Project description:Triple Negative Breast Cancer (TNBC) is an aggressive subtype of breast cancer with high intra-tumoral heterogeneity, frequently resistant to treatment and no known targeted therapy available to improve patient outcomes. It has been hypothesized that the genomic architecture of a TNBC tumour evolves over time, both before, and during therapy, leading to therapy resistance and a high propensity to relapse. Whether this is an inherent property of the tumour or acquired over time is not well characterized. Despite this important clinical implication, limited studies have been carried out to unravel temporal evolution of TNBC over time. Herein, we report an OMICS based analysis of three TNBC patients who were longitudinally sampled during their treatment at different times of relapse. We recruited three TNBC patients at the time of their first relapse who were then followed-up through the course of their treatment. We obtained retrospective samples (tumour samples) from patient tumours at diagnosis (before neo-adjuvant chemotherapy - NACT) at surgery (post NACT) and prospectively sampled them at each subsequent relapse (tumour, blood plasma, and buffy coat) as determined by RECIST criteria. Tumor and buffy coat DNA were subjected to whole exome sequencing (WES) at 200x, and SNP arrays for copy number variation (CNV) analysis. RNA from tumour samples at relapse was subjected to whole transcriptome sequencing. Pathogenic germline BRCA1 variants identified in WES were validated using Sanger sequencing. 1084 somatic mutations identified in whole exome sequencing of all tumour tissues (n=13) from three patients, were subjected to a custom amplicon ultra-deep sequencing assay at 30,000X in their germline DNA (n=3), tumour DNA (n=10), and cfDNA from plasma samples at relapse (n=8). Copy number corrected allele frequencies, tumour ploidy, tumour purity, and ultra-deep sequencing assay derived variant allele frequencies were used to infer clonal and phylogenetic architecture of each patient as it evolved under selective pressure of therapy over time. Clonality analysis incorporating allele fractions from ultra-deep sequencing identified clones comprising of mutations that are present throughout the course of therapy which we term as founding clones and stem mutations respectively. Such founding clones comprising of stem mutations in all 3 patients were present throughout the course of treatment, irrespective of change in treatment modalities. These stem clones included well characterized cancer related genes like PDGFRB & ARID2 (Patient 02), TP53, BRAF & CSF3R (Patient 04) and ESR1, APC, EZH2 & TP53 (Patient 07). Such branching evolution is seen in all three patients wherein the dominant clone (stem clone) acquires additional mutations to form sub-clones, while persisting over time. These sub-clones may be chemo and radio resistant, while also providing for organ specific metastatic potential. Allele fractions of expressed variants inferred from RNA-Seq data co-related with allele fractions from WES data indicating that all somatic.

Project description:The host response of the primary intestinal epithelium to human astrovirus (HAstV infection has not been elucidated to date. In order to characterize the global effects of AstV infection on human intestinal tissue, we performed transcriptional profiling of VA1-infected human intestinal enteroids (HIE) by RNAseq. We used the D124 line for our studies since AstV infections are typically symptomatic in very young children, and our prior infection studies indicated rapid infection in D124. D124 HIE were mock-infected or infected with VA1 (MOI = 1) and harvested at 0 hpi (i.e., 1h post-adsorption), 12 hpi, and 24 hpi (Fig 4A). To monitor viral replication, VA1 genome copies were detected by RT-qPCR, revealing an approximately 1 and 2 log increase at 12 and 24 hpi, respectively (Fig 4B). Cellular RNA was extracted and analyzed by RNAseq. Genome copies as determined by RT-qPCR were correlated to the proportion of viral transcripts in the pool of sequenced RNA collected from the same HIE cultures, revealing an exceptionally strong correlation between the two measures of viral replication (r2 = 0.98, P = 2.5 x 10^-14. VA1 genome reads contributed 0.05 ± 0.02 x% of total RNAseq reads at 24 hpi, further confirming robust infection. Differential expression analysis was performed to identify genes associated with the HIE host response to VA1 infection. A total of 23,220 genes were detected. Differential expression of genes at each timepoint was graphed in a volcano plot. The log2 fold change in normalized expression (transcripts per million reads [TPM]) of all expressed host genes in VA1-infected HIEs relative to mock-infected HIE is shown on the x-axis. The -log10 transformed P-value is given on the y-axis. Genes that are significantly up-regulated (adjusted P < 0.05) in VA1-infected D124 HIE relative to mock-infected HIE are colored red, while significantly down-regulated genes are colored blue. Overall, after a 1 hour adsorption (0 hpi), 110 genes were significantly upregulated and 136 genes were downregulated , indicating changes due to viral attachment to cells. This number was reduced at 12 hpi, with 8 significantly upregulated and 5 downregulated genes. At 24 hpi, 154 upregulated and 49 downregulated genes compared to the mock-infected control were identified. We next identified the top 15 significantly up- and down-regulated genes at 24 hpi. This group of genes was used to generated a heatmap of the mean scaled fold-change (Z-score) in expression of each of them in virus-infected HIE relative to mock-infected HIE at each timepoint (Fig 4D). Most of the upregulated genes at 24 hpi were involved in type I and type III interferon (IFN) signaling. Of the IFN genes, IFNL1 was highly upregulated, with IFNA1 and IFNB1 upregulation being slightly lower (Fig S4B). No upregulation was observed for the genes encoding IFN-γ, or the type I and III IFN receptors (data not shown). The top 12 IFN-stimulated genes (ISGs) also positively correlated with VA1 infection (Fig S4C). Conversely, the top 12 downregulated genes, including fermitin family member 1 (FERMT1), signal peptide peptidase like 3 (SPPL3), and tetratricopeptide repeat domain 19 (TTC19) negatively correlated with VA1 infection (Fig S4D). Next, we evaluated lists of the top 100 up- and down-regulated genes at 24 hpi using an over-abundance test to identify significantly over-represented REACTOME pathways in these lists. These data revealed that the top four significantly enriched pathways among upregulated genes were all related to innate antiviral signaling (Fig 4E), which will be investigated in more detail below. For downregulated genes, the top two pathways were “neurexins and neuroligins”, which play signaling roles in synapse development, and “protein-protein interactions at synapses”. The biological significance of synapses during astrovirus infection remains to be elucidated. In order to evaluate the potential for coordinated and directional activation of genes in known signaling pathways, we applied gene set enrichment analysis (GSEA) to our RNAseq differential expression data. Based on the strong dominance of IFN signaling pathways, we focused our GSEA analysis on immune signaling (Fig 4F). During the adsorption phase, nucleic acid pattern recognition receptor signaling pathways (TLRs, STING) were upregulated, consistent with their early role in virus recognition and induction of IFN signaling. At 24 hpi, these early signaling events had been largely replaced by the later phase of IFN signaling and expression of ISGs. Taken together, these data indicate that VA1 infection predominantly elicited antiviral IFN signaling in HIE-derived fetal duodenum at the transcript level.

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Copy number analysis of Gestational Trophoblastic Disease

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