Interindividual variability of physiological components of growth in mussels Mytilus edulis (L.)

No abstracts are to be cited without prior reference to the author.Growth rates of bivalve molluscs exhibit a considerable degree of variability between individuals living under similar environmental conditions. A great deal of evidence also suggests that plasticity of underlying physiological processes can account for most this variability. Consequently, aims of this work were to use mussels (Mytilus edulis) that had experienced variable growth rates along their life span obtained by sorting individuals of a similar size but variable in age, in order to a) trying to correlate growth performance and energy budgets under a range of feeding conditions as well as identifying the physiological variables responsible for such differences in rates of growth, and b) to relate this physiological variability to underlying variability in morpho-funcional traits of gill and digestive gland as organs involved in food collectio

Importance of Genetic Studies in Consanguineous Populations for the Characterization of Novel Human Gene Functions.

Consanguineous offspring have elevated levels of homozygosity. Autozygous stretches within their genome are likely to harbour loss of function (LoF) mutations which will lead to complete inactivation or dysfunction of genes. Studying consanguineous offspring with clinical phenotypes has been very useful for identifying disease causal mutations. However, at present, most of the genes in the human genome have no disorder associated with them or have unknown function. This is presumably mostly due to the fact that homozygous LoF variants are not observed in outbred populations which are the main focus of large sequencing projects. However, another reason may be that many genes in the genome-even when completely "knocked out," do not cause a distinct or defined phenotype. Here, we discuss the benefits and implications of studying consanguineous populations, as opposed to the traditional approach of analysing a subset of consanguineous families or individuals with disease. We suggest that studying consanguineous populations "as a whole" can speed up the characterisation of novel gene functions as well as indicating nonessential genes and/or regions in the human genome. We also suggest designing a single nucleotide variant (SNV) array to make the process more efficient

Importance of Genetic Studies in Consanguineous Populations for the Characterization of Novel Human Gene Functions.

Consanguineous offspring have elevated levels of homozygosity. Autozygous stretches within their genome are likely to harbour loss of function (LoF) mutations which will lead to complete inactivation or dysfunction of genes. Studying consanguineous offspring with clinical phenotypes has been very useful for identifying disease causal mutations. However, at present, most of the genes in the human genome have no disorder associated with them or have unknown function. This is presumably mostly due to the fact that homozygous LoF variants are not observed in outbred populations which are the main focus of large sequencing projects. However, another reason may be that many genes in the genome-even when completely "knocked out," do not cause a distinct or defined phenotype. Here, we discuss the benefits and implications of studying consanguineous populations, as opposed to the traditional approach of analysing a subset of consanguineous families or individuals with disease. We suggest that studying consanguineous populations "as a whole" can speed up the characterisation of novel gene functions as well as indicating nonessential genes and/or regions in the human genome. We also suggest designing a single nucleotide variant (SNV) array to make the process more efficient

Additional file 1 of Barriers and facilitators to implementing a multilevel, multicomponent intervention promoting colorectal cancer screening in health centers: a qualitative study of key informant perspectives

Supplementary Material

Proxy Molecular Diagnosis from Whole-Exome Sequencing Reveals Papillon-Lefevre Syndrome Caused by a Missense Mutation in CTSC

Papillon-Lefevre syndrome (PLS) is an autosomal recessive disorder characterised by severe early onset periodontitis and palmoplantar hyperkeratosis. A previously reported missense mutation in the CTSC gene (NM_001814.4:c.899G>A:p.(G300D)) was identified in a homozygous state in two siblings diagnosed with PLS in a consanguineous family of Arabic ancestry. The variant was initially identified in a heterozygous state in a PLS unaffected sibling whose whole exome had been sequenced as part of a previous Primary ciliary dyskinesia study. Using this information, a proxy molecular diagnosis was made on the PLS affected siblings after consent was given to study this second disorder found to be segregating within the family. The prevalence of the mutation was then assayed in the local population using a representative sample of 256 unrelated individuals. The variant was absent in all subjects indicating that the variant is rare in Saudi Arabia. This family study illustrates how whole-exome sequencing can generate findings and inferences beyond its primary goal

Nonsense Mutation in Coiled-Coil Domain Containing 151 Gene (CCDC151) Causes Primary Ciliary Dyskinesia

Primary ciliary dyskinesia (PCD) is an autosomal-recessive disorder characterized by impaired ciliary function that leads to subsequent clinical phenotypes such as chronic sinopulmonary disease. PCD is also a genetically heterogeneous disorder with many single gene mutations leading to similar clinical phenotypes. Here, we present a novel PCD causal gene, coiled-coil domain containing 151 (CCDC151), which has been shown to be essential in motile cilia of many animals and other vertebrates but its effects in humans was not observed until currently. We observed a novel nonsense mutation in a homozygous state in the CCDC151 gene (NM_145045.4:c.925G>T:p.[E309*]) in a clinically diagnosed PCD patient from a consanguineous family of Arabic ancestry. The variant was absent in 238 randomly selected individuals indicating that the variant is rare and likely not to be a founder mutation. Our finding also shows that given prior knowledge from model organisms, even a single whole-exome sequence can be sufficient to discover a novel causal gene

Nonsense Mutation in Coiled-Coil Domain Containing 151 Gene (CCDC151) Causes Primary Ciliary Dyskinesia

Primary ciliary dyskinesia (PCD) is an autosomal-recessive disorder characterized by impaired ciliary function that leads to subsequent clinical phenotypes such as chronic sinopulmonary disease. PCD is also a genetically heterogeneous disorder with many single gene mutations leading to similar clinical phenotypes. Here, we present a novel PCD causal gene, coiled-coil domain containing 151 (CCDC151), which has been shown to be essential in motile cilia of many animals and other vertebrates but its effects in humans was not observed until currently. We observed a novel nonsense mutation in a homozygous state in the CCDC151 gene (NM_145045.4:c.925G>T:p.[E309*]) in a clinically diagnosed PCD patient from a consanguineous family of Arabic ancestry. The variant was absent in 238 randomly selected individuals indicating that the variant is rare and likely not to be a founder mutation. Our finding also shows that given prior knowledge from model organisms, even a single whole-exome sequence can be sufficient to discover a novel causal gene

HAPRAP: a haplotype-based iterative method for statistical fine mapping using GWAS summary statistics.

MOTIVATION: Fine mapping is a widely used approach for identifying the causal variant(s) at disease-associated loci. Standard methods (e.g. multiple regression) require individual level genotypes. Recent fine mapping methods using summary-level data require the pairwise correlation coefficients (r(2)) of the variants. However, haplotypes rather than pairwise r(2), are the true biological representation of linkage disequilibrium (LD) among multiple loci. In this paper, we present an empirical iterative method, HAPlotype Regional Association analysis Program (HAPRAP), that enables fine mapping using summary statistics and haplotype information from an individual-level reference panel. RESULTS: Simulations with individual-level genotypes show that the results of HAPRAP and multiple regression are highly consistent. In simulation with summary-level data, we demonstrate that HAPRAP is less sensitive to poor LD estimates. In a parametric simulation using Genetic Investigation of ANthropometric Traits (GIANT) height data, HAPRAP performs well with a small training sample size (N<2000) while other methods become suboptimal. Moreover, HAPRAP's performance is not affected substantially by SNPs with low minor allele frequencies. We applied the method to existing quantitative trait and binary outcome meta-analyses (human height, QTc interval and gallbladder disease); all previous reported association signals were replicated and two additional variants were independently associated with human height. Due to the growing availability of summary level data, the value of HAPRAP is likely to increase markedly for future analyses (e.g. functional prediction and identification of instruments for Mendelian randomization). AVAILABILITY: The HAPRAP package and documentation are available online: http://apps.biocompute.org.uk/haprap