Biology subjects

Tabak, B.

Publications and source records attributed to Tabak, B..

3 recordsLinked to original sources

bioRxiv2025

Generation of Region-specific Airway Basal Stem Cells from Human Pluripotent Stem Cells via Regulation of BMP-NOGGIN Axis

Basal cells (BCs) are the primary stem cell population of adult human airways and a key target for hPSC-based models of airway development, disease and regenerative medicine. Recent studies have revealed substantial regional differences between human proximal and distal airway cell types, including BCs. Here, we show that the NOGGIN-BMP signaling axis governs proximal-distal patterning of hPSC-derived lung progenitors leading to the generation of region-specific induced BCs (iBCs). Continuous BMP inhibition through NOGGIN, coupled with tapered WNT activation, generates proximal iBCs that molecularly and functionally resemble human proximal airway BCs and differentiate in vitro and in vivo into the full repertoire of specialized proximal airway cell types, including ionocytes and pulmonary neuroendocrine cells. In sharp contrast, BMP activation with tapered WNT generates distal airway-like cells and distal BCs with limited ionocyte differentiation potential. Progeny of proximal iBCs derived from G551D CFTR mutant hiPSCs also recapitulate a cystic fibrosis-associated ionocyte phenotype.

cell biology↗

bioRxiv2019

The Tangent copy-number inference pipeline for cancer genome analyses

MotivationSomatic copy-number alterations (SCNAs) play an important role in cancer development. Systematic noise in sequencing and array data present a significant challenge to the inference of SCNAs for cancer genome analyses. As part of The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA), the Broad Institute Genome Characterization Center developed the Tangent copy-number inference pipeline to generate copy-number profiles using single-nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) array and whole-exome sequencing (WES) data from over 10,000 pairs of tumors and matched normal samples. Here, we describe the Tangent pipeline, which begins with DNA sequencing data in the form of .bam files or raw SNP array probe-level intensity data, and ends with segmented copy-number calls to facilitate the identification of novel genes potentially targeted by SCNAs. We also describe a modification of Tangent, Pseudo-Tangent, which enables denoising through comparisons between tumor profiles when few normal samples are available.\n\nResultsTangent Normalization offers substantial signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) improvements compared to conventional normalization methods in both SNP array and WES analyses. The improvement in SNRs is achieved primarily through noise reduction with minimal effect on signal. Pseudo-Tangent also reduces noise when few normal samples are available. Tangent and Pseudo-Tangent are broadly applicable and enable more accurate inference of SCNAs from DNA sequencing and array data.\n\nAvailability and ImplementationTangent is available at https://github.com/coyin/tangent and as a Docker image (https://hub.docker.com/r/coyin/tangent). Tangent is also the normalization method for the Copy Number pipeline in Genome Analysis Toolkit 4 (GATK4).\n\nContactmatthew_meyerson@dfci.harvard.edu, rameen@broadinstitute.org, gadgetz@broadinstitute.org

bioinformatics↗

bioRxiv2017

Higher-order inter-chromosomal hubs shape 3-dimensional genome organization in the nucleus

Eukaryotic genomes are packaged into a 3-dimensional structure in the nucleus of each cell. There are currently two distinct views of genome organization that are derived from different technologies. The first view, derived from genome-wide proximity ligation methods (e.g. Hi-C), suggests that genome organization is largely organized around chromosomes. The second view, derived from in situ imaging, suggests a central role for nuclear bodies. Yet, because microscopy and proximity-ligation methods measure different aspects of genome organization, these two views remain poorly reconciled and our overall understanding of how genomic DNA is organized within the nucleus remains incomplete. Here, we develop Split-Pool Recognition of Interactions by Tag Extension (SPRITE), which moves away from proximity-ligation and enables genome-wide detection of higher-order DNA interactions within the nucleus. Using SPRITE, we recapitulate known genome structures identified by Hi-C and show that the contact frequencies measured by SPRITE strongly correlate with the 3-dimensional distances measured by microscopy. In addition to known structures, SPRITE identifies two major hubs of inter-chromosomal interactions that are spatially arranged around the nucleolus and nuclear speckles, respectively. We find that the majority of genomic regions exhibit preferential spatial association relative to one of these nuclear bodies, with regions that are highly transcribed by RNA Polymerase II organizing around nuclear speckles and transcriptionally inactive and centromere-proximal regions organizing around the nucleolus. Together, our results reconcile the two distinct pictures of nuclear structure and demonstrate that nuclear bodies act as inter-chromosomal hubs that shape the overall 3-dimensional packaging of genomic DNA in the nucleus.

genomics↗