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At least 199 records · Page 11

High-quality Acinetobacter genomes recovered from combat wounds via metagenomic sequencing resemble cultured isolate genomes

The ability to accurately characterize wound pathogens is critical to informing clinical decisions for wound infections with complex treatment requirements. Acinetobacter baumannii is an impactful nosocomial pathogen in combat wounds and civilian hospital-acquired infections. An informed understanding of the phylogenetics and epidemiology of A. baumannii infections in military and civilian environments could guide approaches that improve antibiotic treatment regimens for both military and civilian patients. Whole-genome data for bacterial strains can be difficult to obtain due to challenges in culturing isolates from preserved military specimens. Metagenomic sequencing and assembly create opportunities for genomic analysis of pathogens directly from clinical specimens. The ability to perform comparative analyses between metagenome-derived genomes and culture-derived genomes would support a range of comparative bacterial genomic studies. Wound tissue biopsy and effluent samples from combat injuries were subjected to metagenomic sequencing and assembly. In total, 42 microbial metagenome-assembled genomes (MAGs) were obtained directly from metagenomic sequence data, 36 of which were designated “high” quality. Thirty of these genomes corresponded to Acinetobacter, with 29 mapping specifically to A. baumannii. Other observed genera included Bordetella, Citrobacter, Escherichia, and Pseudomonas. Single-copy and multi-copy orthologs were identified across Acinetobacter MAGs and publicly available isolate genomes derived from military and civilian sources. Both MAG and military isolate genomes were annotated with antimicrobial resistance data, and MAG genomes were statistically comparable to genomes obtained from isolates. Our results highlight the potential of de novo metagenome assembly for enabling high-resolution characterization directly from clinical specimens, thereby improving diagnostic precision, guiding antimicrobial stewardship, and enhancing understanding of pathogen evolution across diverse healthcare and battlefield environments.

Acinetobacter baumannii↗

A Preferences Corpus and Annotation Scheme for Human-Guided Alignment of Time-Series GPTs

The process of time-series forecasting such as predicting trajectories of silicon content in blast furnaces is a difficult task. Most time-series approaches today focus on scalar-type MSE loss optimization. This optimization approach, while widely common, could benefit from the use of human expert or process-level preferences. In this paper, we introduce a novel alignment and fine-tuning approach that involves learning from a corpus of preferred and dis-preferred time-series prediction trajectories. Our contributions include (1) a preference annotation pipeline for time-series forecasts, (2) the application of Score-based Preference Optimization (SPO) to train decoder-only transformers from preferences, and (3) results showing improvements in forecast quality. The approach is validated on both proprietary blast furnace data and the UCI Appliances Energy dataset. The proposed preference corpus and training strategy offer a new option for fine-tuning sequence models in industrial settings.

DPO↗

Single-cell chromatin accessibility and cis -regulatory element analyses in plants using the scPlantReg platform

Understanding gene regulation is fundamental to plant improvement, but the lack of plant-specific single-cell assay for transposase-accessible chromatin using sequencing (scATAC-seq) frameworks and cross-species databases has limited insights into cell-type-specific cellular regulation. Here we present ‘scPlantReg’, an integrated framework and database for plant scATAC-seq data. scPlantReg supports end-to-end analyses from raw data processing to biological interpretation and features ‘scATACtor’, a supervised machine-learning approach that outperforms existing tools for cell-type annotation. We applied scPlantReg to pearl millet to characterize cell-type-specific chromatin accessibility and identify validated activating and repressing accessible chromatin regions (ACRs), revealing WRKY transcription factors as potential regulators of xylem development. Furthermore, we reanalysed scATAC-seq datasets from 8 plant species, spanning 11 tissues and multiple developmental stages, enabling cross-species comparisons. Furthermore, these analyses uncovered conserved regulatory programmes, including AP2/EREBP-associated ACRs linked to cell wall development and cell-type-conserved TFs across grasses. Collectively, scPlantReg provides a general framework and resource for comparative regulatory analysis in plants.

Epigenomics↗

Predicting promoters in phage genomes using PhagePromoter

Abstract Summary The growing interest in phages as antibacterial agents has led to an increase in the number of sequenced phage genomes, increasing the need for intuitive bioinformatics tools for performing genome annotation. The identification of phage promoters is indeed the most difficult step of this process. Due to the lack of online tools for phage promoter prediction, we developed PhagePromoter, a tool for locating promoters in phage genomes, using machine learning methods. This is the first online tool for predicting promoters that uses phage promoter data and the first to identify both host and phage promoters with different motifs. Availability and implementation This tool was integrated in the Galaxy framework and it is available online at: https://bit.ly/2Dfebfv. Supplementary information Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.

Sampaio, Marta↗

COMPILE: a GWAS computational pipeline for gene discovery in complex genomes

Abstract Background Genome-Wide Association Studies (GWAS) are used to identify genes and alleles that contribute to quantitative traits in large and genetically diverse populations. However, traits with complex genetic architectures create an enormous computational load for discovery of candidate genes with acceptable statistical certainty. We developed a streamlined computational pipeline for GWAS (COMPILE) to accelerate identification and annotation of candidate maize genes associated with a quantitative trait, and then matches maize genes to their closest rice and Arabidopsis homologs by sequence similarity. Results COMPILE executed GWAS using a Mixed Linear Model that incorporated, without compression, recent advancements in population structure control, then linked significant Quantitative Trait Loci (QTL) to candidate genes and RNA regulatory elements contained in any genome. COMPILE was validated using published data to identify QTL associated with the traits of α-tocopherol biosynthesis and flowering time, and identified published candidate genes as well as additional genes and non-coding RNAs. We then applied COMPILE to 274 genotypes of the maize Goodman Association Panel to identify candidate loci contributing to resistance of maize stems to penetration by larvae of the European Corn Borer ( Ostrinia nubilalis ). Candidate genes included those that encode a gene of unknown function, WRKY and MYB-like transcriptional factors, receptor-kinase signaling, riboflavin synthesis, nucleotide-sugar interconversion, and prolyl hydroxylation. Expression of the gene of unknown function has been associated with pathogen stress in maize and in rice homologs closest in sequence identity. Conclusions The relative speed of data analysis using COMPILE allowed comparison of population size and compression. Limitations in population size and diversity are major constraints for a trait and are not overcome by increasing marker density. COMPILE is customizable and is readily adaptable for application to species with robust genomic and proteome databases.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗

Deeplasmid: deep learning accurately separates plasmids from bacterial chromosomes

Plasmids are mobile genetic elements that play a key role in microbial ecology and evolution by mediating horizontal transfer of important genes, such as antimicrobial resistance genes. Many microbial genomes have been sequenced by short read sequencers and have resulted in a mix of contigs that derive from plasmids or chromosomes. New tools that accurately identify plasmids are needed to elucidate new plasmid-borne genes of high biological importance. We have developed Deeplasmid, a deep learning tool for distinguishing plasmids from bacterial chromosomes based on the DNA sequence and its encoded biological data. It requires as input only assembled sequences generated by any sequencing platform and assembly algorithm and its runtime scales linearly with the number of assembled sequences. Deeplasmid achieves an AUC–ROC of over 89%, and it was more accurate than five other plasmid classification methods. Finally, as a proof of concept, we used Deeplasmid to predict new plasmids in the fish pathogen Yersinia ruckeri ATCC 29473 that has no annotated plasmids. Deeplasmid predicted with high reliability that a long assembled contig is part of a plasmid. Using long read sequencing we indeed validated the existence of a 102 kb long plasmid, demonstrating Deeplasmid's ability to detect novel plasmids.

59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES↗

FUSARIUM-ID v.3.0: An Updated, Downloadable Resource for Fusarium Species Identification

Species within Fusarium are of global agricultural, medical, and food/feed safety concern and have been extensively characterized. However, accurate identification of species is challenging and usually requires DNA sequence data. FUSARIUM-ID ( http://isolate.fusariumdb.org/blast.php ) is a publicly available database designed to support the identification of Fusarium species using sequences of multiple phylogenetically informative loci, especially the highly informative ~680-bp 5' portion of the translation elongation factor 1-alpha (TEF1) gene that has been adopted as the primary barcoding locus in the genus. However, FUSARIUM-ID v.1.0 and 2.0 had several limitations, including inconsistent metadata annotation for the archived sequences and poor representation of some species complexes and marker loci. Here, we present FUSARIUM-ID v.3.0, which provides the following improvements: (i) additional and updated annotation of metadata for isolates associated with each sequence, (ii) expanded taxon representation in the TEF1 sequence database, (iii) availability of the sequence database as a downloadable file to enable local BLAST queries, and (iv) a tutorial file for users to perform local BLAST searches using either freely available software, such as SequenceServer, BLAST+ executable in the command line, and Galaxy, or the proprietary Geneious software. FUSARIUM-ID will be updated on a regular basis by archiving sequences of TEF1 and other loci from newly identified species and greater in-depth sampling of currently recognized species.

Plant Sciences↗

Backbone chemical shift assignments and secondary structure analysis of the U1 protein from the Bas-Congo virus

The Bas-Congo virus (BASV) is the first rhabdovirus associated with a human outbreak of acute hemorrhagic fever. The single-stranded, negative-sense RNA genome of BASV contains the five core genes present in all rhabdoviral genomes plus an additional three genes, annotated U1, U2, and U3, with weak (<21%) sequence similarity only to a handful of genes observed in a few other rhabdoviral genomes. The function of the rhabdoviral U proteins is unknown, but, they are hypothesized to play a role in viral infection or replication. To better understand this unique family of proteins, a construct containing residues 27–203 of the 216-residue U1 protein (BASV-U1*) was prepared. By collecting data in 0.5 M urea it was possible to eliminate transient association enough to enable the assignment of most of the observable 1 H N , 1 Hα, 15 N, 13 Cα, 13 Cβ, and 13 C´ chemical shifts for BASV-U1* that will provide a foundation to study its solution properties. Here, the analyses of these chemical shifts along with 15 N-edited NOESY data enabled the identification of the elements of secondary structure present in BASV-U1*.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗

Improved exome prioritization of disease genes through cross-species phenotype comparison

Numerous new disease-gene associations have been identified by whole-exome sequencing studies in the last few years. However, many cases remain unsolved due to the sheer number of candidate variants remaining after common filtering strategies such as removing low quality and common variants and those deemed unlikely to be pathogenic (non-coding, not affecting splicing, synonymous or missense mutations annotated as non-pathogenic by prediction algorithms). The observation that each of our genomes contains about 100 genuine loss of function variants with ~20 genes completely inactivated makes identification of the causative mutation problematic when using these strategies alone. In some cases it may be possible to use multiple affected individuals, linkage data, identity-by-descent inference, de novo heterozygous mutations from trio analysis, or prior knowledge of affected pathways to narrow down to the causative variant. In cases where this is not possible or has proven unsuccessful we propose using the wealth of genotype to phenotype data that already exists from model organism studies to assess the potential impact of these exome variants. Here, we introduce PHenotypic Interpretation of Variants in Exomes (PHIVE), an algorithm that integrates the calculation of phenotype similarity between human diseases and genetically modified mouse models with evaluation of the variants according to allele frequency, pathogenicity and mode of inheritance approaches in our Exomiser tool. Large-scale validation of PHIVE analysis using 100,000 exomes containing known mutations demonstrated a substantial improvement (up to 54.1 fold) over purely variant-based (frequency and pathogenicity) methods with the correct gene recalled as the top hit in up to 83% of samples, corresponding to an area under the ROC curve of over 95%. We conclude that incorporation of phenotype data can play a vital role in translational bioinformatics and propose that exome sequencing projects should systematically capture clinical phenotypes to take advantage of the strategy presented here.

59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES↗

Likelihood-based gene annotations for gap filling and quality assessment in genome-scale metabolic models

Genome-scale metabolic models provide a powerful means to harness information from genomes to deepen biological insights. With exponentially increasing sequencing capacity, there is an enormous need for automated reconstruction techniques that can provide more accurate models in a short time frame. Current methods for automated metabolic network reconstruction rely on gene and reaction annotations to build draft metabolic networks and algorithms to fill gaps in these networks. However, automated reconstruction is hampered by database inconsistencies, incorrect annotations, and gap filling largely without considering genomic information. Here we develop an approach for applying genomic information to predict alternative functions for genes and estimate their likelihoods from sequence homology. We show that computed likelihood values were significantly higher for annotations found in manually curated metabolic networks than those that were not. We then apply these alternative functional predictions to estimate reaction likelihoods, which are used in a new gap filling approach called likelihood-based gap filling to predict more genomically consistent solutions. To validate the likelihood-based gap filling approach, we applied it to models where essential pathways were removed, finding that likelihood-based gap filling identified more biologically relevant solutions than parsimony-based gap filling approaches. We also demonstrate that models gap filled using likelihood-based gap filling provide greater coverage and genomic consistency with metabolic gene functions compared to parsimony-based approaches. Interestingly, despite these findings, we found that likelihoods did not significantly affect consistency of gap filled models with Biolog and knockout lethality data. This indicates that the phenotype data alone cannot necessarily be used to discriminate between alternative solutions for gap filling and therefore, that the use of other information is necessary to obtain a more accurate network. All described workflows are implemented as part of the DOE Systems Biology Knowledgebase (KBase) and are publicly available via API or command-line web interface.

59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES↗

De novo transcriptome assembly databases for the central nervous system of the medicinal leech

The study of non-model organisms stands to benefit greatly from genetic and genomic data. For a better understanding of the molecular mechanisms driving neuronal development, and to characterize the entire leech Hirudo medicinalis central nervous system (CNS) transcriptome we combined Trinity for de-novo assembly and Illumina HiSeq2000 for RNA-Seq. We present a set of 73,493 de-novo assembled transcripts for the leech, reconstructed from RNA collected, at a single ganglion resolution, from the CNS. This set of transcripts greatly enriches the available data for the leech. Here, we share two databases, such that each dataset allows a different type of search for candidate homologues. The first is the raw set of assembled transcripts. This set allows a sequence-based search. A comprehensive analysis of which revealed 22,604 contigs with high e-values, aligned versus the Swiss-Prot database. This analysis enabled the production of the second database, which includes correlated sequences to annotated transcript names, with the confidence of BLAST best hit.

59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES↗

The Catalytic Site Atlas 2.0: cataloging catalytic sites and residues identified in enzymes

Understanding which are the catalytic residues in an enzyme and what function they perform is crucial to many biology studies, particularly those leading to new therapeutics and enzyme design. The original version of the Catalytic Site Atlas (CSA) (http://www.ebi.ac.uk/thornton-srv/databases/CSA) published in 2004, which catalogs the residues involved in enzyme catalysis in experimentally determined protein structures, had only 177 curated entries and employed a simplistic approach to expanding these annotations to homologous enzyme structures. Here we present a new version of the CSA (CSA 2.0), which greatly expands the number of both curated (968) and automatically annotated catalytic sites in enzyme structures, utilizing a new method for annotation transfer. The curated entries are used, along with the variation in residue type from the sequence comparison, to generate 3D templates of the catalytic sites, which in turn can be used to find catalytic sites in new structures. To ease the transfer of CSA annotations to other resources a new ontology has been developed: the Enzyme Mechanism Ontology, which has permitted the transfer of annotations to Mechanism, Annotation and Classification in Enzymes (MACiE) and UniProt Knowledge Base (UniProtKB) resources. The CSA database schema has been re-designed and both the CSA data and search capabilities are presented in a new modern web interface.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗

Genome Sequence and Analysis of the Flavinogenic Yeast Candida membranifaciens IST 626

The ascomycetous yeast Candida membranifaciens has been isolated from diverse habitats, including humans, insects, and environmental sources, exhibiting a remarkable ability to use different carbon sources that include pentoses, melibiose, and inulin. In this study, we isolated four C. membranifaciens strains from soil and investigated their potential to overproduce riboflavin. C. membranifaciens IST 626 was found to produce the highest concentrations of riboflavin. The volumetric production of this vitamin was higher when C. membranifaciens IST 626 cells were cultured in a commercial medium without iron and when xylose was the available carbon source compared to the same basal medium with glucose. Supplementation of the growth medium with 2 g/L glycine favored the metabolization of xylose, leading to biomass increase and consequent enhancement of riboflavin volumetric production that reached 120 mg/L after 216 h of cultivation. To gain new insights into the molecular basis of riboflavin production and carbon source utilization in this species, the first annotated genome sequence of C. membranifaciens is reported in this article, as well as the result of a comparative genomic analysis with other relevant yeast species. A total of 5619 genes were predicted to be present in C. membranifaciens IST 626 genome sequence (11.5 Mbp). Among them are genes involved in riboflavin biosynthesis, iron homeostasis, and sugar uptake and metabolism. This work put forward C. membranifaciens IST 626 as a riboflavin overproducer and provides valuable molecular data for future development of superior producing strains capable of using the wide range of carbon sources, which is a characteristic trait of the species.

59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES↗

A large sequenced mutant library – valuable reverse genetic resource that covers 98% of sorghum genes

SUMMARY Mutant populations are crucial for functional genomics and discovering novel traits for crop breeding. Sorghum , a drought and heat‐tolerant C4 species, requires a vast, large‐scale, annotated, and sequenced mutant resource to enhance crop improvement through functional genomics research. Here, we report a sorghum large‐scale sequenced mutant population with 9.5 million ethyl methane sulfonate (EMS)‐induced mutations that covered 98% of sorghum's annotated genes using inbred line BTx623. Remarkably, a total of 610 320 mutations within the promoter and enhancer regions of 18 000 and 11 790 genes, respectively, can be leveraged for novel research of cis ‐regulatory elements. A comparison of the distribution of mutations in the large‐scale mutant library and sorghum association panel (SAP) provides insights into the influence of selection. EMS‐induced mutations appeared to be random across different regions of the genome without significant enrichment in different sections of a gene, including the 5′ UTR, gene body, and 3′‐UTR. In contrast, there were low variation density in the coding and UTR regions in the SAP. Based on the K a / K s value, the mutant library (~1) experienced little selection, unlike the SAP (0.40), which has been strongly selected through breeding. All mutation data are publicly searchable through SorbMutDB ( https://www.depts.ttu.edu/igcast/sorbmutdb.php ) and SorghumBase ( https://sorghumbase.org/ ). This current large‐scale sequence‐indexed sorghum mutant population is a crucial resource that enriched the sorghum gene pool with novel diversity and a highly valuable tool for the Poaceae family, that will advance plant biology research and crop breeding.

59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES↗

Temporal regularization of ultrasound-based liver motion estimation for image-guided radiation therapy

Purpose: Ultrasound-based motion estimation is an expanding subfield of image-guided radiation therapy. Although ultrasound can detect tissue motion that is a fraction of a millimeter, its accuracy is variable. For controlling linear accelerator tracking and gating, ultrasound motion estimates must remain highly accurate throughout the imaging sequence. This study presents a temporal regularization method for correlation-based template matching which aims to improve the accuracy of motion estimates. Methods: Liver ultrasound sequences (15–23 Hz imaging rate, 2.5–5.5 min length) from ten healthy volunteers under free breathing were used. Anatomical features (blood vessels) in each sequence were manually annotated for comparison with normalized cross-correlation based template matching. Five sequences from a Siemens Acuson™ scanner were used for algorithm development (training set). Results from incremental tracking (IT) were compared with a temporal regularization method, which included a highly specific similarity metric and state observer, known as the α–β filter/similarity threshold (ABST). A further five sequences from an Elekta Clarity™ system were used for validation, without alteration of the tracking algorithm (validation set). Results: Overall, the ABST method produced marked improvements in vessel tracking accuracy. For the training set, the mean and 95th percentile (95%) errors (defined as the difference from manual annotations) were 1.6 and 1.4 mm, respectively (compared to 6.2 and 9.1 mm, respectively, for IT). For each sequence, the use of the state observer leads to improvement in the 95% error. For the validation set, the mean and 95% errors for the ABST method were 0.8 and 1.5 mm, respectively. Conclusions: Ultrasound-based motion estimation has potential to monitor liver translation over long time periods with high accuracy. Nonrigid motion (strain) and the quality of the ultrasound data are likely to have an impact on tracking performance. A future study will investigate spatial uniformity of motion and its effect on the motion estimation errors.

61 RADIATION PROTECTION AND DOSIMETRY↗

Beyond microbial abundance: metadata integration enhances disease prediction in human microbiome studies

Multiple studies have highlighted the interaction of the human microbiome with physiological systems such as the gut, immune, liver, and skin, via key axes. Advances in sequencing technologies and high-performance computing have enabled the analysis of large-scale metagenomic data, facilitating the use of machine learning to predict disease likelihood from microbiome profiles. However, challenges such as compositionality, high dimensionality, sparsity, and limited sample sizes have hindered the development of actionable models. One strategy to improve these models is by incorporating key metadata from both the human host and sample collection/processing protocols. This remains challenging due to sparsity and inconsistency in metadata annotation and availability. In this paper, we introduce a machine learning-based pipeline for predicting human disease states by integrating host and protocol metadata with microbiome abundance profiles from 68 different studies, processed through a consistent pipeline. Our findings indicate that metadata can enhance machine learning predictions, particularly at higher taxonomic ranks like Kingdom and Phylum, though this effect diminishes at lower ranks. Our study leverages a large collection of microbiome datasets comprising 11,208 samples, therefore enhancing the robustness and statistical confidence of our findings. This work is a critical step toward utilizing microbiome and metadata for predicting diseases such as gastrointestinal infections, diabetes, cancer, and neurological disorders.

Mathematics and Computing↗

Integrative analysis of large scale transcriptome data draws a comprehensive landscape of Phaeodactylum tricornutum genome and evolutionary origin of diatoms

Diatoms are one of the most successful and ecologically important groups of eukaryotic phytoplankton in the modern ocean. Deciphering their genomes is a key step towards better understanding of their biological innovations, evolutionary origins, and ecological underpinnings. Here, we have used 90 RNA-Seq datasets from different growth conditions combined with published expressed sequence tags and protein sequences from multiple taxa to explore the genome of the model diatom Phaeodactylum tricornutum, and introduce 1,489 novel genes. The new annotation additionally permitted the discovery of extensive alternative splicing in diatoms, including intron retention and exon skipping, which increase the diversity of transcripts generated in changing environments. In addition, we have used up-to-date reference sequence libraries to dissect the taxonomic origins of diatom genes. We show that the P. tricornutum genome is enriched in lineage-specific genes, with up to 47% of the gene models present only possessing orthologues in other stramenopile groups. Finally, we have performed a comprehensive de novo annotation of repetitive elements showing novel classes of transposable elements such as SINE, MITE and TRIM/LARD. This work provides a solid foundation for future studies of diatom gene function, evolution and ecology.

59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES↗

Multiomic atlas with functional stratification and developmental dynamics of zebrafish cis -regulatory elements

Zebrafish, a popular organism for studying embryonic development and for modeling human diseases, has so far lacked a systematic functional annotation program akin to those in other animal models. To address this, we formed the international DANIO-CODE consortium and created a central repository to store and process zebrafish developmental functional genomic data. Our data coordination center (https://danio-code.zfin.org) combines a total of 1,802 sets of unpublished and re-analyzed published genomic data, which we used to improve existing annotations and show its utility in experimental design. We identified over 140,000 cis-regulatory elements throughout development, including classes with distinct features dependent on their activity in time and space. We delineated the distinct distance topology and chromatin features between regulatory elements active during zygotic genome activation and those active during organogenesis. Finally, we matched regulatory elements and epigenomic landscapes between zebrafish and mouse and predicted functional relationships between them beyond sequence similarity, thus extending the utility of zebrafish developmental genomics to mammals.

59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES↗