Biology subjects

Ito, J.

Publications and source records attributed to Ito, J..

69 records · Page 4Linked to original sources

bioRxiv2021

A connectivity signature for glioblastoma

Tumor cell extensions called tumor microtubes (TMs) in glioma resemble neurites during neurodevelopment and connect glioma cells to a network that has considerable relevance for tumor progression and therapy resistance. The determination of interconnectivity in individual tumors has been challenging and the impact of tumor cell connectivity on patient survival remained unresolved so far. Here, a connectivity signature from single-cell RNA-sequenced (scRNA-Seq) xenografted primary glioblastoma (GB) cells was established and clinically validated. Thirty-four of 40 connectivity genes were related to neurogenesis, neural tube development or glioma progression, including the TM-network-relevant GAP43 gene. Astrocytic-like and mesenchymal-like GB cells had the highest connectivity signature scores in scRNA-Seq data of patient-derived xenografts and patient samples. In 230 human GBs, high connectivity correlated with the mesenchymal expression subtype, TP53 wildtype, and with dismal patient survival. CHI3L1 was identified as a robust molecular marker of connectivity. Thus, the connectivity signature allows novel insights into brain tumor biology, provides a proof-of-principle that tumor cell connectivity is relevant for patients prognosis, and serves as a robust biomarker that can be used for future clinical trials. Statement of significanceIntegration of GB cells into functional networks drives tumor progression and resistance. Here, we established and validated a novel connectivity gene expression signature of single GB cells and whole tumors that can be easily applied to clinical and preclinical samples. It is shown that connectivity is determining prognosis combining molecular, functional and clinical insights into the disease.

cancer biology↗

bioRxiv2021

SARS-CoV-2 spike P681R mutation enhances and accelerates viral fusion

During the current SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, a variety of mutations have been accumulated in the viral genome, and currently, four variants of concerns (VOCs) are considered as the hazardous SARS-CoV-2 variants to the human society1. The newly emerging VOC, the B.1.617.2/Delta variant, closely associates with a huge COVID-19 surge in India in Spring 20212. However, its virological property remains unclear. Here, we show that the B.1.617.2/Delta variant is highly fusogenic, and notably, more pathogenic than prototypic SARS-CoV-2 in infected hamsters. The P681R mutation in the spike protein, which is highly conserved in this lineage, facilitates the spike protein cleavage and enhances viral fusogenicity. Moreover, we demonstrate that the P681R-bearing virus exhibits higher pathogenicity than the parental virus. Our data suggest that the P681R mutation is a hallmark that characterizes the virological phenotype of the B.1.617.2/Delta variant and is closely associated with enhanced pathogenicity.

microbiology↗

bioRxiv2021

Endogenous retrovirus rewired the gene regulatory network shared between primordial germ cells and naïve pluripotent cells in hominoids

Although the gene regulatory network controlling germ cell development is critical for gamete integrity, this network has been substantially diversified during mammalian evolution. Here, we show that several hundred loci of LTR5_Hs, a hominoid-specific endogenous retrovirus (ERV), function as enhancers in both human primordial germ cells (PGCs) and naive pluripotent cells. PGCs and naive pluripotent cells exhibit a similar transcriptome signature, and the enhancers derived from LTR5_Hs contribute to establishing such similarity. LTR5_Hs appears to be activated by transcription factors critical in both cell types (KLF4, TFAP2C, NANOG, and CBFA2T2). Comparative transcriptome analysis between humans and macaques suggested that the expression of many genes in PGCs and naive pluripotent cells has been upregulated by LTR5_Hs insertions in the hominoid lineage. Together, this study suggests that LTR5_Hs insertions have rewired and finetuned the gene regulatory network shared between PGCs and naive pluripotent cells during hominoid evolution. TeaserA hominoid-specific ERV has rewired the gene regulatory network shared between PGCs and naive pluripotent cells.

genetics↗

bioRxiv2021

Age-related demethylation of the TDP-43 autoregulatory region in the human motor cortex

In amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), TAR DNA-binding protein 43 (TDP-43), which is encoded by TARDBP, forms aggregates in the motor cortex. This aggregate formation may be triggered by an increase in the TDP-43 level with aging. However, the amount of TDP-43 is autoregulated by alternative splicing of the TARDBP 3UTR, and how this autoregulation is affected by aging remains to be elucidated. We found that DNA demethylation in the autoregulatory region in the TARDBP 3'UTR reduced alternative splicing and increased TARDBP mRNA expression. Furthermore, in the human motor cortex, we found that this region was demethylated with aging, resulting in increased expression of TARDBP mRNA. The acceleration of DNA demethylation in the motor cortex was associated with the age of ALS onset. In summary, the dysregulation of TDP-43 autoregulation by age-related DNA demethylation in the motor cortex may explain the contribution of aging and motor system selectivity in ALS.

molecular biology↗

bioRxiv2020

Reconstitution of prospermatogonial specification in vitro from human induced pluripotent stem cells

Establishment of spermatogonia throughout the fetal and postnatal period is essential for production of spermatozoa and male fertility. Here, we established a protocol for in vitro reconstitution of human prospermatogonial specification whereby human primordial germ cell (PGC)-like cells (hPGCLCs) differentiated from human induced pluripotent stem cells were further induced into M-prospermatogonia-like cells (MLCs) and T1 prospermatogonia-like cells (T1LCs) using long-term cultured xenogeneic reconstituted testes. Single cell RNA-sequencing was used to delineate the lineage trajectory leading to T1LCs, which closely resemble human T1-prospermatogonia in vivo and exhibited gene expression related to spermatogenesis and diminished proliferation, a hallmark of quiescent T1 prospermatogonia. Notably, this system enabled us to visualize the dynamic and stage-specific regulation of transposable elements during human prospermatogonial specification. Together, our findings pave the way for understanding and reconstructing human male germline development in vitro.

developmental biology↗

bioRxiv2020

De novo virus inference and host prediction from metagenome using CRISPR spacers

Viruses are the most numerous biological entity, existing in all environments and infecting all cellular organisms. Compared with cellular life, the evolution and origin of viruses are poorly understood; viruses are enormously diverse and most lack sequence similarity to cellular genes. To uncover viral sequences without relying on either reference viral sequences from databases or marker genes known to characterize specific viral taxa, we developed an analysis pipeline for virus inference based on clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats (CRISPR). CRISPR is a prokaryotic nucleic acid restriction system that stores memory of previous exposure. Our protocol can infer viral sequences targeted by CRISPR and predict their hosts using unassembled short-read metagenomic sequencing data. Analysing human gut metagenomic data, we extracted 11,391 terminally redundant CRISPR-targeted sequences which are likely complete circular genomes of viruses or plasmids. The sequences include 257 complete crAssphage family genomes, 11 genomes larger than 200 kilobases, 766 genomes of Microviridae species, 114 genomes of Inoviridae species and many entirely novel genomes of unknown taxa. We predicted the host(s) of approximately 70% of discovered genomes by linking protospacers to taxonomically assigned CRISPR direct repeats. These results support that our protocol is efficient for de novo inference of viral genomes and host prediction. In addition, we investigated the origin of the diversity-generating retroelement (DGR) locus of the crAssphage family. Phylogenetic analysis and gene locus comparisons indicate that DGR is orthologous in human gut crAssphages and shares a common ancestor with baboon-derived crAssphage; however, the locus has likely been lost in multiple lineages recently.

genomics↗

bioRxiv2020

Movements of ancient human endogenous retroviruses detected in SOX2-expressing cells

Human endogenous retroviruses (HERVs) occupy approximately 8% of human genome. HERVs, which are transcribed in early embryos, are epigenetically silenced in somatic cells, except in pathological contexts. HERV-K is thought to protect the embryo from exogenous viral infection. However, uncontrollable HERV-K expression in somatic cells has been implicated in several diseases. Here, we show that SOX2, which plays a key role in maintaining pluripotency of stem cells, is critical for the transcription of HERV-K LTR5Hs. HERV-K can undergo retrotransposition within producer cells in the absence of Env expression. Furthermore, new HERV-K integration sites were identified in a long-term culture of induced pluripotent stem cells, which express SOX2. Together, these results suggest the possibility that the strict dependence of HERV-K on SOX2 have allowed contribution of HERV-K to the protection of early embryos during evolution while limiting potentially harmful effects of HERV-K retrotransposition on host genome integrity to these early embryos.

microbiology↗

bioRxiv2020

On the complexity of resting state spiking activity in monkey motor cortex

Resting state has been established as a classical paradigm of brain activity studies, mostly based on large scale measurements such as fMRI or M/EEG. This term typically refers to a behavioral state characterized by the absence of any task or stimuli. The corresponding neuronal activity is often called idle or ongoing. Numerous modeling studies on spiking neural networks claim to mimic such idle states, but compare their results to task- or stimulus-driven experiments, which might lead to misleading conclusions. To provide a proper basis for comparing physiological and simulated network dynamics, we characterize simultaneously recorded single neurons spiking activity in monkey motor cortex and show the differences from spontaneous and task-induced movement conditions. The resting state shows a higher dimensionality, reduced firing rates and less balance between population level excitation and inhibition than behavior-related states. Additionally, our results stress the importance of distinguishing between rest with eyes open and closed.

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2020

Direct evidence of abortive lytic infection-mediated establishment of Epstein-Barr virus latency during B-cell infection

Viral infection induces dynamic changes in transcriptional profiles. Virus-induced and anti-viral responses are intertwined during the infection. Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) is a human gammaherpesvirus that provides a model of herpesvirus latency. To measure the transcriptome changes during the establishment of EBV latency, EBV-negative Akata cells were infected with EBV-EGFP and observed by transcriptome sequencing (RNA-seq) at 0, 2, 4, 7, 10, and 14 days after infection. We found transient downregulation of mitotic division-related genes, reflecting reprograming of cell growth by EBV. Moreover, a burst of viral lytic gene expression was detected in the early phase of infection. Experimental and mathematical investigations demonstrated that infectious virions were not produced in the pre-latent phase, suggesting the presence of an abortive lytic infection. Finally, we conducted fate mapping using recombinant EBV, enabling the noninvasive, continuous observation of infected cells during EBV infection. Our tracking analysis provided direct evidence that the abortive lytic infection in the pre-latent phase converges to latent infection during EBV infection of B-cells, shedding light on novel roles of viral lytic gene(s) in establishing latency. Author summaryViral infection is a complex process that activates both virus-triggered and host anti-viral responses. This process has classically been studied by snapshot analysis such as microarray and RNA-seq at discrete time points as population averages. Snapshot data lead to invaluable findings in host-pathogen interactions. However, these "snapshot" omics, even from a single cell, lack temporal resolution. Because the behavior of infected cells is highly dynamic and heterogenous, continuous analysis is required for deciphering the fate of infected cells during viral infection. Here, we exploited fate mapping techniques with recombinant Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) to track the infected cells and recorded a log of lytic gene expression during EBV infection. Our continuous observation of infected cells revealed that EBV established latency in B-cells via an abortive lytic infection in the pre-latent phase.

microbiology↗

bioRxiv2020

Endogenous retroviruses drive KRAB zinc-finger family protein expression for tumor suppression

Numerous genes are aberrantly expressed in tumors, but its cause remains unclear. Human endogenous retroviruses (HERVs) are repetitive elements in the genome and have a potential to work as enhancers modulating adjacent genes. Since numerous HERVs are activated epigenetically in tumors, their activation could alter gene expression globally in tumors and change the tumor characteristics. Here, we show the HERV activation in tumors is associated with the upregulation of hundreds of transcriptional suppressors, Kruppel-associated box domain-containing zinc-finger family proteins (KZFPs). KZFP genes are preferentially encoded nearby the activated HERVs in tumors and transcriptionally regulated by the adjacent HERVs. Increased HERV and KZFP expression in tumors was associated with better disease conditions. Many KZFPs could suppress the progressive characteristics of cancer cells by downregulating genes related to the cell cycle and cell-matrix adhesion. Our data suggest that HERV activation in tumors drives the concerted expression of KZFP genes for tumor suppression.

cancer biology↗

bioRxiv2019

Endogenization and excision of human herpesvirus 6 in human genomes

The genome of human herpesvirus 6 (HHV-6) is integrated within the nuclear genome of about 1% of humans, but how this came about is not clear. HHV-6 integrates into telomeres, and this has recently been associated with polymorphisms affecting MOV10L1. MOV10L1 is located on the subtelomere of chromosome 22q (chr22q) and is required to make PIWI-interacting RNAs (piRNAs). piRNAs block integration of transposons in the germline, so piRNA-mediated repression of HHV-6 integration has been suspected. Whether integrated HHV-6 can reactive into an infectious virus is also uncertain. In vitro, recombination of the viral genome along its terminal direct repeats (DRs) leads to excision from the telomere and viral reactivation, but the expected single DR "scar" has not been described in vivo. We analyzed whole-genome sequencing (WGS) data from 13,040 subjects, including 7,485 from Japan. We found an association between integrated HHV-6 and polymorphisms on chr22q in Japanese subjects. However, association with the reported MOV10L1 polymorphism was driven by physical linkage to a single ancient endogenous HHV-6A variant integrated into the telomere of chr22q in East Asians. We resolved the junction of the human chromosome with this viral genome using long read sequencing. Unexpectedly, an HHV-6B variant has also endogenized in chr22q; two endogenous HHV-6 variants at this locus thus account for 72% of all integrated HHV-6 in Japan. We also report human genomes carrying only one portion of the HHV-6B genome, a single DR, supporting in vivo excision and viral reactivation. Using WGS data from North American families, we show that the incidence of HHV-6 integration into the germline is lower than its prevalence, and that integrated HHV-6 is not associated with the reported variant in MOV10L1. Together these results explain the recently reported association between integrated HHV-6 and MOV10L1/piRNAs, suggest exaptation of HHV-6 in its coevolution with human chr22q, and clarify the evolution and risk of reactivation of the only intact non-retroviral genome known to be present in human germlines. SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT Human herpesvirus 6 (HHV-6) infects most people during childhood, usually only causing fever and rash. Reactivation of HHV-6 has been linked to a number of neurological diseases including encephalitis, Alzheimers disease and multiple sclerosis. However, about 1% of people are born with the HHV-6 genome present within their genome, included in the end "cap" of one of their 46 chromosomes. Little is known about how and when HHV-6 genomes entered human genomes, whether or not they still do, and whether or not this poses risk for virus reactivation. We looked for HHV-6 in genome sequences from over 13,000 people. Most HHV-6 variants present in human genomes have been co-evolving with human chromosomes for many generations, and new integration events are rare. Surprisingly, in almost three fourths of Japanese people with HHV-6 in their genome, HHV-6 integrated in the same end of the same chromosome - 22q. Persistence of the HHV-6 genome within the short "cap" that preserves the end of chromosome 22q suggests that the integrated viral sequence may have taken on a useful function for this chromosome. We also found that some human genomes harbor only one part of the HHV-6 genome. This part is the same part that remains after experimental viral reactivation, during which most of the virus is cut out of the genome. This warrants assessment of the risk that integration of HHV-6 into inherited human genomes is not irreversible, and possibly leads to production of infectious virus.

genetics↗

bioRxiv2019

Learning from Synthetic Dataset for Crop Seed Instance Segmentation

Incorporating deep learning in the image analysis pipeline has opened the possibility of introducing precision phenotyping in the field of agriculture. However, to train the neural network, a sufficient amount of training data must be prepared, which requires a time-consuming manual data annotation process that often becomes the limiting step. Here, we show that an instance segmentation neural network (Mask R-CNN) aimed to phenotype the barley seed morphology of various cultivars, can be sufficiently trained purely by a synthetically generated dataset. Our attempt is based on the concept of domain randomization, where a large amount of image is generated by randomly orienting the seed object to a virtual canvas. After training with such a dataset, performance based on recall and the average Precision of the real-world test dataset achieved 96% and 95%, respectively. Applying our pipeline enables extraction of morphological parameters at a large scale, enabling precise characterization of the natural variation of barley from a multivariate perspective. Importantly, we show that our approach is effective not only for barley seeds but also for various crops including rice, lettuce, oat, and wheat, and thus supporting the fact that the performance benefits of this technique is generic. We propose that constructing and utilizing such synthetic data can be a powerful method to alleviate human labor costs needed to prepare the training dataset for deep learning in the agricultural domain.

bioinformatics↗

bioRxiv2019

Rapid evolution of antiviral APOBEC3 genes driven by the conflicts with ancient retroviruses

The evolution of antiviral genes has been fundamentally shaped by antagonistic interactions with ancestral viruses. The AID/APOBEC family genes (AID and APOBEC1-4) encode cellular cytosine deaminases that target nucleic acids and catalyze C-to-U mutations. In the case of retroviral replication, APOBEC3 proteins induce C-to-U mutations in minus-stranded viral DNA, which results in G-to-A mutations in the viral genome. Previous studies have indicated that the expansion and rapid evolution of mammalian APOBEC3 genes has been driven by an arms race with retroviral parasites, but this has not been thoroughly investigated. Endogenous retroviruses (ERVs) are retrotransposons originated from ancient retroviral infections. These sequences sometimes bear the hallmarks of APOBEC3-mediated mutations, and therefore serve as a record of the ancient conflict between retroviruses and APOBEC3 genes. Here we systematically investigated the sequences of ERVs and APOBEC3 genes in mammals to reconstruct details of the evolutionary conflict between them. We identified 1,420 AID/APOBEC family genes in a comprehensive screen of mammalian genome. Of the AID/APOBEC family genes, APOBEC3 genes have been selectively amplified in mammalian genomes and disclose evidence of strong positive selection - whereas the catalytic domain was highly conserved across species, the structure loop 7, which recognizes viral DNA/RNA substrates, was shown to be evolving under strong positive selection. Although APOBEC3 genes have been amplified by tandem gene duplication in most mammalian lineages, the retrotransposition-mediated gene amplification was found in several mammals including New World monkeys and prosimian primates. Comparative analysis revealed that G-to-A mutations are accumulated in ERVs, and that the G-to-A mutation signatures on ERVs is concordant with the target preferences of APOBEC3 proteins. Importantly, the number of APOBEC3 genes was significantly correlated with the frequency of G-to-A mutations in ERVs, suggesting that the amplification of APOBEC3 genes led to stronger attacks on ERVs and/or their ancestral retroviruses by APOBEC3 proteins. Furthermore, the numbers of APOBEC3 genes and ERVs in mammalian genomes were positively correlated, and in primates, the timings of APOBEC3 gene amplification was concordant with that of ERV invasions. Our findings suggest that conflict with ancient retroviruses was a major selective pressure driving the rapid evolution of APOBEC3 genes in mammals.

evolutionary biology↗

bioRxiv2018

Gorilla APOBEC3 restricts SIVcpz and influences lentiviral evolution in great ape cross-species transmissions

Restriction factors including APOBEC3 family proteins have the potential prevent cross-species lentivirus transmissions. Such events as well as ensuing pathogenesis require the viral Vif protein to overcome/neutralize/degrade the APOBEC3 enzymes of the new host species. Previous investigations have focused on the molecular interaction between human APOBEC3s and HIV-1 Vif. However, the evolutionary interplay between lentiviruses and great ape (including human, chimpanzee and gorilla) APOBEC3s has not been fully investigated. Here we demonstrate that gorilla APOBEC3G plays a pivotal role in restricting lentiviral transmission from chimpanzee to gorilla. We also reveal that a sole amino acid substitution in Vif is sufficient to overcome the gorilla APOBEC3G-mediated species barrier. Moreover, the antiviral effects of gorilla APOBEC3D and APOBEC3F are considerably weaker than those of human and chimpanzee counterparts, which can result in the skewed evolution of great ape lentiviruses leading to HIV-1.\n\nHighlightsO_LISIVcpz requires M16E mutation in Vif to counteract gorilla A3G\nC_LIO_LIAcidic residue at position 16 of Vif is crucial to counteract gorilla A3G\nC_LIO_LIGorilla A3D and A3F poorly suppress lentiviral infectivity\nC_LIO_LISIVgor and related HIV-1s counteract human A3D and A3F independently of DRMR motif\nC_LI

microbiology↗

bioRxiv2017

The Anatomical Tracings of Lesions After Stroke (ATLAS) Dataset - Release 1.1

Stroke is the leading cause of adult disability worldwide, with up to two-thirds of individuals experiencing long-term disabilities. Large-scale neuroimaging studies have shown promise in identifying robust biomarkers (e.g., measures of brain structure) of long-term stroke recovery following rehabilitation. However, analyzing large rehabilitation-related datasets is problematic due to barriers in accurate stroke lesion segmentation. Manually-traced lesions are currently the gold standard for lesion segmentation on T1-weighted MRIs, but are labor intensive and require anatomical expertise. While algorithms have been developed to automate this process, the results often lack accuracy. Newer algorithms that employ machine-learning techniques are promising, yet these require large training datasets to optimize performance. Here we present ATLAS (Anatomical Tracings of Lesions After Stroke), an open-source dataset of 304 T1-weighted MRIs with manually segmented lesions and metadata. This large, diverse dataset can be used to train and test lesion segmentation algorithms and provides a standardized dataset for comparing the performance of different segmentation methods. We hope ATLAS release 1.1 will be a useful resource to assess and improve the accuracy of current lesion segmentation methods.

neuroscience↗