Evaluating a subset of ancestry informative SNPs for discriminating among Southwest Asian and circum-Mediterranean populations

AbstractMany different published sets of single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) and/or insertion-deletion polymorphisms (InDels) can serve as ancestry informative markers (AIMs) to distinguish among continental regions of the world. For a focus on Southwest Asian ancestry we chose to start with the Kidd Lab panel of 55 ancestry-informative SNPs (AISNPs) because it already provided good global reference data (FROG-kb: frog.med.yale.edu) in a set of 73 population samples distinguishing at least 8 biogeographic clusters of populations. This panel serves as a good first tier ancestry panel. We are now interested in identifying region-specific second tier panels for more refined distinction among populations within each of the global regions. We have begun studying the global region centered on Southwest Asia and the region encompassing the Mediterranean Sea. We have incorporated 10 populations from North Africa, Turkey and Iran and included 31 of the original 73 populations and eleven 1000 Genomes Phase3 populations for a total of 3129 individuals from 52 populations, all typed for the 55 AISNPs. We have then identified the subset of the 55 AISNPs that are most informative for this region of the world using Heatmap, Fst, and Informativeness analyses to eliminate those SNPs essentially redundant or providing no information among populations in this region, reducing the number of SNPs to 32. STRUCTURE and PCA analyses show the remaining 32 SNPs identify the North African cluster and appropriately include the Turkish and Iranian samples with the Southwest Asian cluster. These markers provide the basis for building an improved, optimized panel of AISNPs that provides additional information on differences among populations in this part of the world. The data have also allowed an examination of the accuracy of the ancestry inference based on 32 SNPs for the newly studied populations from this region. The likelihood ratio approach to ancestry inference embodied in FROG-kb provides highly significant population assignments within one order of magnitude for each individual in the Turkish, Iranian, and Tunisian populations

Diagnostic and Prognostic Value of SCUBE-1 in COVID-19 Patients

Introduction: The workload of physicians increased due to the number of patients presenting with suspicion of coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) and the prolonged wait times in the emergency department during the COVID-19 pandemic. Signal peptide-CUB-EGF domain-containing protein 1 (SCUBE-1) is a protein present in platelets and endothelial cells; it is activated by inflammation from COVID-19 and may be associated with COVID-19’s known thrombotic risk. We aimed to determine whether SCUBE-1 levels are diagnostically correlated in suspected COVID-19 patients, and whether SCUBE-1 correlated with severity of disease and, therefore, might be useful to guide hospitalization/discharge decisions. Methods: The suspected COVID-19 patients cared for at tertiary healthcare institutions for one year between May 2021–May 2022 were examined in this study. The subjects were both suspected COVID-19 patients not ultimately found to have COVID-19 and those who were diagnosed with COVID-19. By modifying the disease severity scoring systems present in COVID-19 guidelines in 2021, the COVID-19-positive patient group was classified as mild, moderate, severe, and critical, and compared using the SCUBE-1 levels. Moreover, SCUBE-1 levels were compared between the COVID-19 positive group and the COVID-19 negative group. Results: A total of 507 patients were considered for the present study. After excluding 175 patients for incomplete data and alternate comorbid organ failure. we report on 332 patients (65.5%). Of these 332 patients, 80 (24.0%) were COVID-19 negative, and 252 (76.0%) were COVID-19 positive. Of 252 (100%) patients diagnosed with COVID-19, 74 (29.4%) were classified as mild, 95 (37.7%) moderate, 45 (17.8%) severe, and 38 (15.1%) critical. The SCUBE-1 levels were statistically different between COVID-19 positive (8.48 ± 7.42 nanograms per milliliter [ng/mL]) and COVID-19 negative (1.86 ± 0.92 ng/mL) patients (P < 0.001). In the COVID-19 positive group, SCUBE-1 levels increased with disease severity (mild = 3.20 ± 1.65 ng/mL, moderate = 4.78 ± 2.26 ng/mL, severe = 13.68 ± 3.95 ng/mL, and critical = 21.87 ± 5.39 ng/mL) (P < 0.001). The initial SCUBE-1 levels of discharged patients were significantly lower than those requiring hospitalization (discharged = 2.89 ng/mL [0.55–8.60 ng/mL]; ward admitted = 7.13 ng/mL [1.38–21.29 ng/mL], and ICU admitted = 21.19 ng/mL [10.58–37.86 ng/mL]) (P < 0.001). Conclusion: The SCUBE-1 levels were found to be differentiated between patients with and without COVID-19 and to be correlated with the severity of illness

Reproducibility of endometrial intraepithelial neoplasia diagnosis is good, but influenced by the diagnostic style of pathologists

Endometrial intraepithelial neoplasia (EIN) applies specific diagnostic criteria to designate a monoclonal endometrial preinvasive glandular proliferation known from previous studies to confer a 45-fold increased risk for endometrial cancer. In this international study we estimate accuracy and precision of EIN diagnosis among 20 reviewing pathologists in different practice environments, and with differing levels of experience and training. Sixty-two endometrial biopsies diagnosed as benign, EIN, or adenocarcinoma by consensus of two expert subspecialty pathologists were used as a reference comparison to assess diagnostic accuracy of 20 reviewing pathologists. Interobserver reproducibility among the 20 reviewers provided a measure of diagnostic precision. Before evaluating cases, observers were self-trained by reviewing published textbook and/or online EIN diagnostic guidelines. Demographics of the reviewing pathologists, and their impressions regarding implementation of EIN terminology were recorded. Seventy-nine percent of the 20 reviewing pathologists' diagnoses were exactly concordant with the expert consensus (accuracy). The interobserver weighted kappa values of 3-class EIN scheme (benign, EIN, carcinoma) diagnoses between expert consensus and each of reviewing pathologists averaged 0.72 (reproducibility, or precision). Reviewing pathologists demonstrated one of three diagnostic styles, which varied in the repertoire of diagnoses commonly used, and their nonrandom response to potentially confounding diagnostic features such as endometrial polyp, altered differentiation, background hormonal effects, and technically poor preparations. EIN diagnostic strategies can be learned and implemented from standard teaching materials with a high degree of reproducibility, but is impacted by the personal diagnostic style of each pathologist in responding to potential diagnostic confounders

Genetic relationships of European, Mediterranean, and SW Asian populations using a panel of 55 AISNPs

The set of 55 ancestry informative SNPs (AISNPs) originally developed by the Kidd Lab has been studied on a large number of populations and continues to be applied to new population samples. The existing reference database of population samples allows the relationships of new population samples to be inferred on a global level. Analyses show that these autosomal markers constitute one of the better panels of AISNPs. Continuing to build this reference database enhances its value. Because more than half of the 25 ethnic groups recently studied with these AISNPs are from Southwest Asia and the Mediterranean region, we present here various analyses focused on populations from these regions along with selected reference populations from nearby regions where genotype data are available. Many of these ethnic groups have not been previously studied for forensic markers. Data on populations from other world regions have also been added to the database but are not included in these focused analyses. The new population samples added to ALFRED and FROG-kb increase the total to 164 population samples that have been studied for all 55 AISNPs

Development of a SNP panel for predicting biogeographical ancestry and phenotype using massively parallel sequencing

Inferring ancestry and physical characteristics of an unknown individual can contribute to the direction of the investigation and to clarify the event for unknown contributors, cold cases or identification of missing persons and disaster victims. The objective of this study is to develop a custom SNP panel on massively parallel sequencing devices for predicting the biogeographic ancestry and phenotype of an individual. We focused on a two-tier approach to enhance ancestry. Our MPS panel contains two ancestry informative SNP (AISNPs) panels (i.e., Kidd 55 and SWA panel) to differentiate Southwest Asia from Europe and other continental regions. Then we integrated the set of phenotype informative SNPs into a set of AISNPs. The final set of 156 SNPs was evaluated on the following: sensitivity, genotype concordance, mixtures, ancestry assignment, and phenotype prediction. SNP rs6599400 had consistently poor performance and was removed from further analyses. The extreme mixture (1:10) was difficult to interpret for minor contributor. Ancestry assignment and phenotype predictions (for eye, hair and skin) were accurate for samples' population origin. The results show that the developed panel provides high coverage data that can be used for inferring ancestry and predicting eye, hair, and skin color from the intermediate population regions

Development of a 20plex STR multiplex panel

We developed a single reaction, fluorescently labeled in-house STR panel containing 19 autosomal loci plus Amelogenin for forensic use. We chose 18 loci from two commercial kits (AmpFlSTR (R) Identifiler (R), Thermo Fisher Scientific, and The PowerPlex (R) 16 System, Promega) and combined with two mini-STRs (D6S1043 and D12S391) that do not exist in either of the kits to constitute a 20plex panel. The 20plex system is evaluated by specificity, sensitivity, precision and accuracy, analytical threshold, stochastic threshold, heterozygous balance, case-type samples, and PCR-based studies. The results demonstrate that 20plex STR multiplex panel is a robust, reliable and valuable assay for forensic applications