Genome editing has attracted wide interest for the generation of cellular models of disease using human pluripotent stem cells and other cell types. CRISPR-Cas systems and TALENs can target desired ...genomic sites with high efficiency in human cells, but recent publications have led to concern about the extent to which these tools may cause off-target mutagenic effects that could potentially confound disease-modeling studies. Using CRISPR-Cas9 and TALEN targeted human pluripotent stem cell clones, we performed whole-genome sequencing at high coverage in order to assess the degree of mutagenesis across the entire genome. In both types of clones, we found that off-target mutations attributable to the nucleases were very rare. From this analysis, we suggest that, although some cell types may be at risk for off-target mutations, the incidence of such effects in human pluripotent stem cells may be sufficiently low and thus not a significant concern for disease modeling and other applications.
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•CRISPR-Cas9 and TALENs were used to genome edit human pluripotent stem cells•Whole-genome sequencing of individual clones found very few off-target mutations
Recent work suggested that off-target mutagenesis is a problem for genome-editing technology, but Veres et al. show that, at least for human pluripotent stem cells, the frequency of such mutations appears to be low.
Genome editing via CRISPR/Cas9 has rapidly become the tool of choice by virtue of its efficacy and ease of use. However, CRISPR/Cas9-mediated genome editing in clinically relevant human somatic cells ...remains untested. Here, we report CRISPR/Cas9 targeting of two clinically relevant genes, B2M and CCR5, in primary human CD4+ T cells and CD34+ hematopoietic stem and progenitor cells (HSPCs). Use of single RNA guides led to highly efficient mutagenesis in HSPCs but not in T cells. A dual guide approach improved gene deletion efficacy in both cell types. HSPCs that had undergone genome editing with CRISPR/Cas9 retained multilineage potential. We examined predicted on- and off-target mutations via target capture sequencing in HSPCs and observed low levels of off-target mutagenesis at only one site. These results demonstrate that CRISPR/Cas9 can efficiently ablate genes in HSPCs with minimal off-target mutagenesis, which could have broad applicability for hematopoietic cell-based therapy.
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•Efficient ablation of B2M and CCR5 in human hematopoietic cells using CRISPR/Cas9•CRISPR/Cas9 CCR5-deleted CD34+ HSPCs retain multilineage engraftment potential•Minimal off-target mutational events in CD34+ HSPCs after CRISPR/Cas9 treatment
Genome editing has the potential to revolutionize cell-based gene therapy. In this study, Mandal et al. developed approaches for using CRISPR/Cas9 in human CD34+ HSPCs that yielded high on-target with minimal off-target mutagenesis. These results indicate that CRISPR/Cas9 could broadly enable gene and cell-based therapies of blood.
Despite improvements in genomics technology, the detection of structural variants (SVs) from short-read sequencing still poses challenges, particularly for complex variation. Here we analyse the ...genomes of two patients with congenital abnormalities using the MinION nanopore sequencer and a novel computational pipeline-NanoSV. We demonstrate that nanopore long reads are superior to short reads with regard to detection of de novo chromothripsis rearrangements. The long reads also enable efficient phasing of genetic variations, which we leveraged to determine the parental origin of all de novo chromothripsis breakpoints and to resolve the structure of these complex rearrangements. Additionally, genome-wide surveillance of inherited SVs reveals novel variants, missed in short-read data sets, a large proportion of which are retrotransposon insertions. We provide a first exploration of patient genome sequencing with a nanopore sequencer and demonstrate the value of long-read sequencing in mapping and phasing of SVs for both clinical and research applications.
•Exome sequencing on unprecedented scale has identified 400 genes associated with ASD and NDD.•Functional networks disrupted in NDD converge on distinct spatiotemporal expression patterns during ...early neurodevelopment.•There is growing evidence that genes involved in broad regulatory processes can alter synaptic function.•Signaling pathways and cytoskeleton dynamics may underlie convergent pathogenic mechanisms in ASD and NDD.
Over the last two years, remarkable gene discovery efforts have implicated disruption of pathways involving gene regulatory functions and neuronal processes in autism spectrum disorder (ASD), and more broadly defined neurodevelopmental disorders (NDDs). Functional studies in the developing brain and across cell types demonstrate that the spatiotemporal expression patterns of many of these genes coalesce on subnetworks with distinct developmental trajectories. Here, we review the convergent biological processes derived from gene discovery and functional genomics in ASD and NDD from 2018−2020. We further probe the mechanistic insights that suggest these frequently perturbed pathways are interconnected and, ultimately, converge on specific functional deficits in human neurodevelopment.
Metformin has utility in cancer prevention and treatment, though the mechanisms for these effects remain elusive. Through genetic screening in C. elegans, we uncover two metformin response elements: ...the nuclear pore complex (NPC) and acyl-CoA dehydrogenase family member-10 (ACAD10). We demonstrate that biguanides inhibit growth by inhibiting mitochondrial respiratory capacity, which restrains transit of the RagA-RagC GTPase heterodimer through the NPC. Nuclear exclusion renders RagC incapable of gaining the GDP-bound state necessary to stimulate mTORC1. Biguanide-induced inactivation of mTORC1 subsequently inhibits growth through transcriptional induction of ACAD10. This ancient metformin response pathway is conserved from worms to humans. Both restricted nuclear pore transit and upregulation of ACAD10 are required for biguanides to reduce viability in melanoma and pancreatic cancer cells, and to extend C. elegans lifespan. This pathway provides a unified mechanism by which metformin kills cancer cells and extends lifespan, and illuminates potential cancer targets.
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•NPC and ACAD10 mediate biguanide-induced growth inhibition and lifespan extension•Metformin effects on mitochondria are transduced to mTORC1 and growth by the NPC•Biguanides restrain RagC transit through the NPC•Nuclear transit of RagC is essential for activation of mTORC1 signaling
Metformin both suppresses cancer cell growth and promotes organismal longevity through a key transcriptional target that is induced through inhibition of mitochondrial respiration and modulation of mTOR signaling.
Truncating mutations of chromodomain helicase DNA-binding protein 8 ( CHD8 ), and of many other genes with diverse functions, are strong-effect risk factors for autism spectrum disorder (ASD), ...suggesting multiple mechanisms of pathogenesis. We explored the transcriptional networks that CHD8 regulates in neural progenitor cells (NPCs) by reducing its expression and then integrating transcriptome sequencing (RNA sequencing) with genome-wide CHD8 binding (ChIP sequencing). Suppressing CHD8 to levels comparable with the loss of a single allele caused altered expression of 1,756 genes, 64.9% of which were up-regulated. CHD8 showed widespread binding to chromatin, with 7,324 replicated sites that marked 5,658 genes. Integration of these data suggests that a limited array of direct regulatory effects of CHD8 produced a much larger network of secondary expression changes. Genes indirectly down-regulated (i.e., without CHD8-binding sites) reflect pathways involved in brain development, including synapse formation, neuron differentiation, cell adhesion, and axon guidance, whereas CHD8-bound genes are strongly associated with chromatin modification and transcriptional regulation. Genes associated with ASD were strongly enriched among indirectly down-regulated loci ( P < 10 ⁻⁸) and CHD8-bound genes ( P = 0.0043), which align with previously identified coexpression modules during fetal development. We also find an intriguing enrichment of cancer-related gene sets among CHD8-bound genes ( P < 10 ⁻¹⁰). In vivo suppression of chd8 in zebrafish produced macrocephaly comparable to that of humans with inactivating mutations. These data indicate that heterozygous disruption of CHD8 precipitates a network of gene-expression changes involved in neurodevelopmental pathways in which many ASD-associated genes may converge on shared mechanisms of pathogenesis.
Significance Truncating mutation of chromodomain helicase DNA-binding protein 8 ( CHD8 ) represents one of the strongest known risk factors for autism spectrum disorder (ASD). We mimicked the effects of such heterozygous loss-of-function mutations in neural progenitor cells and integrated RNA sequencing with genome-wide delineation of CHD8 binding. Our results reveal that the molecular mechanism by which CHD8 alters neurodevelopmental pathways may involve both direct and indirect effects, the latter involving down-regulation following CHD8 suppression. We also find that chd8 suppression in zebrafish results in macrocephaly, consistent with observations in patients harboring loss-of-function mutations. We show that reduced expression of CHD8 impacts a variety of other functionally distinct ASD-associated genes, suggesting that the diverse functions of ASD risk factors may constitute multiple means of triggering a smaller number of final common pathways.
Copy number variants (CNVs) are major contributors to genetic disorders. We have dissected a region of the 16p11.2 chromosome--which encompasses 29 genes--that confers susceptibility to ...neurocognitive defects when deleted or duplicated. Overexpression of each human transcript in zebrafish embryos identified KCTD13 as the sole message capable of inducing the microcephaly phenotype associated with the 16p11.2 duplication, whereas suppression of the same locus yielded the macrocephalic phenotype associated with the 16p11.2 deletion, capturing the mirror phenotypes of humans. Analyses of zebrafish and mouse embryos suggest that microcephaly is caused by decreased proliferation of neuronal progenitors with concomitant increase in apoptosis in the developing brain, whereas macrocephaly arises by increased proliferation and no changes in apoptosis. A role for KCTD13 dosage changes is consistent with autism in both a recently reported family with a reduced 16p11.2 deletion and a subject reported here with a complex 16p11.2 rearrangement involving de novo structural alteration of KCTD13. Our data suggest that KCTD13 is a major driver for the neurodevelopmental phenotypes associated with the 16p11.2 CNV, reinforce the idea that one or a small number of transcripts within a CNV can underpin clinical phenotypes, and offer an efficient route to identifying dosage-sensitive loci.
The selective pressures that shape clonal evolution in healthy individuals are largely unknown. Here we investigate 8,342 mosaic chromosomal alterations, from 50 kb to 249 Mb long, that we uncovered ...in blood-derived DNA from 151,202 UK Biobank participants using phase-based computational techniques (estimated false discovery rate, 6-9%). We found six loci at which inherited variants associated strongly with the acquisition of deletions or loss of heterozygosity in cis. At three such loci (MPL, TM2D3-TARSL2, and FRA10B), we identified a likely causal variant that acted with high penetrance (5-50%). Inherited alleles at one locus appeared to affect the probability of somatic mutation, and at three other loci to be objects of positive or negative clonal selection. Several specific mosaic chromosomal alterations were strongly associated with future haematological malignancies. Our results reveal a multitude of paths towards clonal expansions with a wide range of effects on human health.
Balanced chromosomal abnormalities (BCAs) represent a relatively untapped reservoir of single-gene disruptions in neurodevelopmental disorders (NDDs). We sequenced BCAs in patients with autism or ...related NDDs, revealing disruption of 33 loci in four general categories: (1) genes previously associated with abnormal neurodevelopment (e.g., AUTS2, FOXP1, and CDKL5), (2) single-gene contributors to microdeletion syndromes (MBD5, SATB2, EHMT1, and SNURF-SNRPN), (3) novel risk loci (e.g., CHD8, KIRREL3, and ZNF507), and (4) genes associated with later-onset psychiatric disorders (e.g., TCF4, ZNF804A, PDE10A, GRIN2B, and ANK3). We also discovered among neurodevelopmental cases a profoundly increased burden of copy-number variants from these 33 loci and a significant enrichment of polygenic risk alleles from genome-wide association studies of autism and schizophrenia. Our findings suggest a polygenic risk model of autism and reveal that some neurodevelopmental genes are sensitive to perturbation by multiple mutational mechanisms, leading to variable phenotypic outcomes that manifest at different life stages.
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▸ Mechanisms of epigenetic and transcriptional regulation implicated in autism ▸ Balanced chromosomal abnormality breakpoints harbor individual strong-effect genes ▸ Dosage-sensitive loci confer risk to autism from a spectrum of mutational mechanisms ▸ Different alterations in a gene are associated with diverse clinical outcomes
Sequencing of balanced chromosomal abnormalities, combined with convergent genomic studies of gene expression, copy-number variation, and genome-wide association, identifies 22 new loci that contribute to autism and related neurodevelopmental disorders. These data support a polygenic risk model for autism and provide new insight into how different types of mutations of the same genes can lead to variable disease phenotypes that manifest at different stages of life.
The 1000 Genomes Project (1kGP) is the largest fully open resource of whole-genome sequencing (WGS) data consented for public distribution without access or use restrictions. The final, phase 3 ...release of the 1kGP included 2,504 unrelated samples from 26 populations and was based primarily on low-coverage WGS. Here, we present a high-coverage 3,202-sample WGS 1kGP resource, which now includes 602 complete trios, sequenced to a depth of 30X using Illumina. We performed single-nucleotide variant (SNV) and short insertion and deletion (INDEL) discovery and generated a comprehensive set of structural variants (SVs) by integrating multiple analytic methods through a machine learning model. We show gains in sensitivity and precision of variant calls compared to phase 3, especially among rare SNVs as well as INDELs and SVs spanning frequency spectrum. We also generated an improved reference imputation panel, making variants discovered here accessible for association studies.
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