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Biology subjects

Qu, H.-Q.

Publications and source records attributed to Qu, H.-Q..

4 recordsLinked to original sources

Applying AlphaGenome Variant Impact for SNV Prioritization

AlphaGenome Atlas, released in September 2026, provides functional predictions for nearly all possible human single-nucleotide variants using the AlphaGenome Variant Impact (AVI) score. However, empirical thresholds relating AVI quantile rank (AVI_QUANTILE) to clinical variant classifications have not been established. We derived AVI_QUANTILE thresholds distinguishing ClinVar pathogenic, likely pathogenic, uncertain, conflicting, likely benign, and benign SNVs using receiver operating characteristic analyses. Pathogenic/likely pathogenic variants were strongly enriched at the upper end of the AVI_QUANTILE distribution, yielding a Youden-optimal ClinVar-derived cutoff of 0.9938. Optimal cutoffs were generally consistent across several major molecular consequence classes, although lower thresholds were observed for selected noncoding categories. Similarly, most well-powered gene-disease groups showed cutoffs close to the global threshold, with modest gene-specific variation. Among 24,989 variants of uncertain significance, 11,357 (45.45%) exceeded the global cutoff, identifying a substantial subset with AlphaGenome-predicted functional effects comparable to those observed among pathogenic/likely pathogenic variants and potentially warranting further evaluation. In a steroid-dependent asthma fine-mapping analysis, AVI_QUANTILE showed little correspondence with SuSiE posterior inclusion probabilities, indicating that AlphaGenome functional predictions capture information distinct from statistical fine-mapping.

genomics↗

CRISPR screening reveals SYCP3 as a key driver of metastasis in prostate cancer

Prostate cancer (PCa) is a prevalent male cancer with high survival rates, except in advanced or metastatic stages, for which effective treatments are lacking. Metastatic PCa involves complex mechanisms including loss of tumor suppressor genes and DNA repair molecules, which impacts therapy responses. We have reanalyzed data from a CRISPR/Cas9 genome wide screening previously performed to identify essential regulators of invasive abilities of the metastatic cell line DU145 identifying SYCP3 as a regulator of metastatic invasion. Subsequent analyses of tumor samples demonstrated that SYCP3 expression is frequently upregulated in PCa tumors from patients in advanced stages. Furthermore, SYCP3 genetic depletion significantly reduced the invasive and migratory abilities of DU145 cells and increased their adhesion capacity. Additionally, and due to the implication of SYCP3 on DNA repair processes, we have analyzed the role of SYCP3 on the cellular response to radiotherapy (RT) and found that its depletion induced RT resistance, suggesting a role for SYCP3 in DNA damage response and genomic instability. All these data support a role for SYCP3 in PCa metastasis and provides opportunities for personalized medicine.

cancer biology↗

Single-Cell Omics for Transcriptome CHaracterization (SCOTCH): isoform-level characterization of gene expression through long-read single-cell RNA sequencing

Recent advances in long-read single-cell transcriptome sequencing (lr-scRNA-Seq) enable full-length isoform profiling at single-cell resolution. We present SCOTCH (Single-Cell Omics for Transcriptome CHaracterization), an end-to-end, platform-independent pipeline for isoform characterization from lr-scRNA-Seq data, supporting Nanopore and PacBio sequencing as well as 10X Genomics and Parse Biosciences protocols. SCOTCH models isoforms as combinations of non-overlapping sub-exons and applies dynamic thresholding for robust isoform assignment while efficiently address ambiguous mapping issues. By refining sub-exon boundaries through integration of read coverage with existing annotations and applying an iterative clustering strategy to reconstruct novel transcripts, SCOTCH reliably recovers more true novel isoforms than existing splice-graph-based methods, with poly(A)-aware filtering further reducing false-positive structures. Extensive simulations demonstrate improved quantification of known isoforms and enhanced reconstruction of novel isoforms. Analyses of human blood and cerebral organoid datasets across multiple platforms further confirm SCOTCHs ability to resolve cell-type-specific transcriptome profiles and uncover experimentally supported novel isoforms.

bioinformatics↗

CRISPR/Cas9 screenings unearth protein arginine methyltransferase 7 as a novel driver of metastasis in prostate cancer

Owing to the inefficacy of available treatments, the survival rate of patients with metastatic prostate cancer (mPCa) is severely decreased. Therefore, it is crucial to identify new therapeutic targets to increase their survival. This study aim was to identify the most relevant regulators of mPCa onset by performing two high-throughput CRISPR/Cas9 screenings. Furthermore, some of the top hits were validated using small interfering RNA (siRNA) technology, with protein arginine methyltransferase 7 (PRMT7) being the best candidate. Its inhibition or depletion via CRISPR significantly reduced mPCa cell capacities in vitro. Moreover, PRMT7 ablation reduced mPCa appearance in chicken chorioallantoic membrane and mouse xenograft assays. Molecularly, PRMT7 reprograms the expression of several adhesion molecules through methylation of several transcription factors, such as FoxK1 or NR1H2, which results in primary tumor PCa cell adhesion loss and motility gain. Importantly, PRMT7 is upregulated in advanced stages of Spanish PCa tumor samples and PRMT7 pharmacological inhibition reduces the dissemination of mPCa cells. Thus, here is shown that PRMT7 is a potential therapeutic target and biomarker of mPCa.

cancer biology↗