Browsing by Author "Graña, Osvaldo"

This article details the assessment process and evaluation results for two categories in the 8th Critical Assessment of Protein Structure Prediction experiment (CASP8). The domain prediction category was evaluated with a range of scores including the Normalized Domain Overlap score and a domain boundary distance measure. Residue-residue contact predictions were evaluated with standard CASP measures, prediction accuracy, and Xd. In the domain boundary prediction category, prediction methods still make reliable predictions for targets that have structural templates, but continue to struggle to make good predictions for the few ab initio targets in CASP. There was little indication of improvement in the domain prediction category. The contact prediction category demonstrated that there was renewed interest among predictors and despite the small sample size the results suggested that there had been an increase in prediction accuracy. In contrast to CASP7 contact specialists predicted contacts more accurately than the majority of tertiary structure predictors. Despite this small success, the lack of free modeling targets makes it unlikely that either category will be included in their present form in CASP9

Predictions of intramolecular residue–residue contacts were assessed as part of the seventh community-wide Critical Assessment of Structure Prediction experiment (CASP7). As in past assessments, we focused on contacts that lie far apart in sequence as these are likely to be more informative in predicting protein structure. One lab did somewhat better than others according to our assessment, and there is some reason to think that this lab's results represent progress over CASP6. In general, contacts inferred from 3D structural predictions are similar in accuracy to those predicted by contact prediction methods. However, contact prediction methods were more accurate for some targets.

Most of the studies characterizing DNA methylation patterns have been restricted to particular genomic loci in a limited number of human samples and pathological conditions. Herein, we present a compromise between an extremely comprehensive study of a human sample population with an intermediate level of resolution of CpGs at the genomic level. We obtained a DNA methylation fingerprint of 1628 human samples in which we interrogated 1505 CpG sites. The DNA methylation patterns revealed show this epigenetic mark to be critical in tissue-type definition and stemness, particularly around transcription start sites that are not within a CpG island. For disease, the generated DNA methylation fingerprints show that, during tumorigenesis, human cancer cells underwent a progressive gain of promoter CpG-island hypermethylation and a loss of CpG methylation in non-CpG-island promoters. Although transformed cells are those in which DNA methylation disruption is more obvious, we observed that other common human diseases, such as neurological and autoimmune disorders, had their own distinct DNA methylation profiles. Most importantly, we provide proof of principle that the DNA methylation fingerprints obtained might be useful for translational purposes by showing that we are able to identify the tumor type origin of cancers of unknown primary origin (CUPs). Thus, the DNA methylation patterns identified across the largest spectrum of samples, tissues, and diseases reported to date constitute a baseline for developing higher-resolution DNA methylation maps and provide important clues concerning the contribution of CpG methylation to tissue identity and its changes in the most prevalent human diseases.

The natural history of cancers associated with virus exposure is intriguing, since only a minority of human tissues infected with these viruses inevitably progress to cancer. However, the molecular reasons why the infection is controlled or instead progresses to subsequent stages of tumorigenesis are largely unknown. In this article, we provide the first complete DNA methylomes of double-stranded DNA viruses associated with human cancer that might provide important clues to help us understand the described process. Using bisulfite genomic sequencing of multiple clones, we have obtained the DNA methylation status of every CpG dinucleotide in the genome of the Human Papilloma Viruses 16 and 18 and Human Hepatitis B Virus, and in all the transcription start sites of the Epstein-Barr Virus. These viruses are associated with infectious diseases (such as hepatitis B and infectious mononucleosis) and the development of human tumors (cervical, hepatic, and nasopharyngeal cancers, and lymphoma), and are responsible for 1 million deaths worldwide every year. The DNA methylomes presented provide evidence of the dynamic nature of the epigenome in contrast to the genome. We observed that the DNA methylome of these viruses evolves from an unmethylated to a highly methylated genome in association with the progression of the disease, from asymptomatic healthy carriers, through chronically infected tissues and pre-malignant lesions, to the full-blown invasive tumor. The observed DNA methylation changes have a major functional impact on the biological behavior of the viruses.

Transcription factors are common targets of epigenetic inactivation in human cancer. Promoter hypermethylation and subsequent silencing of transcription factors can lead to further deregulation of their targets. In this study, we explored the potential epigenetic deregulation in cancer of Ikaros family genes, which code for essential transcription factors in cell differentiation and exhibit genetic defects in hematologic neoplasias. Unexpectedly, our analysis revealed that Ikaros undergoes very specific promoter hypermethylation in colorectal cancer, including in all the cell lines studied and around 64% of primary colorectal adenocarcinomas, with increasing proportions in advanced Duke's stages. Ikaros hypermethylation occurred in the context of a novel long-range epigenetic silencing (LRES) region. Reintroduction of Ikaros in colorectal cancer cells, ChIP-chip analysis, and validation in primary samples led us to identify a number of direct targets that are possibly related with colorectal cancer progression. Our results not only provide the first evidence that LRES can have functional specific effects in cancer but also identify several deregulated Ikaros targets that may contribute to progression in colorectal adenocarcinoma

Dictyostelium and human MidA are homologous proteins that belong to a family of proteins of unknown function called DUF185. Using yeast two-hybrid screening and pull-down experiments, we showed that both proteins interact with the mitochondrial complex I subunit NDUFS2. Consistent with this, Dictyostelium cells lacking MidA showed a specific defect in complex I activity, and knockdown of human MidA in HEK293T cells resulted in reduced levels of assembled complex I. These results indicate a role for MidA in complex I assembly or stability. A structural bioinformatics analysis suggested the presence of a methyltransferase domain; this was further supported by site-directed mutagenesis of specific residues from the putative catalytic site. Interestingly, this complex I deficiency in a Dictyostelium midA− mutant causes a complex phenotypic outcome, which includes phototaxis and thermotaxis defects. We found that these aspects of the phenotype are mediated by a chronic activation of AMPK, revealing a possible role of AMPK signaling in complex I cytopathology

Chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) is a heterogeneous disease without a well-defined genetic alteration responsible for the onset of the disease. Several lines of evidence coincide in identifying stimulatory and growth signals delivered by B-cell receptor (BCR), and co-receptors together with NFkB pathway, as being the driving force in B-cell survival in CLL. However, the molecular mechanism responsible for this activation has not been identified. Based on the hypothesis that BCR activation may depend on somatic mutations of the BCR and related pathways we have performed a complete mutational screening of 301 selected genes associated with BCR signaling and related pathways using massive parallel sequencing technology in 10 CLL cases. Four mutated genes in coding regions (KRAS, SMARCA2, NFKBIE and PRKD3) have been confirmed by capillary sequencing. In conclusion, this study identifies new genes mutated in CLL, all of them in cases with progressive disease, and demonstrates that next-generation sequencing technologies applied to selected genes or pathways of interest are powerful tools for identifying novel mutational changes