Project description:Chromosomal rearrangements are prevalent events in the human population, occurring both constitutionally in the general population and somatically in the majority of cancers. Detection of balanced rearrangements, such as reciprocal translocations and inversions, is troublesome with many rearrangements remaining undetected. This is particularly detrimental in oncology where rearrangements play diagnostic and prognostic roles and can influence choice and efficacy of treatment protocols. New methods to detect and characterize balanced rearrangements are therefore required for both research and clinical applications. Here we describe the use of the chromosome conformation capture derived method Hi-C as a tool for detection of both balanced and unbalanced chromosomal rearrangements in cell lines and human tumor samples, with the ability to detect gene fusions and define chromosomal breakpoints to base pair resolution. In addition, we show that copy number information can also be obtained from the same data, allowing rearrangements, gains, amplifications and deletions of genomic regions to be detected in a single experiment.
Project description:Large scale analysis of balanced chromosomal translocation breakpoints has shown nonhomologous end joining and microhomology-mediated repair to be the main drivers of interchromosomal structural aberrations. Breakpoint sequences of de novo unbalanced translocations have not yet been investigated systematically. We analyzed 12 de novo translocations and mapped the breakpoints in 9. Surprisingly, in contrast to balanced translocations, we identify non-allelic homologous recombination (NAHR) between (retro)transposable elements and especially long interspersed elements (LINEs) as the main mutational mechanism. This finding implicates (retro)transposons to be a major driver of genomic rearrangements and exposes a profoundly different mutational mechanism compared to balanced chromosomal translocations. Furthermore, we show the existence of compound maternal/paternal derivative chromosomes, reinforcing the hypothesis that human cleavage stage embryogenesis is a cradle of chromosomal rearrangements.
Project description:Chromothripsis represents an extreme class of complex chromosome rearrangements (CCRs) with major effects on chromosomal architecture. Although recent studies have associated chromothripsis with congenital abnormalities, the incidence and pathogenic effects of this phenomenon require further investigation. Here, we analyzed the genomes of three families in which chromothripsis rearrangements were transmitted from a female carrier to her child. The chromothripsis in the carriers resulted in completely balanced rearrangements involving 8-23 breakpoint junctions across 3-5 chromosomes. Two carriers did not show any phenotypic malformations, although 3-13 protein coding genes were affected by breakpoints. Unbalanced but stable transmission of a subset of the derivative chromosomes caused apparently de novo complex copy number changes in two children. This resulted in gene dosage changes, which are likely responsible for their severe congenital phenotypes. In contrast, one patient with severe congenital disease, carried all three chromothripsis chromosomes from his healthy mother, but one of the chromosomes acquired de novo rearrangements leading to copy number changes. These results show that the human genome can tolerate extreme reshuffling of chromosomal architecture, including breakage of multiple protein coding genes, without noticeable phenotypic effects. The presence of chromothripsis in healthy carriers strongly affects reproduction and is expected to substantially increase the risk of spontaneous abortions and severe congenital disease.
Project description:Gene expression profiling of immortalized human mesenchymal stem cells with hTERT/E6/E7 transfected MSCs. hTERT may change gene expression in MSCs. Goal was to determine the gene expressions of immortalized MSCs.
Project description:Large scale analysis of balanced chromosomal translocation breakpoints has shown nonhomologous end joining and microhomology-mediated repair to be the main drivers of interchromosomal structural aberrations. Breakpoint sequences of de novo unbalanced translocations have not yet been investigated systematically. We analyzed 12 de novo translocations and mapped the breakpoints in 9. Surprisingly, in contrast to balanced translocations, we identify non-allelic homologous recombination (NAHR) between (retro)transposable elements and especially long interspersed elements (LINEs) as the main mutational mechanism. This finding implicates (retro)transposons to be a major driver of genomic rearrangements and exposes a profoundly different mutational mechanism compared to balanced chromosomal translocations. Furthermore, we show the existence of compound maternal/paternal derivative chromosomes, reinforcing the hypothesis that human cleavage stage embryogenesis is a cradle of chromosomal rearrangements. In total 36 non-amplified genomic DNA samples (12 patients plus parents) extracted from blood or amniocytes were analyzed by 250K Nsp I SNP arrays (GEO accession number GPL3718).
