Medical Genetics Commons^™

Family Planning, Fertility, And Career Decisions Among Female Oncologists, Anna Lee, Aleksandra Kuczmarska-Haas, Shraddha M Dalwadi, Erin F Gillespie, Michelle S Ludwig, Emma B Holliday, Fumiko Chino

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Importance: Female oncologists often spend their childbearing years in training and establishing careers, with many later experiencing fertility issues when starting a family. Physician fertility and family planning are rarely discussed during training. Attitudes among female oncologists regarding family planning are unknown.

Objectives: To understand barriers to family planning as well as the association of fertility treatment with career decisions and to assess experiences of pregnancy-based discrimination among female oncologists.

Design, setting, and participants: In this survey study, a novel 39-item questionnaire was distributed to US female oncologists from May 7 to June 30, 2020, via email and social media …

Impact Of Treatment Modality On Pelvic Floor Dysfunction Among Uterine Cancer Survivors, David S Lakomy, Alison K Yoder, Juliana Wu, Mike Hernandez, Martins Ayoola-Adeola, Anuja Jhingran, Ann Klopp, Pamela Soliman, Susan K Peterson, Lilie L Lin

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Objective: Pelvic floor dysfunction is a common adverse effect of uterine cancer treatment. In this study we compared patient-reported outcomes regarding pelvic floor dysfunction among uterine cancer survivors after hysterectomy and bilateral salpingo-oophorectomy, surgery and brachytherapy, or surgery and external beam radiotherapy with or without brachytherapy versus women who had a hysterectomy for benign indications.

Methods: We used the validated 20-item Pelvic Floor Distress Inventory to assess lower urinary distress, colorectal distress, and pelvic organ prolapse dysfunction in each treatment group. Pelvic floor dysfunction-related quality of life in these domains was compared across treatment modalities using the Pelvic Floor Impact …

Egfr Suppresses P53 Function By Promoting P53 Binding To Dna-Pkcs: A Noncanonical Regulatory Axis Between Egfr And Wild-Type P53 In Glioblastoma, Jie Ding, Xiaolong Li, Sabbir Khan, Chen Zhang, Feng Gao, Shayak Sen, Amanda R Wasylishen, Yang Zhao, Guillermina Lozano, Dimpy Koul, W K Alfred Yung

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Background: Epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) amplification and TP53 mutation are the two most common genetic alterations in glioblastoma multiforme (GBM). A comprehensive analysis of the TCGA GBM database revealed a subgroup with near mutual exclusivity of EGFR amplification and TP53 mutations indicative of a role of EGFR in regulating wild-type-p53 (wt-p53) function. The relationship between EGFR amplification and wt-p53 function remains undefined and this study describes the biological significance of this interaction in GBM.

Methods: Mass spectrometry was used to identify EGFR-dependent p53-interacting proteins. The p53 and DNA-dependent protein kinase catalytic subunit (DNA-PKcs) interaction was detected by co-immunoprecipitation. We …

Svat: Secure Outsourcing Of Variant Annotation And Genotype Aggregation, Miran Kim, Su Wang, Xiaoqian Jiang, Arif Harmanci

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

BACKGROUND: Sequencing of thousands of samples provides genetic variants with allele frequencies spanning a very large spectrum and gives invaluable insight into genetic determinants of diseases. Protecting the genetic privacy of participants is challenging as only a few rare variants can easily re-identify an individual among millions. In certain cases, there are policy barriers against sharing genetic data from indigenous populations and stigmatizing conditions.

RESULTS: We present SVAT, a method for secure outsourcing of variant annotation and aggregation, which are two basic steps in variant interpretation and detection of causal variants. SVAT uses homomorphic encryption to encrypt the data at …

The Circular Rna Edis Regulates Neurodevelopment And Innate Immunity, Xiao-Peng Xiong, Weihong Liang, Wei Liu, Shiyu Xu, Jian-Liang Li, Antonio Tito, Julia Situ, Daniel Martinez, Chunlai Wu, Ranjan J Perera, Sheng Zhang, Rui Zhou

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Circular RNAs (circRNAs) are widely expressed in eukaryotes. However, only a subset has been functionally characterized. We identify and validate a collection of circRNAs in Drosophila, and show that depletion of the brain-enriched circRNA Edis (circ_Ect4) causes hyperactivation of antibacterial innate immunity both in cultured cells and in vivo. Notably, Edis depleted flies display heightened resistance to bacterial infection and enhanced pathogen clearance. Conversely, ectopic Edis expression blocks innate immunity signaling. In addition, inactivation of Edis in vivo leads to impaired locomotor activity and shortened lifespan. Remarkably, these phenotypes can be recapitulated with neuron-specific depletion of Edis, accompanied by defective …

Psychiatric Polygenic Risk Scores: Child And Adolescent Psychiatrists’ Knowledge, Attitudes, And Experiences, Stacey Pereira, Katrina A Muñoz, Brent J Small, Takahiro Soda, Laura N Torgerson, Clarissa E Sanchez, Jehannine Austin, Eric A Storch, Gabriel Lázaro-Muñoz

Center for Medical Ethics and Health Policy Staff Publications

Psychiatric polygenic risk scores (PRS) have potential utility in psychiatric care and prevention, but there are concerns about their implementation. We surveyed 960 US-based practicing child and adolescent psychiatrists' (CAP) about their experiences, perspectives, and potential uses of psychiatric PRS. While 23% of CAP reported that they had never heard of PRS, 10 % of respondents have had a patient/family bring PRS to them and 4% have generated PRS for patients. Though 25% stated they would request PRS if a patient/caregiver asked, 35% indicated that nothing would prompt them to request PRS. Most respondents (54%) believed psychiatric PRS are currently …

A Saturated Map Of Common Genetic Variants Associated With Human Height, Loïc Yengo, Sailaja Vedantam, Eirini Marouli, Julia Sidorenko, Eric Bartell, Saori Sakaue, Marielisa Graff, Anders U Eliasen, Yunxuan Jiang, Sridharan Raghavan, Jenkai Miao, Joshua D Arias, Sarah E Graham, Ronen E Mukamel, Cassandra N Spracklen, Xianyong Yin, Shyh-Huei Chen, Teresa Ferreira, Heather H Highland, Yingjie Ji, Tugce Karaderi, Kuang Lin, Kreete Lüll, Deborah E Malden, Carolina Medina-Gomez, Moara Machado, Amy Moore, Sina Rüeger, Xueling Sim, Scott Vrieze, Tarunveer S Ahluwalia, Masato Akiyama, Matthew A Allison, Marcus Alvarez, Mette K Andersen, Alireza Ani, Vivek Appadurai, Liubov Arbeeva, Seema Bhaskar, Lawrence F Bielak, Sailalitha Bollepalli, Lori L Bonnycastle, Jette Bork-Jensen, Jonathan P Bradfield, Yuki Bradford, Peter S Braund, Jennifer A Brody, Kristoffer S Burgdorf, Brian E Cade, Hui Cai, Qiuyin Cai, Archie Campbell, Marisa Cañadas-Garre, Eulalia Catamo, Jin-Fang Chai, Xiaoran Chai, Li-Ching Chang, Yi-Cheng Chang, Chien-Hsiun Chen, Alessandra Chesi, Seung Hoan Choi, Ren-Hua Chung, Massimiliano Cocca, Maria Pina Concas, Christian Couture, Gabriel Cuellar-Partida, Rebecca Danning, E Warwick Daw, Frauke Degenhard, Graciela E Delgado, Alessandro Delitala, Ayse Demirkan, Xuan Deng, Poornima Devineni, Alexander Dietl, Maria Dimitriou, Latchezar Dimitrov, Rajkumar Dorajoo, Arif B Ekici, Jorgen E Engmann, Zammy Fairhurst-Hunter, Aliki-Eleni Farmaki, Jessica D Faul, Juan-Carlos Fernandez-Lopez, Lukas Forer, Margherita Francescatto, Sandra Freitag-Wolf, Christian Fuchsberger, Tessel E Galesloot, Yan Gao, Zishan Gao, Frank Geller, Olga Giannakopoulou, Franco Giulianini, Anette P Gjesing, Anuj Goel, Scott D Gordon, Mathias Gorski, Jakob Grove, Xiuqing Guo, Stefan Gustafsson, Jeffrey Haessler, Thomas F Hansen, Aki S Havulinna, Simon J Haworth, Jing He, Nancy Heard-Costa, Prashantha Hebbar, George Hindy, Yuk-Lam A Ho, Edith Hofer, Elizabeth Holliday, Katrin Horn, Whitney E Hornsby, Jouke-Jan Hottenga, Hongyan Huang, Jie Huang, Alicia Huerta-Chagoya, Jennifer E Huffman, Yi-Jen Hung, Shaofeng Huo, Mi Yeong Hwang, Hiroyuki Iha, Daisuke D Ikeda, Masato Isono, Anne U Jackson, Susanne Jäger, Iris E Jansen, Ingegerd Johansson, Jost B Jonas, Anna Jonsson, Torben Jørgensen, Ioanna-Panagiota Kalafati, Masahiro Kanai, Stavroula Kanoni, Line L Kårhus, Anuradhani Kasturiratne, Tomohiro Katsuya, Takahisa Kawaguchi, Rachel L Kember, Katherine A Kentistou, Han-Na Kim, Young Jin Kim, Marcus E Kleber, Maria J Knol, Azra Kurbasic, Marie Lauzon, Phuong Le, Rodney Lea, Jong-Young Lee, Hampton L Leonard, Shengchao A Li, Xiaohui Li, Xiaoyin Li, Jingjing Liang, Honghuang Lin, Shih-Yi Lin, Jun Liu, Xueping Liu, Ken Sin Lo, Jirong Long, Laura Lores-Motta, Jian'an Luan, Valeriya Lyssenko, Leo-Pekka Lyytikäinen, Anubha Mahajan, Vasiliki Mamakou, Massimo Mangino, Ani Manichaikul, Jonathan Marten, Manuel Mattheisen, Laven Mavarani, Aaron F Mcdaid, Karina Meidtner, Tori L Melendez, Josep M Mercader, Yuri Milaneschi, Jason E Miller, Iona Y Millwood, Pashupati P Mishra, Ruth E Mitchell, Line T Møllehave, Anna Morgan, Soeren Mucha, Matthias Munz, Masahiro Nakatochi, Christopher P Nelson, Maria Nethander, Chu Won Nho, Aneta A Nielsen, Ilja M Nolte, Suraj S Nongmaithem, Raymond Noordam, Ioanna Ntalla, Teresa Nutile, Anita Pandit, Paraskevi Christofidou, Katri Pärna, Marc Pauper, Eva R B Petersen, Liselotte V Petersen, Niina Pitkänen, Ozren Polašek, Alaitz Poveda, Michael H Preuss, Saiju Pyarajan, Laura M Raffield, Hiromi Rakugi, Julia Ramirez, Asif Rasheed, Dennis Raven, Nigel W Rayner, Carlos Riveros, Rebecca Rohde, Daniela Ruggiero, Sanni E Ruotsalainen, Kathleen A Ryan, Maria Sabater-Lleal, Richa Saxena, Markus Scholz, Anoop Sendamarai, Botong Shen, Jingchunzi Shi, Jae Hun Shin, Carlo Sidore, Colleen M Sitlani, Roderick C Slieker, Roelof A J Smit, Albert V Smith, Jennifer A Smith, Laura J Smyth, Lorraine Southam, Valgerdur Steinthorsdottir, Liang Sun, Fumihiko Takeuchi, Divya Sri Priyanka Tallapragada, Kent D Taylor, Bamidele O Tayo, Catherine Tcheandjieu, Natalie Terzikhan, Paola Tesolin, Alexander Teumer, Elizabeth Theusch, Deborah J Thompson, Gudmar Thorleifsson, Paul R H J Timmers, Stella Trompet, Constance Turman, Simona Vaccargiu, Sander W Van Der Laan, Peter J Van Der Most, Jan B Van Klinken, Jessica Van Setten, Shefali S Verma, Niek Verweij, Yogasudha Veturi, Carol A Wang, Chaolong Wang, Lihua Wang, Zhe Wang, Helen R Warren, Wen Bin Wei, Ananda R Wickremasinghe, Matthias Wielscher, Kerri L Wiggins, Bendik S Winsvold, Andrew Wong, Yang Wu, Matthias Wuttke, Rui Xia, Tian Xie, Ken Yamamoto, Jingyun Yang, Jie Yao, Hannah Young, Noha A Yousri, Lei Yu, Lingyao Zeng, Weihua Zhang, Xinyuan Zhang, Jing-Hua Zhao, Wei Zhao, Wei Zhou, Martina E Zimmermann, Magdalena Zoledziewska, Linda S Adair, Hieab H H Adams, Carlos A Aguilar-Salinas, Fahd Al-Mulla, Donna K Arnett, Folkert W Asselbergs, Bjørn Olav Åsvold, John Attia, Bernhard Banas, Stefania Bandinelli, David A Bennett, Tobias Bergler, Dwaipayan Bharadwaj, Ginevra Biino, Hans Bisgaard, Eric Boerwinkle, Carsten A Böger, Klaus Bønnelykke, Dorret I Boomsma, Anders D Børglum, Judith B Borja, Claude Bouchard, Donald W Bowden, Ivan Brandslund, Ben Brumpton, Julie E Buring, Mark J Caulfield, John C Chambers, Giriraj R Chandak, Stephen J Chanock, Nish Chaturvedi, Yii-Der Ida Chen, Zhengming Chen, Ching-Yu Cheng, Ingrid E Christophersen, Marina Ciullo, John W Cole, Francis S Collins, Richard S Cooper, Miguel Cruz, Francesco Cucca, L Adrienne Cupples, Michael J Cutler, Scott M Damrauer, Thomas M Dantoft, Gert J De Borst, Lisette C P G M De Groot, Philip L De Jager, Dominique P V De Kleijn, H Janaka De Silva, George V Dedoussis, Anneke I Den Hollander, Shufa Du, Douglas F Easton, Petra J M Elders, A Heather Eliassen, Patrick T Ellinor, Sölve Elmståhl, Jeanette Erdmann, Michele K Evans, Diane Fatkin, Bjarke Feenstra, Mary F Feitosa, Luigi Ferrucci, Ian Ford, Myriam Fornage, Andre Franke, Paul W Franks, Barry I Freedman, Paolo Gasparini, Christian Gieger, Giorgia Girotto, Michael E Goddard, Yvonne M Golightly, Clicerio Gonzalez-Villalpando, Penny Gordon-Larsen, Harald Grallert, Struan F A Grant, Niels Grarup, Lyn Griffiths, Vilmundur Gudnason, Christopher Haiman, Hakon Hakonarson, Torben Hansen, Catharina A Hartman, Andrew T Hattersley, Caroline Hayward, Susan R Heckbert, Chew-Kiat Heng, Christian Hengstenberg, Alex W Hewitt, Haretsugu Hishigaki, Carel B Hoyng, Paul L Huang, Wei Huang, Steven C Hunt, Kristian Hveem, Elina Hyppönen, William G Iacono, Sahoko Ichihara, M Arfan Ikram, Carmen R Isasi, Rebecca D Jackson, Marjo-Riitta Jarvelin, Zi-Bing Jin, Karl-Heinz Jöckel, Peter K Joshi, Pekka Jousilahti, J Wouter Jukema, Mika Kähönen, Yoichiro Kamatani, Kui Dong Kang, Jaakko Kaprio, Sharon L R Kardia, Fredrik Karpe, Norihiro Kato, Frank Kee, Thorsten Kessler, Amit V Khera, Chiea Chuen Khor, Lambertus A L M Kiemeney, Bong-Jo Kim, Eung Kweon Kim, Hyung-Lae Kim, Paulus Kirchhof, Mika Kivimaki, Woon-Puay Koh, Heikki A Koistinen, Genovefa D Kolovou, Jaspal S Kooner, Charles Kooperberg, Anna Köttgen, Peter Kovacs, Adriaan Kraaijeveld, Peter Kraft, Ronald M Krauss, Meena Kumari, Zoltan Kutalik, Markku Laakso, Leslie A Lange, Claudia Langenberg, Lenore J Launer, Loic Le Marchand, Hyejin Lee, Nanette R Lee, Terho Lehtimäki, Huaixing Li, Liming Li, Wolfgang Lieb, Xu Lin, Lars Lind, Allan Linneberg, Ching-Ti Liu, Jianjun Liu, Markus Loeffler, Barry London, Steven A Lubitz, Stephen J Lye, David A Mackey, Reedik Mägi, Patrik K E Magnusson, Gregory M Marcus, Pedro Marques Vidal, Nicholas G Martin, Winfried März, Fumihiko Matsuda, Robert W Mcgarrah, Matt Mcgue, Amy Jayne Mcknight, Sarah E Medland, Dan Mellström, Andres Metspalu, Braxton D Mitchell, Paul Mitchell, Dennis O Mook-Kanamori, Andrew D Morris, Lorelei A Mucci, Patricia B Munroe, Mike A Nalls, Saman Nazarian, Amanda E Nelson, Matt J Neville, Christopher Newton-Cheh, Christopher S Nielsen, Markus M Nöthen, Claes Ohlsson, Albertine J Oldehinkel, Lorena Orozco, Katja Pahkala, Päivi Pajukanta, Colin N A Palmer, Esteban J Parra, Cristian Pattaro, Oluf Pedersen, Craig E Pennell, Brenda W J H Penninx, Louis Perusse, Annette Peters, Patricia A Peyser, David J Porteous, Danielle Posthuma, Chris Power, Peter P Pramstaller, Michael A Province, Qibin Qi, Jia Qu, Daniel J Rader, Olli T Raitakari, Sarju Ralhan, Loukianos S Rallidis, Dabeeru C Rao, Susan Redline, Dermot F Reilly, Alexander P Reiner, Sang Youl Rhee, Paul M Ridker, Michiel Rienstra, Samuli Ripatti, Marylyn D Ritchie, Dan M Roden, Frits R Rosendaal, Jerome I Rotter, Igor Rudan, Femke Rutters, Charumathi Sabanayagam, Danish Saleheen, Veikko Salomaa, Nilesh J Samani, Dharambir K Sanghera, Naveed Sattar, Börge Schmidt, Helena Schmidt, Reinhold Schmidt, Matthias B Schulze, Heribert Schunkert, Laura J Scott, Rodney J Scott, Peter Sever, Eric J Shiroma, M Benjamin Shoemaker, Xiao-Ou Shu, Eleanor M Simonsick, Mario Sims, Jai Rup Singh, Andrew B Singleton, Moritz F Sinner, J Gustav Smith, Harold Snieder, Tim D Spector, Meir J Stampfer, Klaus J Stark, David P Strachan, Leen M 'T Hart, Yasuharu Tabara, Hua Tang, Jean-Claude Tardif, Thangavel A Thanaraj, Nicholas J Timpson, Anke Tönjes, Angelo Tremblay, Tiinamaija Tuomi, Jaakko Tuomilehto, Maria-Teresa Tusié-Luna, Andre G Uitterlinden, Rob M Van Dam, Pim Van Der Harst, Nathalie Van Der Velde, Cornelia M Van Duijn, Natasja M Van Schoor, Veronique Vitart, Uwe Völker, Peter Vollenweider, Henry Völzke, Niels H Wacher-Rodarte, Mark Walker, Ya Xing Wang, Nicholas J Wareham, Richard M Watanabe, Hugh Watkins, David R Weir, Thomas M Werge, Elisabeth Widen, Lynne R Wilkens, Gonneke Willemsen, Walter C Willett, James F Wilson, Tien-Yin Wong, Jeong-Taek Woo, Alan F Wright, Jer-Yuarn Wu, Huichun Xu, Chittaranjan S Yajnik, Mitsuhiro Yokota, Jian-Min Yuan, Eleftheria Zeggini, Babette S Zemel, Wei Zheng, Xiaofeng Zhu, Joseph M Zmuda, Alan B Zonderman, John-Anker Zwart, Daniel I Chasman, Yoon Shin Cho, Iris M Heid, Mark I Mccarthy, Maggie C Y Ng, Christopher J O'Donnell, Fernando Rivadeneira, Unnur Thorsteinsdottir, Yan V Sun, E Shyong Tai, Michael Boehnke, Panos Deloukas, Anne E Justice, Cecilia M Lindgren, Ruth J F Loos, Karen L Mohlke, Kari E North, Kari Stefansson, Robin G Walters, Thomas W Winkler, Kristin L Young, Po-Ru Loh, Jian Yang, Tõnu Esko, Themistocles L Assimes, Adam Auton, Goncalo R Abecasis, Cristen J Willer, Adam E Locke, Sonja I Berndt, Guillaume Lettre, Timothy M Frayling, Yukinori Okada, Andrew R Wood, Peter M Visscher, Joel N Hirschhorn

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Common single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) are predicted to collectively explain 40–50% of phenotypic variation in human height, but identifying the specific variants and associated regions requires huge sample sizes1. Here, using data from a genome-wide association study of 5.4 million individuals of diverse ancestries, we show that 12,111 independent SNPs that are significantly associated with height account for nearly all of the common SNP-based heritability. These SNPs are clustered within 7,209 non-overlapping genomic segments with a mean size of around 90 kb, covering about 21% of the genome. The density of independent associations varies across the genome and the …

Identifying Phenotypic Expansions For Congenital Diaphragmatic Hernia Plus (Cdh+) Using Decipher Data, Amy Hardcastle, Aliska M Berry, Ian M Campbell, Xiaonan Zhao, Pengfei Liu, Amanda E Gerard, Jill A Rosenfeld, Saumya D Sisoudiya, Andres Hernandez-Garcia, Sara Loddo, Silvia Di Tommaso, Antonio Novelli, Maria L Dentici, Rossella Capolino, Maria C Digilio, Ludovico Graziani, Cecilie F Rustad, Katherine Neas, Giovanni B Ferrero, Alfredo Brusco, Eleonora Di Gregorio, Diana Wellesley, Claire Beneteau, Madeleine Joubert, Kris Van Den Bogaert, Anneleen Boogaerts, Dominic J Mcmullan, John Dean, Maria G Giuffrida, Laura Bernardini, Vinod Varghese, Nora L Shannon, Rachel E Harrison, Wayne W K Lam, Shane Mckee, Peter D Turnpenny, Trevor Cole, Jenny Morton, Jacqueline Eason, Marilyn C Jones, Rebecca Hall, Michael Wright, Karen Horridge, Chad A Shaw, Wendy K Chung, Daryl A Scott

Duncan NRI Faculty and Staff Publications

Congenital diaphragmatic hernia (CDH) can occur in isolation or in conjunction with other birth defects (CDH+). A molecular etiology can only be identified in a subset of CDH cases. This is due, in part, to an incomplete understanding of the genes that contribute to diaphragm development. Here, we used clinical and molecular data from 36 individuals with CDH+ who are cataloged in the DECIPHER database to identify genes that may play a role in diaphragm development and to discover new phenotypic expansions. Among this group, we identified individuals who carried putatively deleterious sequence or copy number variants affecting CREBBP, SMARCA4, …

Longitudinal Change In Blood Dna Epigenetic Signature After Smoking Cessation, Amena Keshawarz, Roby Joehanes, Weihua Guan, Tianxiao Huan, Dawn L Demeo, Megan L Grove, Myriam Fornage, Daniel Levy, George O'Connor

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Cigarette smoking is associated with epigenetic changes that may be reversible following smoking cessation. Whole blood DNA methylation was evaluated in Framingham Heart Study Offspring (n = 169) and Third Generation (n = 30) cohort participants at two study visits 6 years apart and in Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities (ARIC) study (n = 222) participants at two study visits 20 years apart. Changes in DNA methylation (delta β values) at 483,565 cytosine-phosphate-guanine (CpG) sites and differentially methylated regions (DMRs) were compared between participants who were current, former, or never smokers at both visits (current-current, former-former, never-never, respectively), versus those who …

Potential Interactions Between Cerebellar Dysfunction And Sleep Disturbances In Dystonia, Luis E Salazar Leon, Roy V Sillitoe

Duncan NRI Faculty and Staff Publications

Dystonia is the third most common movement disorder. It causes debilitating twisting postures that are accompanied by repetitive and sometimes intermittent co- or over-contractions of agonist and antagonist muscles. Historically diagnosed as a basal ganglia disorder, dystonia is increasingly considered a network disorder involving various brain regions including the cerebellum. In certain etiologies of dystonia, aberrant motor activity is generated in the cerebellum and the abnormal signals then propagate through a "dystonia circuit" that includes the thalamus, basal ganglia, and cerebral cortex. Importantly, it has been reported that non-motor defects can accompany the motor symptoms; while their severity is not …

Causal Evidence For A Role Of Cerebellar Lobulus Simplex In Prefrontal-Hippocampal Interaction In Spatial Working Memory Decision-Making, Yu Liu, Samuel S Mcafee, Meike E Van Der Heijden, Mukesh Dhamala, Roy V Sillitoe, Detlef H Heck

Duncan NRI Faculty and Staff Publications

Spatial working memory (SWM) is a cerebrocerebellar cognitive skill supporting survival-relevant behaviors, such as optimizing foraging behavior by remembering recent routes and visited sites. It is known that SWM decision-making in rodents requires the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) and dorsal hippocampus. The decision process in SWM tasks carries a specific electrophysiological signature of a brief, decision-related increase in neuronal communication in the form of an increase in the coherence of neuronal theta oscillations (4-12 Hz) between the mPFC and dorsal hippocampus, a finding we replicated here during spontaneous exploration of a plus maze in freely moving mice. We further evaluated …

Genetics And Epigenetics Of Self-Injurious Thoughts And Behaviors: Systematic Review Of The Suicide Literature And Methodological Considerations, Salahudeen Mirza, Anna R Docherty, Amanda Bakian, Hilary Coon, Jair C Soares, Consuelo Walss-Bass, Gabriel R Fries

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Suicide is a multifaceted and poorly understood clinical outcome, and there is an urgent need to advance research on its phenomenology and etiology. Epidemiological studies have demonstrated that suicidal behavior is heritable, suggesting that genetic and epigenetic information may serve as biomarkers for suicide risk. Here we systematically review the literature on genetic and epigenetic alterations observed in phenotypes across the full range of self-injurious thoughts and behaviors (SITB). We included 577 studies focused on genome-wide and epigenome-wide associations, candidate genes (SNP and methylation), noncoding RNAs, and histones. Convergence of specific genes is limited across units of analysis, although pathway-based …

Heterozygous Variants In Myh10 Associated With Neurodevelopmental Disorders And Congenital Anomalies With Evidence For Primary Cilia-Dependent Defects In Hedgehog Signaling, Alexander M Holtz, Rachel Vancoillie, Elizabeth A Vansickle, Deanna Alexis Carere, Kara Withrow, Erin Torti, Jane Juusola, Francisca Millan, Richard Person, Maria J Guillen Sacoto, Yue Si, Ingrid M Wentzensen, Jada Pugh, Georgia Vasileiou, Melissa Rieger, André Reis, Emanuela Argilli, Elliott H Sherr, Kimberly A Aldinger, William B Dobyns, Theresa Brunet, Julia Hoefele, Matias Wagner, Benjamin Haber, Urania Kotzaeridou, Boris Keren, Delphine Heron, Cyril Mignot, Solveig Heide, Thomas Courtin, Julien Buratti, Serini Murugasen, Kirsten A Donald, Emily O'Heir, Shade Moody, Katherine H Kim, Barbara K Burton, Grace Yoon, Miguel Del Campo, Diane Masser-Frye, Mariya Kozenko, Christina Parkinson, Susan L Sell, Patricia L Gordon, Jeremy W Prokop, Amel Karaa, Caleb Bupp, Benjamin A Raby

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

PURPOSE: Nonmuscle myosin II complexes are master regulators of actin dynamics that play essential roles during embryogenesis with vertebrates possessing 3 nonmuscle myosin II heavy chain genes, MYH9, MYH10, and MYH14. As opposed to MYH9 and MYH14, no recognizable disorder has been associated with MYH10. We sought to define the clinical characteristics and molecular mechanism of a novel autosomal dominant disorder related to MYH10.

METHODS: An international collaboration identified the patient cohort. CAS9-mediated knockout cell models were used to explore the mechanism of disease pathogenesis.

RESULTS: We identified a cohort of 16 individuals with heterozygous MYH10 variants presenting with a …

Mismatch Repair And Microsatellite Instability Testing For Immune Checkpoint Inhibitor Therapy: Guideline From The College Of American Pathologists In Collaboration With The Association For Molecular Pathology And Fight Colorectal Cancer, Angela N Bartley, Anne M Mills, Eric Konnick, Michael Overman, Christina B Ventura, Lesley Souter, Carol Colasacco, Zsofia K Stadler, Sarah Kerr, Brooke E Howitt, Heather Hampel, Sarah F Adams, Wenora Johnson, Cristina Magi-Galluzzi, Antonia R Sepulveda, Russell R Broaddus

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Context.—: The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved immune checkpoint inhibitor therapy for patients with advanced solid tumors that have DNA mismatch repair defects or high levels of microsatellite instability; however, the FDA provided no guidance on which specific clinical assays should be used to determine mismatch repair status.

Objective.—: To develop an evidence-based guideline to identify the optimal clinical laboratory test to identify defects in DNA mismatch repair in patients with solid tumor malignancies who are being considered for immune checkpoint inhibitor therapy.

Design.—: The College of American Pathologists convened an expert panel to perform a systematic review …

First-In-Human Phase 1/1b Study To Evaluate Sitravatinib In Patients With Advanced Solid Tumors, Todd Bauer, Byong Chul Cho, Rebecca Heist, Lyudmila Bazhenova, Theresa Werner, Sanjay Goel, Dong-Wan Kim, Douglas Adkins, Richard D Carvajal, Ajjai Alva, Keith Eaton, Judy Wang, Yong Liu, Xiaohong Yan, Jamie Christensen, Saskia Neuteboom, Richard Chao, Shubham Pant

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Sitravatinib (MGCD516), a spectrum-selective receptor tyrosine kinase inhibitor targeting TAM (TYRO3, AXL, MERTK) and split kinase family receptors, has demonstrated preclinical anti-tumor activity and modulation of tumor microenvironment. This first-in-human phase 1/1b study included sitravatinib dose exploration and anti-tumor activity evaluation in selected patients with advanced solid tumors. Primary objectives included assessment of safety, pharmacokinetics and clinical activity of sitravatinib. Secondary objectives included identifying doses for further investigation and exploring molecular markers for patient selection. In phase 1, 32 patients received 10-200 mg, while phase 1b dose expansion comprised 161 patients (150 mg n = 99, 120 mg n = …

Spatiotemporal Microrna-Gene Expression Network Related To Orofacial Clefts, F Yan, L M Simon, A Suzuki, C Iwaya, P Jia, J Iwata, Z Zhao

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Craniofacial structures change dynamically in morphology during development through the coordinated regulation of various cellular molecules. However, it remains unclear how these complex mechanisms are regulated in a spatiotemporal manner. Here we applied natural cubic splines to model gene and microRNA (miRNA) expression from embryonic day (E) 10.5 to E14.5 in the proximal and distal regions of the maxillary processes to identify spatiotemporal patterns of gene and miRNA expression, followed by constructing corresponding regulatory networks. Three major groups of differentially expressed genes (DEGs) were identified, including 3,927 temporal, 314 spatial, and 494 spatiotemporal DEGs. Unsupervised clustering further resolved these spatiotemporal …

Targeting The Alk-Cdk9-Tyr19 Kinase Cascade Sensitizes Ovarian And Breast Tumors To Parp Inhibition Via Destabilization Of The P-Tefb Complex, Yu-Yi Chu, Mei-Kuang Chen, Yongkun Wei, Heng-Huan Lee, Weiya Xia, Ying-Nai Wang, Clinton Yam, Jennifer L Hsu, Hung-Ling Wang, Wei-Chao Chang, Hirohito Yamaguchi, Zhou Jiang, Chunxiao Liu, Ching-Fei Li, Lei Nie, Li-Chuan Chan, Yuan Gao, Shao-Chun Wang, Jinsong Liu, Shannon N Westin, Sanghoon Lee, Anil K Sood, Liuqing Yang, Gabriel N Hortobagyi, Dihua Yu, Mien-Chie Hung

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Poly(ADP-ribose) polymerase (PARP) inhibitors have demonstrated promising clinical activity in multiple cancers. However, resistance to PARP inhibitors remains a substantial clinical challenge. In the present study, we report that anaplastic lymphoma kinase (ALK) directly phosphorylates CDK9 at tyrosine-19 to promote homologous recombination (HR) repair and PARP inhibitor resistance. Phospho-CDK9-Tyr19 increases its kinase activity and nuclear localization to stabilize positive transcriptional elongation factor b and activate polymerase II-dependent transcription of HR-repair genes. Conversely, ALK inhibition increases ubiquitination and degradation of CDK9 by Skp2, an E3 ligase. Notably, combination of US Food and Drug Administration-approved ALK and PARP inhibitors markedly reduce tumor …

Semi-Parametric Bayes Regression With Network-Valued Covariates, Xin Ma, Suprateek Kundu, Jennifer Stevens

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Although there has been an explosive rise in network data in a variety of disciplines, there is very limited development of regression modeling approaches based on high-dimensional networks. The scarce literature in this area typically assume linear relationships between the outcome and the high-dimensional network edges that results in an inflated model plagued by the curse of dimensionality and these models are unable to accommodate non-linear relationships or higher order interactions. In order to overcome these limitations, we develop a novel two-stage Bayesian non-parametric regression modeling framework using high-dimensional networks as covariates, which first finds a lower dimensional node-specific representation …

T1 Signal Intensity Ratio Of The Pancreas As An Imaging Biomarker For The Staging Of Chronic Pancreatitis, Temel Tirkes, Anil K Dasyam, Zarine K Shah, Evan L Fogel, Santhi Swaroop Vege, Liang Li, Shuang Li, Stephanie T Chang, Carlos A Farinas, Joseph R Grajo, Kareem Mawad, Naoki Takahashi, Sudhakar K Venkatesh, Ashley Wachsman, William E Fisher, Christopher E Forsmark, Phil A Hart, Stephen J Pandol, Walter G Park, Stephen K Van Den Eeden, Yunlong Yang, Mark Topazian, Dana K Andersen, Jose Serrano, Darwin L Conwell, Dhiraj Yadav, Consortium For The Study Of Chronic Pancreatitis, Diabetes, Pancreatic Cancer (Cpdpc)

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Purpose: Our purpose was to validate the T1 SIR (T1 score) as an imaging biomarker for the staging of CP in a large, multi-institutional, prospective study.

Methods: The prospective study population included 820 participants enrolled in the PROCEED study from nine clinical centers between June 2017 and December 2021. A radiologist at each institution used a standardized method to measure the T1 signal intensity of the pancreas and the reference organs (spleen, paraspinal muscle, liver), which was used to derive respective T1 scores. Participants were stratified according to the seven mechanistic stages of chronic pancreatitis (MSCP 0-6) based on their …

Discovery Of An Orally Active Benzoxaborole Prodrug Effective In The Treatment Of Chagas Disease In Non-Human Primates, Angel M Padilla, Wei Wang, Tsutomu Akama, David S Carter, Eric Easom, Yvonne Freund, Jason S Halladay, Yang Liu, Sarah A Hamer, Carolyn L Hodo, Gregory K Wilkerson, Dylan Orr, Brooke White, Arlene George, Huifeng Shen, Yiru Jin, Michael Zhuo Wang, Susanna Tse, Robert T Jacobs, Rick L Tarleton

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Trypanosoma cruzi, the agent of Chagas disease, probably infects tens of millions of people, primarily in Latin America, causing morbidity and mortality. The options for treatment and prevention of Chagas disease are limited and underutilized. Here we describe the discovery of a series of benzoxaborole compounds with nanomolar activity against extra- and intracellular stages of T. cruzi. Leveraging both ongoing drug discovery efforts in related kinetoplastids, and the exceptional models for rapid drug screening and optimization in T. cruzi, we have identified the prodrug AN15368 that is activated by parasite carboxypeptidases to yield a compound that targets the messenger RNA …

Brequinar And Dipyridamole In Combination Exhibits Synergistic Antiviral Activity Against Sars-Cov-2 In Vitro: Rationale For A Host-Acting Antiviral Treatment Strategy For Covid-19, James F Demarest, Maryline Kienle, Ruthmabel Boytz, Mary Ayres, Eun Jung Kim, J J Patten, Donghoon Chung, Varsha Gandhi, Robert A Davey, David B Sykes, Nadim Shohdy, John C Pottage, Vikram S Kumar

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

The severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) is the causative agent of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) and the associated global pandemic resulting in >400 million infections worldwide and several million deaths. The continued evolution of SARS-CoV-2 to potentially evade vaccines and monoclonal antibody (mAb)-based therapies and the limited number of authorized small-molecule antivirals necessitates the need for development of new drug treatments. There remains an unmet medical need for effective and convenient treatment options for SARS-CoV-2 infection. SARS-CoV-2 is an RNA virus that depends on host intracellular ribonucleotide pools for its replication. Dihydroorotate dehydrogenase (DHODH) is a ubiquitous host …

Detecting Förster Resonance Energy Transfer In Living Cells By Conventional And Spectral Flow Cytometry, Jared Henderson, Ondrej Havranek, Man Chun John Ma, Vaclav Herman, Kristyna Kupcova, Tereza Chrbolkova, Mariana Pacheco-Blanco, Zhiqiang Wang, Justin M Comer, Tomasz Zal, Richard Eric Davis

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Assays based on Förster resonance energy transfer (FRET) can be used to study many processes in cell biology. Although this is most often done with microscopy for fluorescence detection, we report two ways to measure FRET in living cells by flow cytometry. Using a conventional flow cytometer and the "3-cube method" for intensity-based calculation of FRET efficiency, we measured the enzymatic activity of specific kinases in cells expressing a genetically-encoded reporter. For both AKT and protein kinase A, the method measured kinase activity in time-course, dose-response, and kinetic assays. Using the Cytek Aurora spectral flow cytometer, which applies linear unmixing …

Handling Informative Premature Treatment Or Study Discontinuation For Assessing Between-Group Differences In A Comparative Oncology Trial, Bo Huang, Ryan Sun, Brian Claggett, Lu Tian, Ethan B Ludmir, Lee-Jen Wei

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

This decision analytical model study examines premature treatment discontinuation in clinical trials for patients with advanced renal cell carcinoma.

A Retrospective Analysis Of Ebv-Dna Status With The Prognosis Of Lymphoma, Lihua Qiu, Junqi Si, Junnan Kang, Zehui Chen, Rexidan Nuermaimaiti, Zhengzi Qian, Lanfang Li, Shiyong Zhou, Mingjian James You, Huilai Zhang, Chen Tian

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) infection is proved to be associated with clinicopathology of lymphoma. However, little is known about the relationship between EBV-DNA status after treatment and prognosis. In this study, real-time polymerase chain reaction (PCR) was used for quantitative detection of EBV-DNA load in peripheral blood of all 26,527 patients with lymphoma, and the clinical characteristics and prognosis of 202 patients were retrospectively analysed, including 100 patients with positive EBV-DNA and 102 randomly selected patients with negative EBV-DNA. We found that the average rate of EBV-DNA positivity in lymphomas was 0.376%, and EBV-DNA-positive patients presented higher risk with elevated lactate …

Lurbinectedin, A Selective Inhibitor Of Oncogenic Transcription, In Patients With Pretreated Germline Brca1/2 Metastatic Breast Cancer: Results From A Phase Ii Basket Study, V Boni, B Pistilli, I Braña, G I Shapiro, J Trigo, V Moreno, D Castellano, C Fernández, C Kahatt, V Alfaro, M Siguero, A Zeaiter, F Longo, K Zaman, A Antón, A Paredes, G Huidobro, V Subbiah

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Background: Lurbinectedin, a selective inhibitor of oncogenic transcription, has shown preclinical antitumor activity against homologous recombination repair-deficient models and preliminary clinical activity in BRCA1/2 breast cancer.

Patients and methods: This phase II basket multitumor trial (NCT02454972) evaluated lurbinectedin 3.2 mg/m2 1-h intravenous infusion every 3 weeks in a cohort of 21 patients with pretreated germline BRCA1/2 breast cancer. Patients with any hormone receptor and human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 status were enrolled. The primary efficacy endpoint was overall response rate (ORR) according to RECIST v1.1. Secondary endpoints included duration of response (DoR), progression-free survival (PFS), overall survival …

Gpu Accelerated Estimation Of A Shared Random Effect Joint Model For Dynamic Prediction, Shikun Wang, Zhao Li, Lan Lan, Jieyi Zhao, W Jim Zheng, Liang Li

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

In longitudinal cohort studies, it is often of interest to predict the risk of a terminal clinical event using longitudinal predictor data among subjects at risk by the time of the prediction. The at-risk population changes over time; so does the association between predictors and the outcome, as well as the accumulating longitudinal predictor history. The dynamic nature of this prediction problem has received increasing interest in the literature, but computation often poses a challenge. The widely used joint model of longitudinal and survival data often comes with intensive computation and excessive model fitting time, due to numerical optimization and …

First-In-Human Study Of An Ox40 (Ivuxolimab) And 4-1bb (Utomilumab) Agonistic Antibody Combination In Patients With Advanced Solid Tumors, Omid Hamid, Alberto A Chiappori, John A Thompson, Toshihiko Doi, Siwen Hu-Lieskovan, Ferry A L M Eskens, Willeke Ros, Adi Diab, Jean-Philippe Spano, Naiyer A Rizvi, Jeffrey S Wasser, Eric Angevin, Patrick A Ott, Alison Forgie, Wenjing Yang, Cen Guo, Jeffrey Chou, Anthony B El-Khoueiry

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Background: Ivuxolimab (PF-04518600) and utomilumab (PF-05082566) are humanized agonistic IgG2 monoclonal antibodies against OX40 and 4-1BB, respectively. This first-in-human, multicenter, open-label, phase I, dose-escalation/dose-expansion study explored safety, tolerability, pharmacokinetics, pharmacodynamics, and antitumor activity of ivuxolimab+utomilumab in patients with advanced solid tumors.

Methods: Dose-escalation: patients with advanced bladder, gastric, or cervical cancer, melanoma, head and neck squamous cell carcinoma, or non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) who were unresponsive to available therapies, had no standard therapy available or declined standard therapy were enrolled into five dose cohorts: ivuxolimab (0.1-3 mg/kg every 2 weeks (Q2W)) intravenously plus utomilumab (20 or 100 mg every …

Stat3 Inhibits Autocrine Ifn Signaling In Type I Conventional Dendritic Cells, Taylor T Chrisikos, Yifan Zhou, Laura M Kahn, Bhakti Patel, Nina L Denne, Athena Brooks, Li Shen, Jing Wang, Stephanie S Watowich

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Type I conventional dendritic cells (cDC1s) are an essential Ag-presenting population required for generating adaptive immunity against intracellular pathogens and tumors. While the transcriptional control of cDC1 development is well understood, the mechanisms by which extracellular stimuli regulate cDC1 function remain unclear. We previously demonstrated that the cytokine-responsive transcriptional regulator STAT3 inhibits polyinosinic:polycytidylic acid [poly(I:C)]-induced cDC1 maturation and cDC1-mediated antitumor immunity in murine breast cancer, indicating an intrinsic, suppressive role for STAT3 in cDC1s. To probe transcriptional mechanisms regulating cDC1 function, we generated novel RNA sequencing datasets representing poly(I:C)-, IL-10-, and STAT3-mediated gene expression responses in murine cDC1s. Bioinformatics analyses …

Comprehensive Multiplexed Immune Profiling Of The Ductal Carcinoma In Situ Immune Microenvironment Regarding Subsequent Ipsilateral Invasive Breast Cancer Risk, Mathilde M Almekinders, Tycho Bismeijer, Tapsi Kumar, Fei Yang, Bram Thijssen, Rianne Van Der Linden, Charlotte Van Rooijen, Shiva Vonk, Baohua Sun, Edwin R Parra Cuentas, Ignacio I Wistuba, Savitri Krishnamurthy, Lindy L Visser, Iris M Seignette, Ingrid Hofland, Joyce Sanders, Annegien Broeks, Jason K Love, Brian Menegaz, Lodewyk Wessels, Alastair M Thompson, Karin E De Visser, Erik Hooijberg, Esther Lips, Andrew Futreal, Jelle Wesseling

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Background: Ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS) is treated to prevent subsequent ipsilateral invasive breast cancer (iIBC). However, many DCIS lesions will never become invasive. To prevent overtreatment, we need to distinguish harmless from potentially hazardous DCIS. We investigated whether the immune microenvironment (IME) in DCIS correlates with transition to iIBC.

Methods: Patients were derived from a Dutch population-based cohort of 10,090 women with pure DCIS with a median follow-up time of 12 years. Density, composition and proximity to the closest DCIS cell of CD20+ B-cells, CD3+CD8+ T-cells, CD3+CD8- T-cells, CD3+FOXP3+ regulatory T-cells, CD68+ cells, and CD8+Ki67+ T-cells was assessed with …

Genome Interpretation Using In Silico Predictors Of Variant Impact, Panagiotis Katsonis, Kevin Wilhelm, Amanda Williams, Olivier Lichtarge

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

Estimating the effects of variants found in disease driver genes opens the door to personalized therapeutic opportunities. Clinical associations and laboratory experiments can only characterize a tiny fraction of all the available variants, leaving the majority as variants of unknown significance (VUS). In silico methods bridge this gap by providing instant estimates on a large scale, most often based on the numerous genetic differences between species. Despite concerns that these methods may lack reliability in individual subjects, their numerous practical applications over cohorts suggest they are already helpful and have a role to play in genome interpretation when used at …