Volumetric imaging of an intact organism by a distributed molecular network.

Lymphatic, nervous, and tumoral tissues, among others, exhibit physiology that emerges from three-dimensional interactions between genetically unique cells. A technology capable of volumetrically imaging transcriptomes, genotypes, and morphologies in a single de novo measurement would therefore provide a critical view into the biological complexity of living systems. Here we achieve this by extending DNA microscopy, an imaging modality that encodes a spatio-genetic map of a specimen via a massive distributed network of DNA molecules inside it, to three dimensions and multiple length scales in developing zebrafish embryos.

DNA Microscopy: Optics-free Spatio-genetic Imaging by a Stand-Alone Chemical Reaction.

Analyzing the spatial organization of molecules in cells and tissues is a cornerstone of biological research and clinical practice. However, despite enormous progress in molecular profiling of cellular constituents, spatially mapping them remains a disjointed and specialized machinery-intensive process, relying on either light microscopy or direct physical registration. Here, we demonstrate DNA microscopy, a distinct imaging modality for scalable, optics-free mapping of relative biomolecule positions. In DNA microscopy of transcripts, transcript molecules are tagged in situ with randomized nucleotides, labeling each molecule uniquely. A second in situ reaction then amplifies the tagged molecules, concatenates the resulting copies, and adds new randomized nucleotides to uniquely label each concatenation event. An algorithm decodes molecular proximities from these concatenated sequences and infers physical images of the original transcripts at cellular resolution with precise sequence information. Because its imaging power derives entirely from diffusive molecular dynamics, DNA microscopy constitutes a chemically encoded microscopy system.

Genetic measurement of memory B-cell recall using antibody repertoire sequencing.

Annual influenza vaccinations aim to protect against seasonal infections, and vaccine strain compositions are updated every year. This protection is based on antibodies that are produced by either newly activated or memory B cells recalled from previous encounters with influenza vaccination or infection. The extent to which the B-cell repertoire responds to vaccination and recalls antibodies has so far not been analyzed at a genetic level--which is to say, at the level of antibody sequences. Here, we developed a consensus read sequencing approach that incorporates unique barcode labels on each starting RNA molecule. These labels allow one to combine multiple sequencing reads covering the same RNA molecule to reduce the error rate to a desired level, and they also enable accurate quantification of RNA and isotype levels. We validated this approach and analyzed the differential response of the antibody repertoire to live-attenuated or trivalent-inactivated influenza vaccination. Additionally, we analyzed the antibody repertoire in response to repeated yearly vaccinations with trivalent-inactivated influenza vaccination. We found antibody sequences that were present in both years, providing a direct genetic measurement of B-cell recall.

DNA targeting specificity of RNA-guided Cas9 nucleases.

The Streptococcus pyogenes Cas9 (SpCas9) nuclease can be efficiently targeted to genomic loci by means of single-guide RNAs (sgRNAs) to enable genome editing. Here, we characterize SpCas9 targeting specificity in human cells to inform the selection of target sites and avoid off-target effects. Our study evaluates >700 guide RNA variants and SpCas9-induced indel mutation levels at >100 predicted genomic off-target loci in 293T and 293FT cells. We find that SpCas9 tolerates mismatches between guide RNA and target DNA at different positions in a sequence-dependent manner, sensitive to the number, position and distribution of mismatches. We also show that SpCas9-mediated cleavage is unaffected by DNA methylation and that the dosage of SpCas9 and sgRNA can be titrated to minimize off-target modification. To facilitate mammalian genome engineering applications, we provide a web-based software tool to guide the selection and validation of target sequences as well as off-target analyses.

Correlation of gene expression and genome mutation in single B-cells.

High-throughput measurement of gene-expression and immune receptor repertoires have recently become powerful tools in the study of adaptive immune response. However, despite their now-widespread use, both tend to discard cell identity by treating cell populations in bulk, and therefore lose the correlation between genetic variability and gene-expression at the single cell level. In order to recover this information, we developed a method to simultaneously measure gene expression profiles and genome mutations in single cells. We applied this method by quantifying the relationships between gene expression and antibody mutation in ensembles of individual B-cells from immunized mice. The results reveal correlations reflecting the manner in which information propagates between a B-cell's antigen receptors, its gene expression, and its mutagenic machinery, and demonstrate the power of this approach to illuminate both heterogeneity and physiology in cell populations.

Lineage structure of the human antibody repertoire in response to influenza vaccination.

The human antibody repertoire is one of the most important defenses against infectious disease, and the development of vaccines has enabled the conferral of targeted protection to specific pathogens. However, there are many challenges to measuring and analyzing the immunoglobulin sequence repertoire, including that each B cell's genome encodes a distinct antibody sequence, that the antibody repertoire changes over time, and the high similarity between antibody sequences. We have addressed these challenges by using high-throughput long read sequencing to perform immunogenomic characterization of expressed human antibody repertoires in the context of influenza vaccination. Informatic analysis of 5 million antibody heavy chain sequences from healthy individuals allowed us to perform global characterizations of isotype distributions, determine the lineage structure of the repertoire, and measure age- and antigen-related mutational activity. Our analysis of the clonal structure and mutational distribution of individuals' repertoires shows that elderly subjects have a decreased number of lineages but an increased prevaccination mutation load in their repertoire and that some of these subjects have an oligoclonal character to their repertoire in which the diversity of the lineages is greatly reduced relative to younger subjects. We have thus shown that global analysis of the immune system's clonal structure provides direct insight into the effects of vaccination and provides a detailed molecular portrait of age-related effects.

Determinism and stochasticity during maturation of the zebrafish antibody repertoire.

It is thought that the adaptive immune system of immature organisms follows a more deterministic program of antibody creation than is found in adults. We used high-throughput sequencing to characterize the diversifying antibody repertoire in zebrafish over five developmental time points. We found that the immune system begins in a highly stereotyped state with preferential use of a small number of V (variable) D (diverse) J (joining) gene segment combinations, but that this stereotypy decreases dramatically as the zebrafish mature, with many of the top VDJ combinations observed in 2-wk-old zebrafish virtually disappearing by 1 mo. However, we discovered that, in the primary repertoire, there are strong correlations in VDJ use that increase with zebrafish maturity, suggesting that VDJ recombination involves a level of deterministic programming that is unexpected. This stereotypy is masked by the complex diversification processes of antibody maturation; the variation and lack of correlation in full repertoires between individuals appears to be derived from randomness in clonal expansion during the affinity maturation process. These data provide a window into the mechanisms of VDJ recombination and diversity creation and allow us to better understand how the adaptive immune system achieves diversity.

High-throughput sequencing of the zebrafish antibody repertoire.

Despite tremendous progress in understanding the nature of the immune system, the full diversity of an organism's antibody repertoire is unknown. We used high-throughput sequencing of the variable domain of the antibody heavy chain from 14 zebrafish to analyze VDJ usage and antibody sequence. Zebrafish were found to use between 50 and 86% of all possible VDJ combinations and shared a similar frequency distribution, with some correlation of VDJ patterns between individuals. Zebrafish antibodies retained a few thousand unique heavy chains that also exhibited a shared frequency distribution. We found evidence of convergence, in which different individuals made the same antibody. This approach provides insight into the breadth of the expressed antibody repertoire and immunological diversity at the level of an individual organism.