Whole-genome sequencing reveals host factors underlying critical COVID-19

Critical COVID-19 is caused by immune-mediated inflammatory lung injury. Host genetic variation influences the development of illness requiring critical care1 or hospitalization2,3,4 after infection with SARS-CoV-2. The GenOMICC (Genetics of Mortality in Critical Care) study enables the comparison of genomes from individuals who are critically ill with those of population controls to find underlying disease mechanisms. Here we use whole-genome sequencing in 7,491 critically ill individuals compared with 48,400 controls to discover and replicate 23 independent variants that significantly predispose to critical COVID-19. We identify 16 new independent associations, including variants within genes that are involved in interferon signalling (IL10RB and PLSCR1), leucocyte differentiation (BCL11A) and blood-type antigen secretor status (FUT2). Using transcriptome-wide association and colocalization to infer the effect of gene expression on disease severity, we find evidence that implicates multiple genes—including reduced expression of a membrane flippase (ATP11A), and increased expression of a mucin (MUC1)—in critical disease. Mendelian randomization provides evidence in support of causal roles for myeloid cell adhesion molecules (SELE, ICAM5 and CD209) and the coagulation factor F8, all of which are potentially druggable targets. Our results are broadly consistent with a multi-component model of COVID-19 pathophysiology, in which at least two distinct mechanisms can predispose to life-threatening disease: failure to control viral replication; or an enhanced tendency towards pulmonary inflammation and intravascular coagulation. We show that comparison between cases of critical illness and population controls is highly efficient for the detection of therapeutically relevant mechanisms of disease

A 3-way hybrid approach to generate a new high-quality chimpanzee reference genome (Pan_tro_3.0)

The chimpanzee is arguably the most important species for the study of human origins. A key resource for these studies is a high-quality reference genome assembly; however, as with most mammalian genomes, the current iteration of the chimpanzee reference genome assembly is highly fragmented. In the current iteration of the chimpanzee reference genome assembly (Pan_tro_2.1.4), the sequence is scattered across more then 183 000 contigs, incorporating more than 159 000 gaps, with a genome-wide contig N50 of 51 Kbp. In this work, we produce an extensive and diverse array of sequencing datasets to rapidly assemble a new chimpanzee reference that surpasses previous iterations in bases represented and organized in large scaffolds. To this end, we show substantial improvements over the current release of the chimpanzee genome (Pan_tro_2.1.4) by several metrics, such as increased contiguity by >750% and 300% on contigs and scaffolds, respectively, and closure of 77% of gaps in the Pan_tro_2.1.4 assembly gaps spanning >850 Kbp of the novel coding sequence based on RNASeq data. We further report more than 2700 genes that had putatively erroneous frame-shift predictions to human in Pan_tro_2.1.4 and show a substantial increase in the annotation of repetitive elements. We apply a simple 3-way hybrid approach to considerably improve the reference genome assembly for the chimpanzee, providing a valuable resource for the study of human origins. Furthermore, we produce extensive sequencing datasets that are all derived from the same cell line, generating a broad non-human benchmark dataset.J.G.G. is funded by the RED-BIO project of the Spanish National Bioinformatics Institute (INB) under grant number PT13/0001/0044. The INB is funded by the Spanish National Health Institute Carlos III (ISCIII) and the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (MINECO). L.F.K.K. is supported by an FPI fellowship associated with BFU2014-55090-P (FEDER); L.F. is supported by the Swedish Foundation for Strategic Research F06-0045 and the Swedish Research Council; E.E.E. is an investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. A.J.S. is supported by US National Institutes of Health (NIH) grants DA033660, HG006696, HD073731, and MH097018, and research grant 6-FY13-92 from the March of Dimes. This work was supported, in part, by grants from the NIH (grants R01HG002385 and U24HG009081 to E.E.E., HG007990 and HG007234 to B.P.). T.M.B. is supported by MINECO BFU2014-55090-P (FEDER), BFU2015-7116-ERC, and BFU2015-6215-ERC, Fundacio Zoo Barcelona and Secretaria d'Universitats i Recerca del Departament d'Economia i Coneixement de la Generalitat de Catalunya

Selective single molecule sequencing and assembly of a human Y chromosome of African origin

Mammalian Y chromosomes are often neglected from genomic analysis. Due to their inherent assembly difficulties, high repeat content, and large ampliconic regions, only a handful of species have their Y chromosome properly characterized. To date, just a single human reference quality Y chromosome, of European ancestry, is available due to a lack of accessible methodology. To facilitate the assembly of such complicated genomic territory, we developed a novel strategy to sequence native, unamplified flow sorted DNA on a MinION nanopore sequencing device. Our approach yields a highly continuous assembly of the first human Y chromosome of African origin. It constitutes a significant improvement over comparable previous methods, increasing continuity by more than 800%. Sequencing native DNA also allows to take advantage of the nanopore signal data to detect epigenetic modifications in situ. This approach is in theory generalizable to any species simplifying the assembly of extremely large and repetitive genomes.This study was supported by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness with Proyectos de I+D “Excelencia” y Proyectos de I+D+I “Retos Investigación” BFU2014-55090-P awarded to T.M.-B. and O.F., Centro de Excelencia Severo Ochoa 2013–2017 and Centro de Excelencia Maria de Maeztu 2016–2019. We acknowledge the support from the CERCA Programme of the Generalitat de Catalunya, institutional support from the Spanish Ministry of Economy, Industry and Competitiveness (MEIC) through the Instituto de Salud Carlos III, from the Generalitat de Catalunya through the Departament de Salut and Departament d’Empresa i Coneixement, and co-financing by the Spanish Ministry of Economy, Industry and Competitiveness (MEIC) with funds from the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) corresponding to the 2014–2020 Smart Growth Operating Program. L.F.K.K. is supported by an FPI fellowship associated with BFU2014-55090-P (MINECO/FEDER, UE). M.K. is supported by a Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) fellowship (KU 3467/1-1). T.M.-B. is supported by BFU2017-86471-P (MINECO/FEDER, UE), U01 MH106874 grant, Howard Hughes International Early Career, Obra Social “La Caixa” and Secretaria d’Universitats i Recerca del Departament d’Economia i Coneixement de la Generalitat de Catalunya. D.J. is supported by a Juan de la Cierva fellowship (FJCI-2016-29558) from MICINN