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  • 1
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    Oxford University Press
    Publication Date: 2015-08-21
    Description: Individualized treatment rules recommend treatments on the basis of individual patient characteristics. A high-quality treatment rule can produce better patient outcomes, lower costs and less treatment burden. If a treatment rule learned from data is to be used to inform clinical practice or provide scientific insight, it is crucial that it be interpretable; clinicians may be unwilling to implement models they do not understand, and black-box models may not be useful for guiding future research. The canonical example of an interpretable prediction model is a decision tree. We propose a method for estimating an optimal individualized treatment rule within the class of rules that are representable as decision trees. The class of rules we consider is interpretable but expressive. A novel feature of this problem is that the learning task is unsupervised, as the optimal treatment for each patient is unknown and must be estimated. The proposed method applies to both categorical and continuous treatments and produces favourable marginal mean outcomes in simulation experiments. We illustrate it using data from a study of major depressive disorder.
    Print ISSN: 0006-3444
    Electronic ISSN: 1464-3510
    Topics: Biology , Mathematics , Medicine
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  • 2
    Publication Date: 2015-08-07
    Description: Cleft palate is a common birth defect in humans. Therefore, understanding the molecular genetics of palate development is important from both scientific and medical perspectives. Lhx6 and Lhx8 encode LIM homeodomain transcription factors, and inactivation of both genes in mice resulted in profound craniofacial defects including cleft secondary palate. The initial outgrowth of the palate was severely impaired in the mutant embryos, due to decreased cell proliferation. Through genome-wide transcriptional profiling, we discovered that p57 Kip2 ( Cdkn1c ), encoding a cell cycle inhibitor, was up-regulated in the prospective palate of Lhx6 –/– ;Lhx8 –/– mutants. p57 Kip2 has been linked to Beckwith–Wiedemann syndrome and IMAGe syndrome in humans, which are developmental disorders with increased incidents of palate defects among the patients. To determine the molecular mechanism underlying the regulation of p57 Kip2 by the Lhx genes, we combined chromatin immunoprecipitation, in silico search for transcription factor-binding motifs, and in vitro reporter assays with putative cis-regulatory elements. The results of these experiments indicated that LHX6 and LHX8 regulated p57 Kip2 via both direct and indirect mechanisms, with the latter mediated by Forkhead box (FOX) family transcription factors. Together, our findings uncovered a novel connection between the initiation of palate development and a cell cycle inhibitor via LHX. We propose a model in which Lhx6 and Lhx8 negatively regulate p57 Kip2 expression in the prospective palate area to allow adequate levels of cell proliferation and thereby promote normal palate development. This is the first report elucidating a molecular genetic pathway downstream of Lhx in palate development.
    Print ISSN: 0964-6906
    Electronic ISSN: 1460-2083
    Topics: Biology , Medicine
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  • 3
    Publication Date: 2015-09-22
    Description: Despite much attention, history of sheep ( Ovis aries ) evolution, including its dating, demographic trajectory and geographic spread, remains controversial. To address these questions, we generated 45 complete and 875 partial mitogenomic sequences, and performed a meta-analysis of these and published ovine mitochondrial DNA sequences ( n = 3,229) across Eurasia. We inferred that O. orientalis and O. musimon share the most recent female ancestor with O. aries at approximately 0.790 Ma (95% CI: 0.637–0.934 Ma) during the Middle Pleistocene, substantially predating the domestication event (~8–11 ka). By reconstructing historical variations in effective population size, we found evidence of a rapid population increase approximately 20–60 ka, immediately before the Last Glacial Maximum. Analyses of lineage expansions showed two sheep migratory waves at approximately 4.5–6.8 ka (lineages A and B: ~6.4–6.8 ka; C: ~4.5 ka) across eastern Eurasia, which could have been influenced by prehistoric West–East commercial trade and deliberate mating of domestic and wild sheep, respectively. A continent-scale examination of lineage diversity and approximate Bayesian computation analyses indicated that the Mongolian Plateau region was a secondary center of dispersal, acting as a "transportation hub" in eastern Eurasia: Sheep from the Middle Eastern domestication center were inferred to have migrated through the Caucasus and Central Asia, and arrived in North and Southwest China (lineages A, B, and C) and the Indian subcontinent (lineages B and C) through this region. Our results provide new insights into sheep domestication, particularly with respect to origins and migrations to and from eastern Eurasia.
    Print ISSN: 0737-4038
    Electronic ISSN: 1537-1719
    Topics: Biology
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  • 4
    Publication Date: 2015-05-29
    Description: Model evaluation is a necessary step for better prediction and design of 3D RNA structures. For proteins, this has been widely studied and the knowledge-based statistical potential has been proved to be one of effective ways to solve this problem. Currently, a few knowledge-based statistical potentials have also been proposed to evaluate predicted models of RNA tertiary structures. The benchmark tests showed that they can identify the native structures effectively but further improvements are needed to identify near-native structures and those with non-canonical base pairs. Here, we present a novel knowledge-based potential, 3dRNAscore, which combines distance-dependent and dihedral-dependent energies. The benchmarks on different testing datasets all show that 3dRNAscore are more efficient than existing evaluation methods in recognizing native state from a pool of near-native states of RNAs as well as in ranking near-native states of RNA models.
    Keywords: Computational Methods
    Print ISSN: 0305-1048
    Electronic ISSN: 1362-4962
    Topics: Biology
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  • 5
    Publication Date: 2015-05-29
    Description: Mediator of DNA damage checkpoint protein 1 (MDC1) is essential for DNA damage response. However, the role of MDC1 in modulating gene transcription independently of DNA damage and the underlying mechanisms have not been fully defined. Androgen receptor (AR) is the central signaling pathway in prostate cancer (PCa) and its target genes are involved in both promotion and suppression of PCa. Here, we functionally identified MDC1 as a co-activator of AR. We demonstrate that MDC1 facilitates the association between AR and histone acetyltransferase GCN5, thereby increasing histone H3 acetylation level on cis-regulatory elements of AR target genes. MDC1 knockdown promotes PCa cells growth and migration. Moreover, depletion of MDC1 results in decreased expression of a subset of the endogenous androgen-induced target genes, including cell cycle negative regulator p21 and PCa metastasis inhibitor Vinculin, in AR positive PCa cell lines. Finally, the expression of MDC1 and p21 correlates negatively with aggressive phenotype of clinical PCa. These studies suggest that MDC1 as an epigenetic modifier regulates AR transcriptional activity and MDC1 may function as a tumor suppressor of PCa, and provide new insight into co-factor-AR-signaling pathway mechanism and a better understanding of the function of MDC1 on PCa.
    Print ISSN: 0305-1048
    Electronic ISSN: 1362-4962
    Topics: Biology
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  • 6
    Publication Date: 2016-06-19
    Description: Using a Bayesian technology, we derived distances and extinctions for over 100 000 red giant stars observed by the Apache Point Observatory Galactic Evolution Experiment (APOGEE) survey by taking into account spectroscopic constraints from the APOGEE stellar parameters and photometric constraints from Two Micron All-Sky Survey, as well as a prior knowledge on the Milky Way. Derived distances are compared with those from four other independent methods, the Hipparcos parallaxes, star clusters, APOGEE red clump stars, and asteroseismic distances from APOKASC and Strömgren survey for Asteroseismology and Galactic Archaeology catalogues. These comparisons covers four orders of magnitude in the distance scale from 0.02 to 20 kpc. The results show that our distances agree very well with those from other methods: the mean relative difference between our Bayesian distances and those derived from other methods ranges from –4.2 per cent to +3.6 per cent, and the dispersion ranges from 15 per cent to 25 per cent. The extinctions towards all stars are also derived and compared with those from several other independent methods: the Rayleigh–Jeans Colour Excess (RJCE) method, Gonzalez's 2D extinction map, as well as 3D extinction maps and models. The comparisons reveal that, overall, estimated extinctions agree very well, but RJCE tends to overestimate extinctions for cool stars and objects with low log g .
    Print ISSN: 0035-8711
    Electronic ISSN: 1365-2966
    Topics: Physics
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  • 7
    Publication Date: 2013-06-06
    Description: White spruce ( Picea glauca ) is a dominant conifer of the boreal forests of North America, and providing genomics resources for this commercially valuable tree will help improve forest management and conservation efforts. Sequencing and assembling the large and highly repetitive spruce genome though pushes the boundaries of the current technology. Here, we describe a whole-genome shotgun sequencing strategy using two Illumina sequencing platforms and an assembly approach using the ABySS software. We report a 20.8 giga base pairs draft genome in 4.9 million scaffolds, with a scaffold N50 of 20 356 bp. We demonstrate how recent improvements in the sequencing technology, especially increasing read lengths and paired end reads from longer fragments have a major impact on the assembly contiguity. We also note that scalable bioinformatics tools are instrumental in providing rapid draft assemblies. Availability: The Picea glauca genome sequencing and assembly data are available through NCBI (Accession#: ALWZ0100000000 PID: PRJNA83435). http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/bioproject/83435 . Contact: ibirol@bcgsc.ca Supplementary information: Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.
    Print ISSN: 1367-4803
    Electronic ISSN: 1460-2059
    Topics: Biology , Computer Science , Medicine
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  • 8
    Publication Date: 2013-09-26
    Description: It is a challenge to classify protein-coding or non-coding transcripts, especially those re-constructed from high-throughput sequencing data of poorly annotated species. This study developed and evaluated a powerful signature tool, Coding-Non-Coding Index (CNCI), by profiling adjoining nucleotide triplets to effectively distinguish protein-coding and non-coding sequences independent of known annotations. CNCI is effective for classifying incomplete transcripts and sense–antisense pairs. The implementation of CNCI offered highly accurate classification of transcripts assembled from whole-transcriptome sequencing data in a cross-species manner, that demonstrated gene evolutionary divergence between vertebrates, and invertebrates, or between plants, and provided a long non-coding RNA catalog of orangutan. CNCI software is available at http://www.bioinfo.org/software/cnci .
    Keywords: Computational Methods
    Print ISSN: 0305-1048
    Electronic ISSN: 1362-4962
    Topics: Biology
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  • 9
    Publication Date: 2015-01-24
    Description: The MBP1 family proteins are the DNA binding subunits of MBF cell-cycle transcription factor complexes and contain an N terminal winged helix-turn-helix (wHTH) DNA binding domain (DBD). Although the DNA binding mechanism of MBP1 from Saccharomyces cerevisiae has been extensively studied, the structural framework and the DNA binding mode of other MBP1 family proteins remains to be disclosed. Here, we determined the crystal structure of the DBD of PCG2, the Magnaporthe oryzae orthologue of MBP1, bound to MCB–DNA. The structure revealed that the wing, the 20-loop, helix A and helix B in PCG2–DBD are important elements for DNA binding. Unlike previously characterized wHTH proteins, PCG2–DBD utilizes the wing and helix-B to bind the minor groove and the major groove of the MCB–DNA whilst the 20-loop and helix A interact non-specifically with DNA. Notably, two glutamines Q89 and Q82 within the wing were found to recognize the MCB core CGCG sequence through making hydrogen bond interactions. Further in vitro assays confirmed essential roles of Q89 and Q82 in the DNA binding. These data together indicate that the MBP1 homologue PCG2 employs an unusual mode of binding to target DNA and demonstrate the versatility of wHTH domains.
    Print ISSN: 0305-1048
    Electronic ISSN: 1362-4962
    Topics: Biology
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  • 10
    Publication Date: 2015-04-22
    Description: Understanding how gene regulation evolves is a key area in the current evolutionary field. Gene regulation occurs at various levels. Previous work on the evolution of gene regulation has largely focused on gene transcription. In this study, we used a recently developed ribosomal footprint profiling method to investigate how gene regulation evolves at both the transcription (mRNA abundance) and translation (ribosomal density) levels. By constructing a hybrid between Saccharomyces cerevisiae (Scer) and Saccharomyces bayanus (Sbay), which diverged ~20 Ma, and quantifying transcriptome and translatome in both parental strains and their hybrid, we showed that translation is much more conserved than transcription, mostly due to the buffering effect of translational regulation for the transcriptional divergence. More conservation in translation than transcription is also confirmed by the inheritance mode of transcription and translation between two species. Furthermore, cis and trans effects are widely involved in changes at both transcription and translation levels. Finally, our results showed that genes with certain functions and sequence features might employ specific modes for evolution at these two critical levels of gene regulation. Our results demonstrated that it is essential to investigate the evolution of gene regulation at various levels from different genetic backgrounds to obtain a complete picture of its evolutionary modes in nature.
    Electronic ISSN: 1759-6653
    Topics: Biology
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