Biology subjects

Torres, R.

Publications and source records attributed to Torres, R..

36 records · Page 2Linked to original sources

bioRxiv2021

Petascale neural circuit reconstruction: automated methods

3D electron microscopy (EM) has been successful at mapping invertebrate nervous systems, but the approach has been limited to small chunks of mammalian brains. To scale up to larger volumes, we have built a computational pipeline for processing petascale image datasets acquired by serial section EM, a popular form of 3D EM. The pipeline employs convolutional nets to compute the nonsmooth transformations required to align images of serial sections containing numerous cracks and folds, detect neuronal boundaries, label voxels as axon, dendrite, soma, and other semantic categories, and detect synapses and assign them to presynaptic and postsynaptic segments. The output of neuronal boundary detection is segmented by mean affinity agglomeration with semantic and size constraints. Pipeline operations are implemented by leveraging distributed and cloud computing. Intermediate results of the pipeline are held in cloud storage, and can be effortlessly viewed as images, which aids debugging. We applied the pipeline to create an automated reconstruction of an EM image volume spanning four visual cortical areas of a mouse brain. Code for the pipeline is publicly available, as is the reconstructed volume.

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2021

Oligodendrocyte precursor cells prune axons in the mouse neocortex

Neurons in the developing brain undergo extensive structural refinement as nascent circuits adopt their mature form1. This transformation is facilitated by the engulfment and degradation of excess axonal branches and inappropriate synapses by surrounding glial cells, including microglia and astrocytes2,3. However, the small size of phagocytic organelles and the complex, highly ramified morphology of glia has made it difficult to determine the contribution of these and other glial cell types to this process. Here, we used large scale, serial electron microscopy (ssEM) with computational volume segmentation to reconstruct the complete 3D morphologies of distinct glial types in the mouse visual cortex. Unexpectedly, we discovered that the fine processes of oligodendrocyte precursor cells (OPCs), a population of abundant, highly dynamic glial progenitors4, frequently surrounded terminal axon branches and included numerous phagolysosomes (PLs) containing fragments of axons and presynaptic terminals. Single- nucleus RNA sequencing indicated that cortical OPCs express key phagocytic genes, as well as neuronal transcripts, consistent with active axonal engulfment. PLs were ten times more abundant in OPCs than in microglia in P36 mice, and declined with age and lineage progression, suggesting that OPCs contribute very substantially to refinement of neuronal circuits during later phases of cortical development.

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2021

Direct tissue sensing reprograms TLR4+ Tfh-like cells inflammatory profile in the joints of rheumatoid arthritis patients

CD4+ T cells mediate rheumatoid arthritis (RA) pathogenesis through both antibody-dependent and independent mechanisms. It remains unclear how synovial microenvironment impinges on CD4+ T cells pathogenic functions. Here, we identified a TLR4+ follicular helper T (Tfh) cell-like population present in the blood and expanded in synovial fluid. Mechanistically, we unveiled that homotypic T-T cell interactions through non-cognate HLA-DR:TCR contacts regulate TLR4 expression on T cells. TLR4+ T cells possess a two-pronged pathogenic activity. Upon TCR and ICOS engagement, TLR4+ T cells produce IL-21, a cytokine known to sponsor antibody production. However, direct TLR4+ engagement on T cells, by endogenous ligands in the arthritic joint, reprograms them towards an IL-17 inflammatory profile compatible with tissue damage program. Blocking TLR4 signaling with a specific inhibitor impaired IL-17 production in response to synovial fluid recognition. Ex vivo, synovial fluid TLR4+ T cells produced IL-17, but not IL-21. TLR4+ T cells appear to uniquely reconcile an ability to promote systemic antibody production with a local synovial driven tissue damage program. TLR4+ T cells could constitute an attractive cellular target and predictive biomarker for erosive arthritis.

immunology↗

bioRxiv2020

DisA limits RecA- and RadA/Sms-mediated replication fork remodelling to prevent genome instability

The DisA diadenylate cyclase (DAC), the DNA helicase RadA/Sms and the RecA recombinase are required to prevent a DNA replication stress during the revival of haploid Bacillus subtilis spores. Moreover, disA, radA and recA are epistatic among them in response to DNA damage. We show that DisA inhibits the ATPase activity of RadA/Sms C13A by competing for single-stranded (ss) DNA. In addition, DisA inhibits the helicase activity of RadA/Sms. RecA filamented onto ssDNA interacts with and recruits DisA and RadA/Sms onto branched DNA intermediates. In fact, RecA binds a reversed fork and facilitates RadA/Sms-mediated unwinding to restore a 3'-fork intermediate, but DisA inhibits it. Finally, RadA/Sms inhibits DisA DAC activity, but RecA counters this negative effect. We propose that RecA, DisA and RadA/Sms interactions, which are mutually exclusive, limit remodelling of stalled replication forks. DisA, in concert with RecA and/or RadA/Sms, indirectly contributes to template switching or lesion bypass, prevents fork breakage and facilitates the recovery of c-di-AMP levels to re-initiate cell proliferation. Subject CategoriesGenomic stability & Dynamics

microbiology↗

bioRxiv2020

Multiscale and multimodal reconstruction of cortical structure and function

We present a semi-automated reconstruction of L2/3 mouse primary visual cortex from 3 million cubic microns of electron microscopic images, including pyramidal and inhibitory neurons, astrocytes, microglia, oligodendrocytes and precursors, pericytes, vasculature, mitochondria, and synapses. Visual responses of a subset of pyramidal cells are included. The data are being made publicly available, along with tools for programmatic and 3D interactive access. The density of synaptic inputs onto inhibitory neurons varies across cell classes and compartments. We uncover a compartment-specific correlation between mitochondrial coverage and synapse density. Frequencies of connectivity motifs in the graph of pyramidal cells are predicted quite accurately from node degrees using the configuration model of random graphs. Cells receiving more connections from nearby cells exhibit stronger and more reliable visual responses. These example findings illustrate the resources utility for relating structure and function of cortical circuits as well as for neuronal cell biology.

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2020

MicroRNAs Restrain Proliferation in BRAFV600E Melanocytic Nevi

Benign melanocytic nevi frequently emerge when an acquired BRAFV600E mutation triggers unchecked proliferation and subsequent arrest in melanocytes. Recent observations have challenged the role of oncogene-induced senescence in melanocytic nevus formation, necessitating investigations into alternative mechanisms for the establishment and maintenance of proliferation arrest in nevi. We compared the transcriptomes of melanocytes from healthy human skin, nevi, and melanomas arisen from nevi and identified a set of microRNAs as highly expressed nevus-enriched transcripts. Two of these microRNAs - MIR211-5p and MIR328-3p - induced mitotic failure, genome duplication and proliferation arrest in human melanocytes through convergent targeting of AURKB. We demonstrate that BRAFV600E induces a similar proliferation arrest in primary human melanocytes that is both reversible and conditional. Specifically, BRAFV600E expression stimulates either arrest or proliferation depending on the differentiation state of the melanocyte. We report genome duplication in human melanocytic nevi, reciprocal expression of AURKB and microRNAs in nevi and melanomas, and rescue of arrested human nevus cells with AURKB expression. Together, our data describe an alternative molecular mechanism for melanocytic nevus formation that is congruent with both experimental and clinical observations.

cancer biology↗

bioRxiv2020

Chandelier cell anatomy and function reveal a variably distributed but common signal

The activity and connectivity of inhibitory cells has a profound impact on the operation of neuronal networks. While the average connectivity of many inhibitory cell types has been characterized, we still lack an understanding of how individual interneurons distribute their synapses onto their targets and how heterogeneous the inhibition is onto different individual excitatory neurons. Here, we use large-scale volumetric electron microscopy (EM) and functional imaging to address this question for chandelier cells in layer 2/3 of mouse visual cortex. Using dense morphological reconstructions from EM, we mapped the complete chandelier input onto 153 pyramidal neurons. We find that the number of input synapses is highly variable across the population, but the variability is correlated with structural features of the target neuron: soma depth, soma size, and the number of perisomatic synapses received. Functionally, we found that chandelier cell activity in vivo was highly correlated and tracks pupil diameter, a proxy for arousal state. We propose that chandelier cells provide a global signal whose strength is individually adjusted for each target neuron. This approach, combining comprehensive structural analysis with functional recordings of identified cell types, will be a powerful tool to uncover the wiring rules across the diversity of cortical cell types.

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2020

In vitro and In vivo Genetic Disease Modelling via NHEJ precise deletions using CRISPR/Cas9

Development of advanced gene and cell therapies for the treatment of genetic diseases requires confident animal and cellular models to test their efficacy and is crucial in the cases where no primary samples from patients are available. CRISPR/Cas9 technology, has become one of the most spread endonuclease tools for editing the genome at will. Moreover, it is known that the use of two guides tends to produce the precise deletion between the guides via NHEJ. Different distances between guides were tested (from 8 to 500 base pairs). We found that distances between the two cutting sites and orientation of Cas9 protein-DNA interaction are important for the efficiency within the optimal range (30-60 bp), we could obtain new genetically reproducible models for two rare disease, a Pyruvate Kinase Deficiency model, using human primary cells, and a (for in vivo primary hyperoxaluria therapeutic mouse model. We demonstrate that the use of a 2-guideRNAs at the optimal distance and orientation is a powerful strategy for disease modelling in those diseases where the availability of primary cells is limited.

bioengineering↗

bioRxiv2020

EASE: EM-Assisted Source Extraction from calcium imaging data

Combining two-photon calcium imaging (2PCI) and electron microscopy (EM) provides arguably the most powerful current approach for connecting function to structure in neural circuits. Recent years have seen dramatic advances in obtaining and processing CI and EM data separately. In addition, several joint CI-EM datasets (with CI performed in vivo, followed by EM reconstruction of the same volume) have been collected. However, no automated analysis tools yet exist that can match each signal extracted from the CI data to a cell segment extracted from EM; previous efforts have been largely manual and focused on analyzing calcium activity in cell bodies, neglecting potentially rich functional information from axons and dendrites. There are two major roadblocks to solving this matching problem: first, dense EM reconstruction extracts orders of magnitude more segments than are visible in the corresponding CI field of view, and second, due to optical constraints and non-uniform brightness of the calcium indicator in each cell, direct matching of EM and CI spatial components is nontrivial. In this work we develop a pipeline for fusing CI and densely-reconstructed EM data. We model the observed CI data using a constrained nonnegative matrix factorization (CNMF) framework, in which segments extracted from the EM reconstruction serve to initialize and constrain the spatial components of the matrix factorization. We develop an efficient iterative procedure for solving the resulting combined matching and matrix factorization problem and apply this procedure to joint CI-EM data from mouse visual cortex. The method recovers hundreds of dendritic components from the CI data, visible across multiple functional scans at different depths, matched with densely-reconstructed three-dimensional neural segments recovered from the EM volume. We publicly release the output of this analysis as a new gold standard dataset that can be used to score algorithms for demixing signals from 2PCI data. Finally, we show that this database can be exploited to (1) learn a mapping from 3d EM segmentations to predict the corresponding 2d spatial components estimated from CI data, and (2) train a neural network to denoise these estimated spatial components. This neural network denoiser is a stand-alone module that can be dropped in to enhance any existing 2PCI analysis pipeline.

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2019

Binary and analog variation of synapses between cortical pyramidal neurons

Learning from experience depends at least in part on changes in neuronal connections. We present the largest map of connectivity to date between cortical neurons of a defined type (L2/3 pyramidal cells), which was enabled by automated analysis of serial section electron microscopy images with improved handling of image defects. We used the map to identify constraints on the learning algorithms employed by the cortex. Previous cortical studies modeled a continuum of synapse sizes (Arellano et al. 2007) by a log-normal distribution (Loewenstein, Kuras, and Rumpel 2011; de Vivo et al. 2017; Santuy et al. 2018). A continuum is consistent with most neural network models of learning, in which synaptic strength is a continuously graded analog variable. Here we show that synapse size, when restricted to synapses between L2/3 pyramidal cells, is well-modeled by the sum of a binary variable and an analog variable drawn from a log-normal distribution. Two synapses sharing the same presynaptic and postsynaptic cells are known to be correlated in size (Sorra and Harris 1993; Koester and Johnston 2005; Bartol et al. 2015; Kasthuri et al. 2015; Dvorkin and Ziv 2016; Bloss et al. 2018; Motta et al. 2019). We show that the binary variables of the two synapses are highly correlated, while the analog variables are not. Binary variation could be the outcome of a Hebbian or other synaptic plasticity rule depending on activity signals that are relatively uniform across neuronal arbors, while analog variation may be dominated by other influences. We discuss the implications for the stability-plasticity dilemma.

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2019

The temporal dynamics of background selection in non-equilibrium populations

Neutral genetic diversity across the genome is determined by the complex interplay of mutation, demographic history, and natural selection. While the direct action of natural selection is limited to functional loci across the genome, its impact can have effects on nearby neutral loci due to genetic linkage. These effects of selection at linked sites, referred to as genetic hitchhiking and background selection (BGS), are pervasive across natural populations. However, only recently has there been a focus on the joint consequences of demography and selection at linked sites, and empirical studies have sometimes come to apparently contradictory conclusions as to their combined effects. In order to understand the relationship between demography and selection at linked sites, we conducted an extensive forward simulation study of BGS under a range of demographic models. We found that the relative levels of diversity in BGS and neutral regions vary over time and that the initial dynamics after a population size change are often in the opposite direction of the long-term expected trajectory. Our detailed observations of the temporal dynamics of neutral diversity in the context of selection at linked sites in non-equilibrium populations provides new intuition about why patterns of diversity under BGS vary through time in natural populations and help reconcile previously contradictory observations. Most notably, our results highlight that classical models of BGS are poorly suited for predicting diversity in non-equilibrium populations.

evolutionary biology↗

bioRxiv2019

Modelling marine larval dispersal: a cautionary deep-sea tale for ecology and conservation

Larval dispersal data are increasingly sought after in ecology and marine conservation, the latter often requiring information under time limited circumstances. Basic estimates of dispersal are often used in these situations acknowledging their oversimplified nature. Larval dispersal models (LDMs) are now becoming more popular and may be a tempting way of refining predictions, but prior to targeted groundtruthing their predictions are of unknown worth. This case study uses deep-sea LDMs to compare predictions of dispersal. Two LDMs driven by different example hydrodynamic models are compared, along with an informed estimate based on mean current speed and planktonic larval duration (PLD) to provide insight into predictive variability. LDMs were found to be more conservative in dispersal distance than an estimate. This difference increased with PLD which may result in a bigger disparity for deep-sea species predictions. Although LDMs were more spatially targeted than an estimate, the two LDM predictions were also significantly different from each other and would result in contrasting advice for marine conservation. These results show a greater potential for model variability than previously appreciated by ecologists and strongly advocates groundtruthing predictions before use in management. Advice is offered for improved model selection and interpretation of predictions.

ecology↗

bioRxiv2019

Sequencing of 53,831 diverse genomes from the NHLBI TOPMed Program

Summary paragraphThe Trans-Omics for Precision Medicine (TOPMed) program seeks to elucidate the genetic architecture and disease biology of heart, lung, blood, and sleep disorders, with the ultimate goal of improving diagnosis, treatment, and prevention. The initial phases of the program focus on whole genome sequencing of individuals with rich phenotypic data and diverse backgrounds. Here, we describe TOPMed goals and design as well as resources and early insights from the sequence data. The resources include a variant browser, a genotype imputation panel, and sharing of genomic and phenotypic data via dbGaP. In 53,581 TOPMed samples, >400 million single-nucleotide and insertion/deletion variants were detected by alignment with the reference genome. Additional novel variants are detectable through assembly of unmapped reads and customized analysis in highly variable loci. Among the >400 million variants detected, 97% have frequency <1% and 46% are singletons. These rare variants provide insights into mutational processes and recent human evolutionary history. The nearly complete catalog of genetic variation in TOPMed studies provides unique opportunities for exploring the contributions of rare and non-coding sequence variants to phenotypic variation. Furthermore, combining TOPMed haplotypes with modern imputation methods improves the power and extends the reach of nearly all genome-wide association studies to include variants down to ~0.01% in frequency.

genomics↗

bioRxiv2018

A machine-learning classifier trained with microRNA ratios to distinguish melanomas from nevi

The use of microRNAs as biomarkers has been proposed for many diseases including the diagnosis of melanoma. Although hundreds of microRNAs have been identified as differentially expressed in melanomas as compared to benign melanocytic lesions, limited consensus has been achieved across studies, constraining the effective use of these potentially useful markers. In this study we quantified microRNAs by next-generation sequencing from melanomas and their adjacent benign precursor nevi. We applied a machine learning-based pipeline to identify a microRNA signature that separated melanomas from nevi and was unaffected by confounding variables, such as patient age and tumor cell content. By employing the ratios of microRNAs that were either enriched or depleted in melanoma compared to nevi as a normalization strategy, the classifier performed similarly across multiple published microRNA datasets, obtained by microarray, small RNA sequencing, or RT-qPCR. Validation on separate cohorts of melanomas and nevi correctly classified lesions with 83% sensitivity and 71-83% specificity, independent of variation in tumor cell content of the sample or patient age.

cancer biology↗

bioRxiv2018

Environmental and Socioeconomic Factors Associated with West Nile Virus

Environmental and socioeconomic risk factors associated with West Nile Virus cases were investigated in the Northern San Joaquin Valley region of California, a largely rural area. The study included human West Nile Virus (WNV) cases from the years 2011-2015 in the three county area of San Joaquin, Stanislaus and Merced Counties, and examined whether factors were associated with WNV using census tracts as the unit of analysis. Environmental factors included temperature, precipitation, mosquitoes positive for WNV, and habitat. Socioeconomic variables included age, education, housing age, home vacancies, median income, population density, ethnicity, and language spoken. Chi-squared independence tests were used to examine whether each variable was associated with WNV in each county, and then also used for the three counties combined. Logistic regression was used for a three-county combined analysis, to examine which environmental and socioeconomic variables were most likely associated with WNV cases. The chi-squared tests found that the variables associated with WNV varied in each of the three counties. The chi-squared tests for data combined from the three counties found that WNV cases were significantly associated with mosquitoes positive for WNV, urban habitat, higher home vacancies, higher population density, higher education, and ethnicity. Logistic regression analysis revealed that overall, the environmental factors precipitation, mean temperature, and WNV positive mosquitoes were the strongest predictors of WNV cases. Results support efforts of mosquito control districts, which aim for source reduction of mosquito breeding sites. In addition, findings suggest that residents with higher income and education may be more aware of WNV and its symptoms, and more likely to request testing from physicians. Lower income and education residents may not be aware of WNV. Public health education might increase its prevention messages about vector-borne disease in the various languages of the region, which would contribute overall to public health in the region.

epidemiology↗

bioRxiv2018

Measures of reproducibility in sampling and laboratory processing methods in high-throughput microbiome analysis

Microbial community analysis can be biased by multiple technical factors, such as storage conditions, DNA extraction, or amplification conditions. In a high-throughput laboratory that relies on samples obtained from thousands of different subjects, knowledge of the extent of subject-introduced sampling and storage variation on the outcome of the inferred microbiome, as well as the effect of laboratory-introduced variation caused by reagent batches, equipment, or operator on the consistency of these processes within the laboratory is paramount. Here, we analyzed the effect of sampling from different parts of the same stool specimen or on different consecutive days, as well as short-term storage of samples at different temperatures on microbiome profiles obtained by 16S rRNA gene amplification. Each of these factors had relatively little effect on the microbial composition. In addition, replicate amplification of 44 stool samples showed reproducible results. Finally, 363 independent replicate extractions and amplifications of a single human homogenized stool (HS) specimen showed reproducible results (average Lins correlation = 0.95), with little variation introduced by HS batch, operator, extraction equipment, or DNA sequencer. In all cases, variations between replicates were significantly smaller than those between individual samples; subject identity always was the largest determinant. We propose that homogenized stool specimens could be used as quality control to routinely monitor the laboratory process and to validate new methods.

microbiology↗

bioRxiv2018

A Highly Efficient and Faithful MDS Patient-Derived Xenotransplantation Model for Pre-Clinical Studies

Comprehensive preclinical studies of Myelodysplastic Syndromes (MDS) have been elusive due to limited ability of MDS stem cells to engraft current immunodeficient murine hosts. We developed a novel MDS patient-derived xenotransplantation model in cytokine-humanized immunodeficient \"MISTRG\" mice that for the first time provides efficient and faithful disease representation across all MDS subtypes. MISTRG MDS patient-derived xenografts (PDX) reproduce patients' dysplastic morphology with multi-lineage representation, including erythro- and megakaryopoiesis. MISTRG MDS-PDX replicate the original sample's genetic complexity and can be propagated via serial transplantation. MISTRG MDS-PDX demonstrate the cytotoxic and differentiation potential of targeted therapeutics providing superior readouts of drug mechanism of action and therapeutic efficacy. Physiologic humanization of the hematopoietic stem cell niche proves critical to MDS stem cell propagation and function in vivo. The MISTRG MDS-PDX model opens novel avenues of research and long-awaited opportunities in MDS research.

cancer biology↗

bioRxiv2017

Human demographic history has amplified the effects background selection across the genome

Natural populations often grow, shrink, and migrate over time. Demographic processes such as these can impact genome-wide levels of genetic diversity. In addition, genetic variation in functional regions of the genome can be altered by natural selection, which drives adaptive mutations to higher frequencies or purges deleterious ones. Such selective processes impact not only the sites directly under selection but also nearby neutral variation through genetic linkage through processes referred to as genetic hitch-hiking in the context of positive selection and background selection (BGS) in the context of purifying selection. While there is extensive literature examining the impact of selection at linked sites at demographic equilibrium, less is known about how non-equilibrium demographic processes impact the effects of hitchhiking and BGS. Utilizing a global sample of human whole-genome sequences from the Thousand Genomes Project and extensive simulations, we investigate how non-equilibrium demographic processes magnify and dampen the consequences of selection at linked sites across the human genome. When binning the genome by inferred strength of BGS, we observe that, compared to Africans, non-African populations have experienced larger proportional decreases in neutral genetic diversity in such regions. We replicate these findings in admixed populations by showing that non-African ancestral components of the genome have also been impacted more severely in these regions. We attribute these differences to the strong, sustained/recurrent population bottlenecks that non-Africans experienced as they migrated out of Africa and throughout the globe. Furthermore, we observe a strong correlation between FST and inferred strength of BGS, suggesting a stronger rate of genetic drift. Forward simulations of human demographic history with a model of BGS support these observations. Our results show that non-equilibrium demography significantly alters the consequences selection at linked sites and support the need for more work investigating the dynamic process of multiple evolutionary forces operating in concert.\n\nAuthor summaryPatterns of genetic diversity within a species are affected at broad and fine scales by population size changes (\"demography\") and natural selection. From both population genetics theory and observation of genomic sequence data, it is known that demography can alter genome-wide average neutral genetic diversity. Additionally, natural selection can affect neutral genetic diversity regionally across the genome via selection at linked sites. During this process, natural selection acting on adaptive or deleterious variants in the genome will also impact diversity at nearby neutral sites due to genetic linkage. However, less is well known about the dynamic changes to diversity that occur in regions impacted by selection at linked sites when a population undergoes a size change. We characterize these dynamic changes using thousands of human genomes and find that the population size changes experienced by humans have shaped the consequences of linked selection across the genome. In particular, population contractions, such as those experienced by non-Africans, have disproportionately decreased neutral diversity in regions of the genome inferred to be under strong background selection (i.e., selection at linked sites that is caused by natural selection acting on deleterious variants), resulting in large differences between African and non-African populations.

evolutionary biology↗