ALBERT

Description: The Ensembl project ( http://www.ensembl.org ) is a system for genome annotation, analysis, storage and dissemination designed to facilitate the access of genomic annotation from chordates and key model organisms. It provides access to data from 87 species across our main and early access Pre! websites. This year we introduced three newly annotated species and released numerous updates across our supported species with a concentration on data for the latest genome assemblies of human, mouse, zebrafish and rat. We also provided two data updates for the previous human assembly, GRCh37, through a dedicated website ( http://grch37.ensembl.org ). Our tools, in particular the VEP, have been improved significantly through integration of additional third party data. REST is now capable of larger-scale analysis and our regulatory data BioMart can deliver faster results. The website is now capable of displaying long-range interactions such as those found in cis -regulated datasets. Finally we have launched a website optimized for mobile devices providing views of genes, variants and phenotypes. Our data is made available without restriction and all code is available from our GitHub organization site ( http://github.com/Ensembl ) under an Apache 2.0 license.

Description: TreeFam ( http://www.treefam.org ) is a database of phylogenetic trees inferred from animal genomes. For every TreeFam family we provide homology predictions together with the evolutionary history of the genes. Here we describe an update of the TreeFam database. The TreeFam project was resurrected in 2012 and has seen two releases since. The latest release (TreeFam 9) was made available in March 2013. It has orthology predictions and gene trees for 109 species in 15 736 families covering ~2.2 million sequences. With release 9 we made modifications to our production pipeline and redesigned our website with improved gene tree visualizations and Wikipedia integration. Furthermore, we now provide an HMM-based sequence search that places a user-provided protein sequence into a TreeFam gene tree and provides quick orthology prediction. The tool uses Mafft and RAxML for the fast insertion into a reference alignment and tree, respectively. Besides the aforementioned technical improvements, we present a new approach to visualize gene trees and alternative displays that focuses on showing homology information from a species tree point of view. From release 9 onwards, TreeFam is now hosted at the EBI.

Description: Memories can be unreliable. We created a false memory in mice by optogenetically manipulating memory engram-bearing cells in the hippocampus. Dentate gyrus (DG) or CA1 neurons activated by exposure to a particular context were labeled with channelrhodopsin-2. These neurons were later optically reactivated during fear conditioning in a different context. The DG experimental group showed increased freezing in the original context, in which a foot shock was never delivered. The recall of this false memory was context-specific, activated similar downstream regions engaged during natural fear memory recall, and was also capable of driving an active fear response. Our data demonstrate that it is possible to generate an internally represented and behaviorally expressed fear memory via artificial means.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Notes: 〈/span〉Ramirez, Steve -- Liu, Xu -- Lin, Pei-Ann -- Suh, Junghyup -- Pignatelli, Michele -- Redondo, Roger L -- Ryan, Tomas J -- Tonegawa, Susumu -- Howard Hughes Medical Institute/ -- New York, N.Y. -- Science. 2013 Jul 26;341(6144):387-91. doi: 10.1126/science.1239073.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Author address: 〈/span〉RIKEN-Massachusetts Institute of Technology Center for Neural Circuit Genetics at the Picower Institute for Learning and Memory, Department of Biology, MIT, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Record origin:〈/span〉 〈a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23888038" target="_blank"〉PubMed〈/a〉

Description: Episodic memory requires associations of temporally discontiguous events. In the entorhinal-hippocampal network, temporal associations are driven by a direct pathway from layer III of the medial entorhinal cortex (MECIII) to the hippocampal CA1 region. However, the identification of neural circuits that regulate this association has remained unknown. In layer II of entorhinal cortex (ECII), we report clusters of excitatory neurons called island cells, which appear in a curvilinear matrix of bulblike structures, directly project to CA1, and activate interneurons that target the distal dendrites of CA1 pyramidal neurons. Island cells suppress the excitatory MECIII input through the feed-forward inhibition to control the strength and duration of temporal association in trace fear memory. Together, the two EC inputs compose a control circuit for temporal association memory.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Notes: 〈/span〉Kitamura, Takashi -- Pignatelli, Michele -- Suh, Junghyup -- Kohara, Keigo -- Yoshiki, Atsushi -- Abe, Kuniya -- Tonegawa, Susumu -- Howard Hughes Medical Institute/ -- New York, N.Y. -- Science. 2014 Feb 21;343(6173):896-901. doi: 10.1126/science.1244634. Epub 2014 Jan 23.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Author address: 〈/span〉RIKEN-MIT Center for Neural Circuit Genetics at the Picower Institute for Learning and Memory, Department of Biology and Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, MA 02139, USA.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Record origin:〈/span〉 〈a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24457215" target="_blank"〉PubMed〈/a〉

Description: The laboratory mouse shares the majority of its protein-coding genes with humans, making it the premier model organism in biomedical research, yet the two mammals differ in significant ways. To gain greater insights into both shared and species-specific transcriptional and cellular regulatory programs in the mouse, the Mouse ENCODE Consortium has mapped transcription, DNase I hypersensitivity, transcription factor binding, chromatin modifications and replication domains throughout the mouse genome in diverse cell and tissue types. By comparing with the human genome, we not only confirm substantial conservation in the newly annotated potential functional sequences, but also find a large degree of divergence of sequences involved in transcriptional regulation, chromatin state and higher order chromatin organization. Our results illuminate the wide range of evolutionary forces acting on genes and their regulatory regions, and provide a general resource for research into mammalian biology and mechanisms of human diseases.〈br /〉〈br /〉〈a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4266106/" target="_blank"〉〈img src="https://static.pubmed.gov/portal/portal3rc.fcgi/4089621/img/3977009" border="0"〉〈/a〉   〈a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4266106/" target="_blank"〉This paper as free author manuscript - peer-reviewed and accepted for publication〈/a〉〈br /〉〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Notes: 〈/span〉Yue, Feng -- Cheng, Yong -- Breschi, Alessandra -- Vierstra, Jeff -- Wu, Weisheng -- Ryba, Tyrone -- Sandstrom, Richard -- Ma, Zhihai -- Davis, Carrie -- Pope, Benjamin D -- Shen, Yin -- Pervouchine, Dmitri D -- Djebali, Sarah -- Thurman, Robert E -- Kaul, Rajinder -- Rynes, Eric -- Kirilusha, Anthony -- Marinov, Georgi K -- Williams, Brian A -- Trout, Diane -- Amrhein, Henry -- Fisher-Aylor, Katherine -- Antoshechkin, Igor -- DeSalvo, Gilberto -- See, Lei-Hoon -- Fastuca, Meagan -- Drenkow, Jorg -- Zaleski, Chris -- Dobin, Alex -- Prieto, Pablo -- Lagarde, Julien -- Bussotti, Giovanni -- Tanzer, Andrea -- Denas, Olgert -- Li, Kanwei -- Bender, M A -- Zhang, Miaohua -- Byron, Rachel -- Groudine, Mark T -- McCleary, David -- Pham, Long -- Ye, Zhen -- Kuan, Samantha -- Edsall, Lee -- Wu, Yi-Chieh -- Rasmussen, Matthew D -- Bansal, Mukul S -- Kellis, Manolis -- Keller, Cheryl A -- Morrissey, Christapher S -- Mishra, Tejaswini -- Jain, Deepti -- Dogan, Nergiz -- Harris, Robert S -- Cayting, Philip -- Kawli, Trupti -- Boyle, Alan P -- Euskirchen, Ghia -- Kundaje, Anshul -- Lin, Shin -- Lin, Yiing -- Jansen, Camden -- Malladi, Venkat S -- Cline, Melissa S -- Erickson, Drew T -- Kirkup, Vanessa M -- Learned, Katrina -- Sloan, Cricket A -- Rosenbloom, Kate R -- Lacerda de Sousa, Beatriz -- Beal, Kathryn -- Pignatelli, Miguel -- Flicek, Paul -- Lian, Jin -- Kahveci, Tamer -- Lee, Dongwon -- Kent, W James -- Ramalho Santos, Miguel -- Herrero, Javier -- Notredame, Cedric -- Johnson, Audra -- Vong, Shinny -- Lee, Kristen -- Bates, Daniel -- Neri, Fidencio -- Diegel, Morgan -- Canfield, Theresa -- Sabo, Peter J -- Wilken, Matthew S -- Reh, Thomas A -- Giste, Erika -- Shafer, Anthony -- Kutyavin, Tanya -- Haugen, Eric -- Dunn, Douglas -- Reynolds, Alex P -- Neph, Shane -- Humbert, Richard -- Hansen, R Scott -- De Bruijn, Marella -- Selleri, Licia -- Rudensky, Alexander -- Josefowicz, Steven -- Samstein, Robert -- Eichler, Evan E -- Orkin, Stuart H -- Levasseur, Dana -- Papayannopoulou, Thalia -- Chang, Kai-Hsin -- Skoultchi, Arthur -- Gosh, Srikanta -- Disteche, Christine -- Treuting, Piper -- Wang, Yanli -- Weiss, Mitchell J -- Blobel, Gerd A -- Cao, Xiaoyi -- Zhong, Sheng -- Wang, Ting -- Good, Peter J -- Lowdon, Rebecca F -- Adams, Leslie B -- Zhou, Xiao-Qiao -- Pazin, Michael J -- Feingold, Elise A -- Wold, Barbara -- Taylor, James -- Mortazavi, Ali -- Weissman, Sherman M -- Stamatoyannopoulos, John A -- Snyder, Michael P -- Guigo, Roderic -- Gingeras, Thomas R -- Gilbert, David M -- Hardison, Ross C -- Beer, Michael A -- Ren, Bing -- Mouse ENCODE Consortium -- 095908/Wellcome Trust/United Kingdom -- 1U54HG007004/HG/NHGRI NIH HHS/ -- 3RC2HG005602/HG/NHGRI NIH HHS/ -- F31CA165863/CA/NCI NIH HHS/ -- F32HL110473/HL/NHLBI NIH HHS/ -- GM083337/GM/NIGMS NIH HHS/ -- GM085354/GM/NIGMS NIH HHS/ -- K99HL119617/HL/NHLBI NIH HHS/ -- P01 GM085354/GM/NIGMS NIH HHS/ -- P01 HL064190/HL/NHLBI NIH HHS/ -- P01 HL110860/HL/NHLBI NIH HHS/ -- P30 CA008748/CA/NCI NIH HHS/ -- P30 CA045508/CA/NCI NIH HHS/ -- R01 DK065806/DK/NIDDK NIH HHS/ -- R01 DK096266/DK/NIDDK NIH HHS/ -- R01 ES024992/ES/NIEHS NIH HHS/ -- R01 EY021482/EY/NEI NIH HHS/ -- R01 GM083337/GM/NIGMS NIH HHS/ -- R01 HG004037/HG/NHGRI NIH HHS/ -- R01 HG007175/HG/NHGRI NIH HHS/ -- R01 HG007348/HG/NHGRI NIH HHS/ -- R01 HG007354/HG/NHGRI NIH HHS/ -- R01DK065806/DK/NIDDK NIH HHS/ -- R01HD043997-09/HD/NICHD NIH HHS/ -- R01HG003991/HG/NHGRI NIH HHS/ -- R37 DK044746/DK/NIDDK NIH HHS/ -- R56 DK065806/DK/NIDDK NIH HHS/ -- RC2 HG005573/HG/NHGRI NIH HHS/ -- RC2HG005573/HG/NHGRI NIH HHS/ -- T32 GM081739/GM/NIGMS NIH HHS/ -- U01 HL099656/HL/NHLBI NIH HHS/ -- U01 HL099993/HL/NHLBI NIH HHS/ -- U54 HG006997/HG/NHGRI NIH HHS/ -- U54 HG006998/HG/NHGRI NIH HHS/ -- U54 HG007004/HG/NHGRI NIH HHS/ -- Howard Hughes Medical Institute/ -- England -- Nature. 2014 Nov 20;515(7527):355-64. doi: 10.1038/nature13992.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Author address: 〈/span〉1] Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research and University of California, San Diego School of Medicine, 9500 Gilman Drive, La Jolla, California 92093, USA. [2] Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, College of Medicine, The Pennsylvania State University, Hershey, Pennsylvania 17033, USA. ; Department of Genetics, Stanford University, 300 Pasteur Drive, MC-5477 Stanford, California 94305, USA. ; Bioinformatics and Genomics, Centre for Genomic Regulation (CRG) and UPF, Doctor Aiguader, 88, 08003 Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain. ; Department of Genome Sciences, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington 98195, USA. ; Center for Comparative Genomics and Bioinformatics, Huck Institutes of the Life Sciences, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania 16802, USA. ; Department of Biological Science, 319 Stadium Drive, Florida State University, Tallahassee, Florida 32306-4295, USA. ; Functional Genomics, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, Bungtown Road, Cold Spring Harbor, New York 11724, USA. ; Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research and University of California, San Diego School of Medicine, 9500 Gilman Drive, La Jolla, California 92093, USA. ; Division of Biology, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California 91125, USA. ; 1] Bioinformatics and Genomics, Centre for Genomic Regulation (CRG) and UPF, Doctor Aiguader, 88, 08003 Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain. [2] Department of Theoretical Chemistry, Faculty of Chemistry, University of Vienna, Waehringerstrasse 17/3/303, A-1090 Vienna, Austria. ; Departments of Biology and Mathematics and Computer Science, Emory University, O. Wayne Rollins Research Center, 1510 Clifton Road NE, Atlanta, Georgia 30322, USA. ; 1] Department of Pediatrics, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington 98195, USA. [2] Clinical Research Division, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Seattle, Washington 98109, USA. ; Basic Science Division, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Seattle, Washington 98109, USA. ; 1] Basic Science Division, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Seattle, Washington 98109, USA. [2] Department of Radiation Oncology, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington 98195, USA. ; Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, USA. ; 1] Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, USA. [2] Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02142, USA. ; Department of Developmental and Cell Biology, University of California, Irvine, Irvine, California 92697, USA. ; Center for Biomolecular Science and Engineering, School of Engineering, University of California Santa Cruz (UCSC), Santa Cruz, California 95064, USA. ; Departments of Obstetrics/Gynecology and Pathology, and Center for Reproductive Sciences, University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, California 94143, USA. ; European Molecular Biology Laboratory, European Bioinformatics Institute, Wellcome Trust Genome Campus, Hinxton, Cambridge CB10 1SD, UK. ; Yale University, Department of Genetics, PO Box 208005, 333 Cedar Street, New Haven, Connecticut 06520-8005, USA. ; Computer &Information Sciences &Engineering, University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida 32611, USA. ; McKusick-Nathans Institute of Genetic Medicine and Department of Biomedical Engineering, Johns Hopkins University, 733 N. Broadway, BRB 573 Baltimore, Maryland 21205, USA. ; 1] European Molecular Biology Laboratory, European Bioinformatics Institute, Wellcome Trust Genome Campus, Hinxton, Cambridge CB10 1SD, UK. [2] Bill Lyons Informatics Centre, UCL Cancer Institute, University College London, London WC1E 6DD, UK. ; Department of Biological Structure, University of Washington, HSB I-516, 1959 NE Pacific Street, Seattle, Washington 98195, USA. ; MRC Molecular Haemotology Unit, University of Oxford, Oxford OX3 9DS, UK. ; Department of Cell and Developmental Biology, Weill Cornell Medical College, New York, New York 10065, USA. ; HHMI and Ludwig Center at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, Immunology Program, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Canter, New York, New York 10065, USA. ; Dana Farber Cancer Institute, Harvard Medical School, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138, USA. ; University of Iowa Carver College of Medicine, Department of Internal Medicine, Iowa City, Iowa 52242, USA. ; Division of Hematology, Department of Medicine, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington 98195, USA. ; Department of Cell Biology, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Bronx, New York 10461, USA. ; Department of Pathology, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington 98195, USA. ; Department of Comparative Medicine, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington 98195, USA. ; Bioinformatics and Genomics program, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania 16802, USA. ; Department of Hematology, St Jude Children's Research Hospital, Memphis, Tennessee 38105, USA. ; 1] Division of Hematology, The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104, USA. [2] Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104, USA. ; Department of Bioengineering, University of California, San Diego, 9500 Gilman Drive, La Jolla, California 92093, USA. ; Department of Genetics, Center for Genome Sciences and Systems Biology, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, Missouri 63108, USA. ; NHGRI, National Institutes of Health, 5635 Fishers Lane, Bethesda, Maryland 20892-9307, USA.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Record origin:〈/span〉 〈a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25409824" target="_blank"〉PubMed〈/a〉

Description: Memory consolidation is the process by which a newly formed and unstable memory transforms into a stable long-term memory. It is unknown whether the process of memory consolidation occurs exclusively through the stabilization of memory engrams. By using learning-dependent cell labeling, we identified an increase of synaptic strength and dendritic spine density specifically in consolidated memory engram cells. Although these properties are lacking in engram cells under protein synthesis inhibitor-induced amnesia, direct optogenetic activation of these cells results in memory retrieval, and this correlates with retained engram cell-specific connectivity. We propose that a specific pattern of connectivity of engram cells may be crucial for memory information storage and that strengthened synapses in these cells critically contribute to the memory retrieval process.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Notes: 〈/span〉Ryan, Tomas J -- Roy, Dheeraj S -- Pignatelli, Michele -- Arons, Autumn -- Tonegawa, Susumu -- Howard Hughes Medical Institute/ -- New York, N.Y. -- Science. 2015 May 29;348(6238):1007-13. doi: 10.1126/science.aaa5542. Epub 2015 May 28.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Author address: 〈/span〉RIKEN-MIT Center for Neural Circuit Genetics at the Picower Institute for Learning and Memory, Department of Biology and Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA. Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA. ; RIKEN-MIT Center for Neural Circuit Genetics at the Picower Institute for Learning and Memory, Department of Biology and Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA. ; RIKEN-MIT Center for Neural Circuit Genetics at the Picower Institute for Learning and Memory, Department of Biology and Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA. Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA. tonegawa@mit.edu.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Record origin:〈/span〉 〈a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26023136" target="_blank"〉PubMed〈/a〉

Description: Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a neurodegenerative disorder characterized by progressive memory decline and subsequent loss of broader cognitive functions. Memory decline in the early stages of AD is mostly limited to episodic memory, for which the hippocampus has a crucial role. However, it has been uncertain whether the observed amnesia in the early stages of AD is due to disrupted encoding and consolidation of episodic information, or an impairment in the retrieval of stored memory information. Here we show that in transgenic mouse models of early AD, direct optogenetic activation of hippocampal memory engram cells results in memory retrieval despite the fact that these mice are amnesic in long-term memory tests when natural recall cues are used, revealing a retrieval, rather than a storage impairment. Before amyloid plaque deposition, the amnesia in these mice is age-dependent, which correlates with a progressive reduction in spine density of hippocampal dentate gyrus engram cells. We show that optogenetic induction of long-term potentiation at perforant path synapses of dentate gyrus engram cells restores both spine density and long-term memory. We also demonstrate that an ablation of dentate gyrus engram cells containing restored spine density prevents the rescue of long-term memory. Thus, selective rescue of spine density in engram cells may lead to an effective strategy for treating memory loss in the early stages of AD.〈br /〉〈br /〉〈a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4847731/" target="_blank"〉〈img src="https://static.pubmed.gov/portal/portal3rc.fcgi/4089621/img/3977009" border="0"〉〈/a〉   〈a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4847731/" target="_blank"〉This paper as free author manuscript - peer-reviewed and accepted for publication〈/a〉〈br /〉〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Notes: 〈/span〉Roy, Dheeraj S -- Arons, Autumn -- Mitchell, Teryn I -- Pignatelli, Michele -- Ryan, Tomas J -- Tonegawa, Susumu -- Howard Hughes Medical Institute/ -- England -- Nature. 2016 Mar 24;531(7595):508-12. doi: 10.1038/nature17172. Epub 2016 Mar 16.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Author address: 〈/span〉RIKEN-MIT Center for Neural Circuit Genetics at the Picower Institute for Learning and Memory, Department of Biology and Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, USA. ; Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, USA.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Record origin:〈/span〉 〈a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26982728" target="_blank"〉PubMed〈/a〉

Description: Entorhinal–hippocampal circuits in the mammalian brain are crucial for an animal’s spatial and episodic experience, but the neural basis for different spatial computations remain unknown. Medial entorhinal cortex layer II contains pyramidal island and stellate ocean cells. Here, we performed cell type-specific Ca2+ imaging in freely exploring mice using cellular...