Project description:A High Density Rice Array (HDRA) was developed as an Affymetrix Custom GeneChip Array by the McCouch Rice Lab at Cornell University. The HDRA assays 700,000 SNPs, or approximately one SNP every 0.54 Kb across the rice genome (genome size = 380 Mb). It was designed to capture most of the haplotype variation observed in a discovery panel consisting of 16M SNPs (generated by sequencing 125 rice genomes at ~7X genome coverage) and to maximize the inclusion of non-synonymous SNPs. Six probes per SNP target were designed as 3 A-allele and 3 B-allele probes at offsets from center ranging from -6 to +6. A small fraction of SNPs have only 4 probes (2-A, 2-B). For all SNPs, the “A” allele is the reference allele (Os-Nipponbare-Reference-IRGSP-1.0 assembly). Additionally, we designed 23,656 x 25-bp probes complimentary to invariant regions of the genome that were used to normalize systematic differences between samples. An estimated 45% of HDRA SNPs map within genes, hitting all 39,045 unique, non-TE rice gene models (MSUv7 rice genome annotation, GFF3 file, Feb. 7, 2012, http://rice.plantbiology.msu.edu/), while 55% of SNPs map to intergenic regions. Non-synonymous are found in 91% of unique, non-TE gene models, and 57% of genic SNPs are distributed within exons, 36% within introns, 5% within 5’ UTRs and 2% within 3’ UTRs. Of the intergenic SNPs, 40% are located in putative regulatory regions within 2 Kb of a transcriptional start site.
Project description:Breast cancer affects 1/8 of women throughout their lifetimes, with over 90% of cancer deaths being caused by metastasis. However, metastasis poses unique challenges to research, as complex changes in the microenvironment in different metastatic sites and difficulty obtaining tissue for study hinder the ability to examine in depth the changes that occur during metastasis. Rapid autopsy programs thus fill a unique need in advancing metastasis research. Here, we describe our protocol and processes for establishing and improving the US-based Hope for OTHERS (Our Tissue Helping Enhance Research and Science) program for organ donation in metastatic breast cancer. As of August 2024, we consented 114 patients and performed 37 autopsies, from which we collected 551 unique metastatic frozen tumor samples, 1244 FFPE blocks, 90 longitudinal liquid biopsy samples and developed 14 patient-derived organoid and 8 patient-derived xenograft models. We report in-depth clinical and histopathological information and discuss extensive new research and novel findings in patient outcomes, metastatic phylogeny, and factors in successful living model development. Our results reveal key logistical and protocol improvements that are uniquely beneficial to certain programs based on identifiable features, such as working closely with patient advocates, methods to rescue RNA quality in cases where tissue quality may degrade due to time delays, as well as guidelines and future expansions of our program.