Biology subjects

Ragoussis, J.

Publications and source records attributed to Ragoussis, J..

3 recordsLinked to original sources

bioRxiv2018

Single-cell RNA-seq reveals that glioblastoma recapitulates normal brain development

SummaryCancer stem cells are critical for cancer initiation, development, and resistance to treatments. Our understanding of these processes, and how they relate to glioblastoma heterogeneity, is limited. To overcome these limitations, we performed single-cell RNA-sequencing on 38 296 glioblastoma cells and 22 637 normal human fetal brain cells. Using an unbiased approach, we mapped the lineage hierarchy of the developing human brain and compared the transcriptome of each cancer cell to this roadmap. We discovered a conserved neural trilineage cancer hierarchy with glial progenitor-like cells at the apex. We also found that this progenitor population contains the majority of cancers cycling cells and is the origin of heterogeneity. Finally, we show that this hierarchal map can be used to identify therapeutic targets specific to progenitor cancer stem cells. Our analyses show that normal brain development reconciles glioblastoma development, unravels the origin of glioblastoma heterogeneity, and helps to identify cancer stem cell-specific targets.

cancer biology↗

bioRxiv2018

Single-nucleus RNA sequencing shows convergent evidence from different cell types for altered synaptic plasticity in major depressive disorder.

Major depressive disorder (MDD) is a complex illness that involves the interaction of different brain systems, pathways, and cell types. Past molecular studies of MDD relied on cellular homogenates of post-mortem brain tissue, making it impossible to determine gene expression changes within individual cells. Using single-cell transcriptomics, we examined almost 80,000 nuclei from the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex of individuals with MDD and healthy controls. Our analyses identified 26 distinct cellular clusters, and over 60% of these showed transcriptional differences between groups. Specifically, 96 genes were differentially expressed, the majority of which were downregulated. Convergent evidence from our analyses, including gene expression, differential correlation, and gene ontology implicated dysregulation of synaptic plasticity in the etiopathogenesis of MDD. Our results show that this high-resolution approach can reveal previously undetectable changes in specific cell types in the context of complex phenotypes and heterogeneous tissues.

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2018

Custom hereditary breast cancer gene panel selectively amplifies target genes for reliable variant calling

Background: Target enrichment coupled with next generation sequencing provide high-throughput approaches for screening several genes of interest. These approaches facilitate screening a panel of genes for mutations associated with inherited breast cancer for research, diagnostic, and genetic counseling applications.\n\nObjective: To evaluate the performance of our custom 13 gene breast cancer panel, based on singleplex PCR, developed by WaferGen BioSystems. The panel was evaluated using patient-derived DNA samples, in terms of target enrichment efficiency, off-target enrichment, uniformity of target capture, effect of GC content of target regions on coverage depth, and concordance with validated variant calls.\n\nResults: At least 90% of target sequence for each gene was captured at 30x or greater. We evaluated uniformity of target capture across samples by calculating the percentage of samples with at least 90% of total target captured at 100x or greater and found 92% (33/36 samples) uniformity for our panel. Off-target enrichment ranges between 7.2% and 22.3%. We found perfect concordance between our custom panel and the Qiagen human breast cancer panel for functionally annotated variant calls in high read depth shared target regions. Altogether, there was agreement between the panels for 779 variants at 41 loci. We also confirmed 10 pathogenic mutations, initially discovered by Sanger sequencing, in the appropriate samples following target enrichment using our custom WaferGen panel.\n\nConclusion: Our custom hereditary breast cancer panel is sensitive to the desired target genes and facilitates deep sequencing for reliable variant calling.

genetics↗