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Biology subjects

Pendleton, M.

Publications and source records attributed to Pendleton, M..

3 recordsLinked to original sources

Break-induced replication underlies formation of inverted triplications and generates unexpected diversity in haplotype structures

BackgroundThe duplication-triplication/inverted-duplication (DUP-TRP/INV-DUP) structure is a type of complex genomic rearrangement (CGR) hypothesized to result from replicative repair of DNA due to replication fork collapse. It is often mediated by a pair of inverted low-copy repeats (LCR) followed by iterative template switches resulting in at least two breakpoint junctions in cis. Although it has been identified as an important mutation signature of pathogenicity for genomic disorders and cancer genomes, its architecture remains unresolved and is predicted to display at least four structural variation (SV) haplotypes. ResultsHere we studied the genomic architecture of DUP-TRP/INV-DUP by investigating the genomic DNA of 24 patients with neurodevelopmental disorders identified by array comparative genomic hybridization (aCGH) on whom we found evidence for the existence of 4 out of 4 predicted SV haplotypes. Using a combination of short-read genome sequencing (GS), long- read GS, optical genome mapping and StrandSeq the haplotype structure was resolved in 18 samples. This approach refined the point of template switching between inverted LCRs in 4 samples revealing a DNA segment of [~]2.2-5.5 kb of 100% nucleotide similarity. A prediction model was developed to infer the LCR used to mediate the non-allelic homology repair. ConclusionsThese data provide experimental evidence supporting the hypothesis that inverted LCRs act as a recombinant substrate in replication-based repair mechanisms. Such inverted repeats are particularly relevant for formation of copy-number associated inversions, including the DUP-TRP/INV-DUP structures. Moreover, this type of CGR can result in multiple conformers which contributes to generate diverse SV haplotypes in susceptible loci.

genetics↗

Nanopore sequencing of DNA concatemers reveals higher-order features of chromatin structure

Higher-order chromatin structure arises from the combinatorial physical interactions of many genomic loci. To investigate this aspect of genome architecture we developed Pore-C, which couples chromatin conformation capture with Oxford Nanopore Technologies (ONT) long reads to directly sequence multi-way chromatin contacts without amplification. In GM12878, we demonstrate that the pairwise interaction patterns implicit in Pore-C multi-way contacts are consistent with gold standard Hi-C pairwise contact maps at the compartment, TAD, and loop scales. In addition, Pore-C also detects higher-order chromatin structure at 18.5-fold higher efficiency and greater fidelity than SPRITE, a previously published higher-order chromatin profiling technology. We demonstrate Pore-Cs ability to detect and visualize multi-locus hubs associated with histone locus bodies and active / inactive nuclear compartments in GM12878. In the breast cancer cell line HCC1954, Pore-C contacts enable the reconstruction of complex and aneuploid rearranged alleles spanning multiple megabases and chromosomes. Finally, we apply Pore-C to generate a chromosome scale de novo assembly of the HG002 genome. Our results establish Pore-C as the most simple and scalable assay for the genome-wide assessment of combinatorial chromatin interactions, with additional applications for cancer rearrangement reconstruction and de novo genome assembly.

genomics↗

Assembly-free single-molecule nanopore sequencing recovers complete virus genomes from natural microbial communities

Viruses are the most abundant biological entities on Earth, and play key roles in host ecology, evolution, and horizontal gene transfer. Despite recent progress in viral metagenomics, the inherent genetic complexity of virus populations still poses technical difficulties for recovering complete virus genomes from natural assemblages. To address these challenges, we developed an assembly-free, single-molecule nanopore sequencing approach enabling direct recovery of high-quality viral genome sequences from environmental samples. Our method yielded over a thousand high quality, full-length draft virus genome sequences that could not be fully recovered using short read assembly approaches applied to the same samples. Additionally, novel DNA sequences were discovered whose repeat structures, gene contents and concatemer lengths suggested that they represent phage-inducible chromosomal islands that were packaged as concatemers within phage particles. Our new approach provided novel insight into genome structures, population biology, and ecology of naturally occurring viruses and viral parasites.

microbiology↗