Macrophage-derived insulin antagonist ImpL2 induces lipoprotein mobilization upon bacterial infection.

The immune response is an energy-demanding process that must be coordinated with systemic metabolic changes redirecting nutrients from stores to the immune system. Although this interplay is fundamental for the function of the immune system, the underlying mechanisms remain elusive. Our data show that the pro-inflammatory polarization of Drosophila macrophages is coupled to the production of the insulin antagonist ImpL2 through the activity of the transcription factor HIF1α. ImpL2 production, reflecting nutritional demands of activated macrophages, subsequently impairs insulin signaling in the fat body, thereby triggering FOXO-driven mobilization of lipoproteins. This metabolic adaptation is fundamental for the function of the immune system and an individual's resistance to infection. We demonstrated that analogically to Drosophila, mammalian immune-activated macrophages produce ImpL2 homolog IGFBP7 in a HIF1α-dependent manner and that enhanced IGFBP7 production by these cells induces mobilization of lipoproteins from hepatocytes. Hence, the production of ImpL2/IGFBP7 by macrophages represents an evolutionarily conserved mechanism by which macrophages alleviate insulin signaling in the central metabolic organ to secure nutrients necessary for their function upon bacterial infection.

A Systematic Method for Detecting Abnormal mRNA Splicing and Assessing Its Clinical Impact in Individuals Undergoing Genetic Testing for Hereditary Cancer Syndromes.

Nearly 14% of disease-causing germline variants result from the disruption of mRNA splicing. Most (67%) DNA variants predicted in silico to disrupt splicing are classified as variants of uncertain significance. An analytic workflow-splice effect event resolver (SPEER)-was developed and validated to use mRNA sequencing to reveal significant deviations in splicing, pinpoint the DNA variants potentially involved, and measure the deleterious effects of the altered splicing on mRNA transcripts, providing evidence for assessing the pathogenicity of the variant. SPEER was used to analyze leukocyte RNA encoding 63 hereditary cancer syndrome-related genes in 20,317 patients. Among 3563 patients (17.5%) with at least one DNA variant predicted to affect splicing, 971 (4.8%) had altered splicing with a deleterious effect on the transcript, and 40 had altered splicing due to a DNA variant located outside of the reportable range of the test. Integrating SPEER results into the interpretation of variants allowed variants of uncertain significance to be reclassified as pathogenic or likely pathogenic in 0.4%, and as benign or likely benign in 5.9%, of the 20,317 patients. SPEER-based evidence was associated with a significantly greater effect on classifications of pathogenic or likely pathogenic and benign or likely benign in nonwhite versus non-Hispanic white patients, illustrating that evidence derived from mRNA splicing analysis may help to reduce ethnic/ancestral disparities in genetic testing.

Sensitivity, specificity, and accuracy of a liquid biopsy approach utilizing molecular amplification pools.

Circulating cell-free DNA (cfDNA) has the potential to be a specific biomarker for the therapeutic management of lung cancer patients. Here, a new sequencing error-reduction method based on molecular amplification pools (MAPs) was utilized to analyze cfDNA in lung cancer patients. We determined the accuracy of MAPs plasma sequencing with respect to droplet digital polymerase chain reaction assays (ddPCR), and tested whether actionable mutation discovery is improved by next-generation sequencing (NGS) in a clinical setting. This study reports data from 356 lung cancer patients receiving plasma testing as part of routine clinical management. Sequencing of cfDNA via MAPs had a sensitivity of 98.5% and specificity 98.9%. The ddPCR assay was used as the reference, since it is an established, accurate assay that can be performed contemporaneously on the same plasma sample. MAPs sequencing detected somatic variants in 261 of 356 samples (73%). Non-actionable clonal hematopoiesis-associated variants were identified via sequencing in 21% of samples. The accuracy of this cfDNA sequencing approach was similar to that of ddPCR assays in a clinical setting, down to an allele frequency of 0.1%. Due to broader coverage and high sensitivity for insertions and deletions, sequencing via MAPs afforded important detection of additional actionable mutations.

ERASE-Seq: Leveraging replicate measurements to enhance ultralow frequency variant detection in NGS data.

The accurate detection of ultralow allele frequency variants in DNA samples is of interest in both research and medical settings, particularly in liquid biopsies where cancer mutational status is monitored from circulating DNA. Next-generation sequencing (NGS) technologies employing molecular barcoding have shown promise but significant sensitivity and specificity improvements are still needed to detect mutations in a majority of patients before the metastatic stage. To address this we present analytical validation data for ERASE-Seq (Elimination of Recurrent Artifacts and Stochastic Errors), a method for accurate and sensitive detection of ultralow frequency DNA variants in NGS data. ERASE-Seq differs from previous methods by creating a robust statistical framework to utilize technical replicates in conjunction with background error modeling, providing a 10 to 100-fold reduction in false positive rates compared to published molecular barcoding methods. ERASE-Seq was tested using spiked human DNA mixtures with clinically realistic DNA input quantities to detect SNVs and indels between 0.05% and 1% allele frequency, the range commonly found in liquid biopsy samples. Variants were detected with greater than 90% sensitivity and a false positive rate below 0.1 calls per 10,000 possible variants. The approach represents a significant performance improvement compared to molecular barcoding methods and does not require changing molecular reagents.

Genome-wide identification of hypoxia-induced enhancer regions.

Here we present a genome-wide method for de novo identification of enhancer regions. This approach enables massively parallel empirical investigation of DNA sequences that mediate transcriptional activation and provides a platform for discovery of regulatory modules capable of driving context-specific gene expression. The method links fragmented genomic DNA to the transcription of randomer molecule identifiers and measures the functional enhancer activity of the library by massively parallel sequencing. We transfected a Drosophila melanogaster library into S2 cells in normoxia and hypoxia, and assayed 4,599,881 genomic DNA fragments in parallel. The locations of the enhancer regions strongly correlate with genes up-regulated after hypoxia and previously described enhancers. Novel enhancer regions were identified and integrated with RNAseq data and transcription factor motifs to describe the hypoxic response on a genome-wide basis as a complex regulatory network involving multiple stress-response pathways. This work provides a novel method for high-throughput assay of enhancer activity and the genome-scale identification of 31 hypoxia-activated enhancers in Drosophila.

Massively parallel characterization of restriction endonucleases.

Restriction endonucleases are highly specific in recognizing the particular DNA sequence they act on. However, their activity is affected by sequence context, enzyme concentration and buffer composition. Changes in these factors may lead to either ineffective cleavage at the cognate restriction site or relaxed specificity allowing cleavage of degenerate 'star' sites. Additionally, uncharacterized restriction endonucleases and engineered variants present novel activities. Traditionally, restriction endonuclease activity is assayed on simple substrates such as plasmids and synthesized oligonucleotides. We present and use high-throughput Illumina sequencing-based strategies to assay the sequence specificity and flanking sequence preference of restriction endonucleases. The techniques use fragmented DNA from sequenced genomes to quantify restriction endonuclease cleavage on a complex genomic DNA substrate in a single reaction. By mapping millions of restriction site-flanking reads back to the Escherichia coli and Drosophila melanogaster genomes we were able to quantitatively characterize the cognate and star site activity of EcoRI and MfeI and demonstrate genome-wide decreases in star activity with engineered high-fidelity variants EcoRI-HF and MfeI-HF, as well as quantify the influence on MfeI cleavage conferred by flanking nucleotides. The methods presented are readily applicable to all type II restriction endonucleases that cleave both strands of double-stranded DNA.

Genomic patterns of introgression in rainbow and westslope cutthroat trout illuminated by overlapping paired-end RAD sequencing.

Rapid and inexpensive methods for genomewide single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) discovery and genotyping are urgently needed for population management and conservation. In hybridized populations, genomic techniques that can identify and genotype thousands of species-diagnostic markers would allow precise estimates of population- and individual-level admixture as well as identification of 'super invasive' alleles, which show elevated rates of introgression above the genomewide background (likely due to natural selection). Techniques like restriction-site-associated DNA (RAD) sequencing can discover and genotype large numbers of SNPs, but they have been limited by the length of continuous sequence data they produce with Illumina short-read sequencing. We present a novel approach, overlapping paired-end RAD sequencing, to generate RAD contigs of >300-400 bp. These contigs provide sufficient flanking sequence for design of high-throughput SNP genotyping arrays and strict filtering to identify duplicate paralogous loci. We applied this approach in five populations of native westslope cutthroat trout that previously showed varying (low) levels of admixture from introduced rainbow trout (RBT). We produced 77 141 RAD contigs and used these data to filter and genotype 3180 previously identified species-diagnostic SNP loci. Our population-level and individual-level estimates of admixture were generally consistent with previous microsatellite-based estimates from the same individuals. However, we observed slightly lower admixture estimates from genomewide markers, which might result from natural selection against certain genome regions, different genomic locations for microsatellites vs. RAD-derived SNPs and/or sampling error from the small number of microsatellite loci (n = 7). We also identified candidate adaptive super invasive alleles from RBT that had excessively high admixture proportions in hybridized cutthroat trout populations.

Reference-free SNP discovery for the Eurasian beaver from restriction site-associated DNA paired-end data.

In this study, we used restriction site-associated DNA (RAD) sequencing to discover SNP markers suitable for population genetic and parentage analysis with the aim of using them for monitoring the reintroduction of the Eurasian beaver (Castor fibre) to Scotland. In the absence of a reference genome for beaver, we built contigs and discovered SNPs within them using paired-end RAD data, so as to have sufficient flanking region around the SNPs to conduct marker design. To do this, we used a simple pipeline which catalogued the Read 1 data in stacks and then used the assembler cortex_var to conduct de novo assembly and genotyping of multiple samples using the Read 2 data. The analysis of around 1.1 billion short reads of sequence data was reduced to a set of 2579 high-quality candidate SNP markers that were polymorphic in Norwegian and Bavarian beaver. Both laboratory validation of a subset of eight of the SNPs (1.3% error) and internal validation by confirming patterns of Mendelian inheritance in a family group (0.9% error) confirmed the success of this approach.

Rapid mapping and identification of mutations in Caenorhabditis elegans by restriction site-associated DNA mapping and genomic interval pull-down sequencing.

Forward genetic screens provide a powerful approach for inferring gene function on the basis of the phenotypes associated with mutated genes. However, determining the causal mutation by traditional mapping and candidate gene sequencing is often the rate-limiting step, especially when analyzing many mutants. We report two genomic approaches for more rapidly determining the identity of the affected genes in Caenorhabditis elegans mutants. First, we report our use of restriction site-associated DNA (RAD) polymorphism markers for rapidly mapping mutations after chemical mutagenesis and mutant isolation. Second, we describe our use of genomic interval pull-down sequencing (GIPS) to selectively capture and sequence megabase-sized portions of a mutant genome. Together, these two methods provide a rapid and cost-effective approach for positional cloning of C. elegans mutant loci, and are also applicable to other genetic model systems.