatics studies. We finally discuss various critical issues relating to bioinformatic data sets and make a number of recommendations on the proper use of machine learning techniques for bioinformatics research based upon previously published research on machine learning.

Accuracy of Pseudo-Inverse Covariance Learning--A Random Matrix Theory Analysis.

For many learning problems, estimates of the inverse population covariance are required and often obtained by inverting the sample covariance matrix. Increasingly for modern scientific data sets, the number of sample points is less than the number of features and so the sample covariance is not invertible. In such circumstances, the Moore-Penrose pseudo-inverse sample covariance matrix, constructed from the eigenvectors corresponding to nonzero sample covariance eigenvalues, is often used as an approximation to the inverse population covariance matrix. The reconstruction error of the pseudo-inverse sample covariance matrix in estimating the true inverse covariance can be quantified via the Frobenius norm of the difference between the two. The reconstruction error is dominated by the smallest nonzero sample covariance eigenvalues and diverges as the sample size becomes comparable to the number of features. For high-dimensional data, we use random matrix theory techniques and results to study the reconstruction error for a wide class of population covariance matrices. We also show how bagging and random subspace methods can result in a reduction in the reconstruction error and can be combined to improve the accuracy of classifiers that utilize the pseudo-inverse sample covariance matrix. We test our analysis on both simulated and benchmark data sets.

Identification of secondary targets of N-containing bisphosphonates in mammalian cells via parallel competition analysis of the barcoded yeast deletion collection.

BACKGROUND: Nitrogen-containing bisphosphonates are the elected drugs for the treatment of diseases in which excessive bone resorption occurs, for example, osteoporosis and cancer-induced bone diseases. The only known target of nitrogen-containing bisphosphonates is farnesyl pyrophosphate synthase, which ensures prenylation of prosurvival proteins, such as Ras. However, it is likely that the action of nitrogen-containing bisphosphonates involves additional unknown mechanisms. To identify novel targets of nitrogen-containing bisphosphonates, we used a genome-wide high-throughput screening in which 5,936 Saccharomyces cerevisiae heterozygote barcoded mutants were grown competitively in the presence of sub-lethal doses of three nitrogen-containing bisphosphonates (risedronate, alendronate and ibandronate). Strains carrying deletions in genes encoding potential drug targets show a variation of the intensity of their corresponding barcodes on the hybridization array over the time. RESULTS: With this approach, we identified novel targets of nitrogen-containing bisphosphonates, such as tubulin cofactor B and ASK/DBF4 (Activator of S-phase kinase). The up-regulation of tubulin cofactor B may explain some previously unknown effects of nitrogen-containing bisphosphonates on microtubule dynamics and organization. As nitrogen-containing bisphosphonates induce extensive DNA damage, we also document the role of DBF4 as a key player in nitrogen-containing bisphosphonate-induced cytotoxicity, thus explaining the effects on the cell-cycle. CONCLUSIONS: The dataset obtained from the yeast screen was validated in a mammalian system, allowing the discovery of new biological processes involved in the cellular response to nitrogen-containing bisphosphonates and opening up opportunities for development of new anticancer drugs.

Identification and characterization of high-flux-control genes of yeast through competition analyses in continuous cultures.

Using competition experiments in continuous cultures grown in different nutrient environments (glucose limited, ammonium limited, phosphate limited and white grape juice), we identified genes that show haploinsufficiency phenotypes (reduced growth rate when hemizygous) or haploproficiency phenotypes (increased growth rate when hemizygous). Haploproficient genes (815, 1,194, 733 and 654 in glucose-limited, ammonium-limited, phosphate-limited and white grape juice environments, respectively) frequently show that phenotype in a specific environmental context. For instance, genes encoding components of the ubiquitination pathway or the proteasome show haploproficiency in nitrogen-limited conditions where protein conservation may be beneficial. Haploinsufficiency is more likely to be observed in all environments, as is the case with genes determining polar growth of the cell. Haploproficient genes seem randomly distributed in the genome, whereas haploinsufficient genes (685, 765, 1,277 and 217 in glucose-limited, ammonium-limited, phosphate-limited and white grape juice environments, respectively) are over-represented on chromosome III. This chromosome determines a yeast's mating type, and the concentration of haploinsufficient genes there may be a mechanism to prevent its loss.

Application of the comprehensive set of heterozygous yeast deletion mutants to elucidate the molecular basis of cellular chromium toxicity.

BACKGROUND: The serious biological consequences of metal toxicity are well documented, but the key modes of action of most metals are unknown. To help unravel molecular mechanisms underlying the action of chromium, a metal of major toxicological importance, we grew over 6,000 heterozygous yeast mutants in competition in the presence of chromium. Microarray-based screens of these heterozygotes are truly genome-wide as they include both essential and non-essential genes. RESULTS: The screening data indicated that proteasomal (protein degradation) activity is crucial for cellular chromium (Cr) resistance. Further investigations showed that Cr causes the accumulation of insoluble and toxic protein aggregates, which predominantly arise from proteins synthesised during Cr exposure. A protein-synthesis defect provoked by Cr was identified as mRNA mistranslation, which was oxygen-dependent. Moreover, Cr exhibited synergistic toxicity with a ribosome-targeting drug (paromomycin) that is known to act via mistranslation, while manipulation of translational accuracy modulated Cr toxicity. CONCLUSION: The datasets from the heterozygote screen represent an important public resource that may be exploited to discover the toxic mechanisms of chromium. That potential was validated here with the demonstration that mRNA mistranslation is a primary cause of cellular Cr toxicity.

Growth control of the eukaryote cell: a systems biology study in yeast.

BACKGROUND: Cell growth underlies many key cellular and developmental processes, yet a limited number of studies have been carried out on cell-growth regulation. Comprehensive studies at the transcriptional, proteomic and metabolic levels under defined controlled conditions are currently lacking. RESULTS: Metabolic control analysis is being exploited in a systems biology study of the eukaryotic cell. Using chemostat culture, we have measured the impact of changes in flux (growth rate) on the transcriptome, proteome, endometabolome and exometabolome of the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Each functional genomic level shows clear growth-rate-associated trends and discriminates between carbon-sufficient and carbon-limited conditions. Genes consistently and significantly upregulated with increasing growth rate are frequently essential and encode evolutionarily conserved proteins of known function that participate in many protein-protein interactions. In contrast, more unknown, and fewer essential, genes are downregulated with increasing growth rate; their protein products rarely interact with one another. A large proportion of yeast genes under positive growth-rate control share orthologs with other eukaryotes, including humans. Significantly, transcription of genes encoding components of the TOR complex (a major controller of eukaryotic cell growth) is not subject to growth-rate regulation. Moreover, integrative studies reveal the extent and importance of post-transcriptional control, patterns of control of metabolic fluxes at the level of enzyme synthesis, and the relevance of specific enzymatic reactions in the control of metabolic fluxes during cell growth. CONCLUSION: This work constitutes a first comprehensive systems biology study on growth-rate control in the eukaryotic cell. The results have direct implications for advanced studies on cell growth, in vivo regulation of metabolic fluxes for comprehensive metabolic engineering, and for the design of genome-scale systems biology models of the eukaryotic cell.

Making sense of microarray data distributions.

MOTIVATION: Typical analysis of microarray data has focused on spot by spot comparisons within a single organism. Less analysis has been done on the comparison of the entire distribution of spot intensities between experiments and between organisms. RESULTS: Here we show that mRNA transcription data from a wide range of organisms and measured with a range of experimental platforms show close agreement with Benford's law (Benford, PROC: Am. Phil. Soc., 78, 551-572, 1938) and Zipf's law (Zipf, The Psycho-biology of Language: an Introduction to Dynamic Philology, 1936 and Human Behaviour and the Principle of Least Effort, 1949). The distribution of the bulk of microarray spot intensities is well approximated by a log-normal with the tail of the distribution being closer to power law. The variance, sigma(2), of log spot intensity shows a positive correlation with genome size (in terms of number of genes) and is therefore relatively fixed within some range for a given organism. The measured value of sigma(2) can be significantly smaller than the expected value if the mRNA is extracted from a sample of mixed cell types. Our research demonstrates that useful biological findings may result from analyzing microarray data at the level of entire intensity distributions.

Comparative genomic hybridization provides new insights into the molecular taxonomy of the Saccharomyces sensu stricto complex.

The science of taxonomy is constantly improving as new techniques are developed. Current practice is to construct phylogenetic trees based on the analysis of the DNA sequence of single genes, or parts of single genes. However, this approach has recently been brought into question as several tree topologies may be produced for the same clade when the sequences for various different genes are used. The availability of complete genome sequences for several organisms has seen the adoption of microarray technology to construct molecular phylogenies of bacteria, based on all of the genes. Similar techniques have been used to reveal the relationships between different strains of the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae. We have exploited microarray technology to construct a molecular phylogeny for the Saccharomyces sensu stricto complex of yeast species, which is based on all of the protein-encoding genes revealed by the complete genome sequence of the paradigmatic species, S. cerevisiae. We also analyze different strains of S. cerevisiae itself, as well as the putative species S. boulardii. We show that in addition to the phylogeny produced, we can identify and analyze individual ORF traits and interpret the results to give a detailed explanation of evolutionary events underlying the phylogeny.

Genome-wide analysis of the effects of heat shock on a Saccharomyces cerevisiae mutant with a constitutively activated cAMP-dependent pathway.

We have used DNA microarray technology and 2-D gel electrophoresis combined with mass spectrometry to investigate the effects of a drastic heat shock from 30 to 50 on a genome-wide scale. This experimental condition is used to differentiate between wild-type cells and those with a constitutively active cAMP-dependent pathway in Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Whilst more than 50% of the former survive this shock, almost all of the latter lose viability. We compared the transcriptomes of the wildtype and a mutant strain deleted for the gene PDE2, encoding the high-affinity cAMP phosphodiesterase before and after heat shock treatment. We also compared the two heat-shocked samples with one another, allowing us to determine the changes that occur in the pde2Delta mutant which cause such a dramatic loss of viability after heat shock. Several genes involved in ergosterol biosynthesis and carbon source utilization had altered expression levels, suggesting that these processes might be potential factors in heat shock survival. These predictions and also the effect of the different phases of the cell cycle were confirmed by biochemical and phenotypic analyses. 146 genes of previously unknown function were identified amongst the genes with altered expression levels and deletion mutants in 13 of these genes were found to be highly sensitive to heat shock. Differences in response to heat shock were also observed at the level of the proteome, with a higher level of protein degradation in the mutant, as revealed by comparing 2-D gels of wild-type and mutant heat-shocked samples and mass spectrometry analysis of the differentially produced proteins.

Use of expressed sequence tag analysis and cDNA microarrays of the filamentous fungus Aspergillus nidulans.

The use of microarrays in the analysis of gene expression is becoming widespread for many organisms, including yeast. However, although the genomes of a number of filamentous fungi have been fully or partially sequenced, microarray analysis is still in its infancy in these organisms. Here, we describe the construction and validation of microarrays for the fungus Aspergillus nidulans using PCR products from a 4092 EST conidial germination library. An experiment was designed to validate these arrays by monitoring the expression profiles of known genes following the addition of 1% (w/v) glucose to wild-type A. nidulans cultures grown to mid-exponential phase in Vogel's minimal medium with ethanol as the sole carbon source. The profiles of genes showing statistically significant differential expression following the glucose up-shift are presented and an assessment of the quality and reproducibility of the A. nidulans arrays discussed.