Rare versus common variants in pharmacogenetics: SLCO1B1 variation and methotrexate disposition

Methotrexate is used to treat autoimmune diseases and malignancies, including acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL). Inter-individual variation in clearance of methotrexate results in heterogeneous systemic exposure, clinical efficacy, and toxicity. In a genome-wide association study of children with ALL, we identified SLCO1B1 as harboring multiple common polymorphisms associated with methotrexate clearance. The extent of influence of rare versus common variants on pharmacogenomic phenotypes remains largely unexplored. We tested the hypothesis that rare variants in SLCO1B1 could affect methotrexate clearance and compared the influence of common versus rare variants in addition to clinical covariates on clearance. From deep resequencing of SLCO1B1 exons in 699 children, we identified 93 SNPs, 15 of which were non-synonymous (NS). Three of these NS SNPs were common, with a minor allele frequency (MAF) >5%, one had low frequency (MAF 1%-5%), and 11 were rare (MAF <1%). NS SNPs (common or rare) predicted to be functionally damaging were more likely to be found among patients with the lowest methotrexate clearance than patients with high clearance. We verified lower function in vitro of four SLCO1B1 haplotypes that were associated with reduced methotrexate clearance. In a multivariate stepwise regression analysis adjusting for other genetic and non-genetic covariates, SLCO1B1 variants accounted for 10.7% of the population variability in clearance. Of that variability, common NS variants accounted for the majority, but rare damaging NS variants constituted 17.8% of SLCO1B1's effects (1.9% of total variation) and had larger effect sizes than common NS variants. Our results show that rare variants are likely to have an important effect on pharmacogenetic phenotypes.     

Neutral substitutions occur at a faster rate in exons than in noncoding DNA in primate genomes

Point mutation rates in exons (synonymous sites) and noncoding (introns and intergenic) regions are generally assumed to be the same. However, comparative sequence analyses of synonymous substitutions in exons (81 genes) and that of long intergenic fragments (141.3 kbp) of human and chimpanzee genomes reveal a 30%-60% higher mutation rate in exons than in noncoding DNA. We propose a differential CpG content hypothesis to explain this fundamental, and seemingly unintuitive, pattern. We find that the increased exonic rate is the result of the relative overabundance of synonymous sites involved in CpG dinucleotides, as the evolutionary divergence in non-CpG sites is similar in noncoding DNA and synonymous sites of exons. Expectations and predictions of our hypothesis are confirmed in comparisons involving more distantly related species, including human-orangutan, human-baboon, and human-macaque. Our results suggest an underlying mechanism for higher mutation rate in GC-rich genomic regions, predict nonlinear accumulation of mutations in pseudogenes over time, and provide a possible explanation for the observed higher diversity of single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in the synonymous sites of exons compared to the noncoding regions.     

Quantifying harmful mutations in human populations

A number of previous studies suggested the presence of deleterious amino acid altering nonsynonymous single-nucleotide polymorphisms (nSNPs) in human populations. However, the proportions of deleterious nSNPs among rare and common variants are not known. To estimate these, >77 000 SNPs from human protein-coding genes were analyzed. Based on two independent methods, this study reveals that up to 53% of rare nSNPs (minor allele frequency (MAF)<0.002) could be deleterious in nature. The fraction of deleterious nSNPs declines with the increase in their allele frequencies and only 12% of the common nSNPs (MAF>0.4) were found to be harmful. This shows that even at high frequencies significant fractions of deleterious polymorphisms are present in human populations. These results could be useful for genome-wide association studies in understanding the relative contributions of rare and common variants in causing human genetic diseases.     

A summary statistic approach to sequence variation in noncoding regions of six schizophrenia-associated gene loci

In order to explore the role of noncoding variants in the genetics of schizophrenia, we sequenced 27 kb of noncoding DNA from the gene loci RAC-alpha serine/threonine-protein kinase (AKT1), brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF), dopamine receptor-3 (DRD3), dystrobrevin binding protein-1 (DTNBP1), neuregulin-1 (NRG1) and regulator of G-protein signaling-4 (RGS4) in 37 schizophrenia patients and 25 healthy controls. To compare the allele frequency spectrum between the two samples, we separately computed Tajima's D-value for each sample. The results showed a smaller Tajima's D-value in the case sample, pointing to an excess of rare variants as compared to the control sample. When randomly permuting the affection status of sequenced individuals, we observed a stronger decrease of Tajima's D in 2400 out of 100,000 permutations, corresponding to a P-value of 0.024 in a one-sided test. Thus, rare variants are significantly enriched in the schizophrenia sample, indicating the existence of disease-related sequence alterations. When categorizing the sequenced fragments according to their level of human-rodent conservation or according to their gene locus, we observed a wide range of diversity parameter estimates. Rare variants were enriched in conserved regions as compared to nonconserved regions in both samples. Nevertheless, rare variants remained more common among patients, suggesting an increased number of variants under purifying selection in this sample. Finally, we performed a heuristic search for the subset of gene loci, which jointly produces the strongest difference between controls and cases. This showed a more prominent role of variants from the loci AKT1, BDNF and RGS4. Taken together, our approach provides promising strategy to investigate the genetics of schizophrenia and related phenotypes.     

Synonymous Somatic Variants in Human Cancer Are Not Infamous: A Plea for Full Disclosure in Databases and Publications

Single‐nucleotide variants (SNVs) are the most frequent genetic changes found in human cancer. Most driver alterations are missense and nonsense variants localized in the coding region of cancer genes. Unbiased cancer genome sequencing shows that synonymous SNVs (sSNVs) can be found clustered in the coding regions of several cancer oncogenes or tumor suppressor genes suggesting purifying selection. sSNVs are currently underestimated, as they are usually discarded during analysis. Furthermore, several public databases do not display sSNVs, which can lead to analytical bias and the false assumption that this mutational event is uncommon. Recent progress in our understanding of the deleterious consequences of these sSNVs for RNA stability and protein translation shows that they can act as strong drivers of cancer, as demonstrated for several cancer genes such as TP53 or BCL2L12. It is therefore essential that sSNVs be properly reported and analyzed in order to provide an accurate picture of the genetic landscape of the cancer genome.     

Functional genomics of membrane transporters in human populations

Although considerable progress has been made toward characterizing human DNA sequence variation, there remains a deficiency in information on human phenotypic variation at the single-gene level. We systematically analyzed the function of all protein-altering variants of eleven membrane transporters in heterologous expression systems. Coding-region variants were identified by screening DNA from a large sample (n = 247-276) of ethnically diverse subjects. In total, we functionally analyzed 88 protein-altering variants. Fourteen percent of the polymorphic variants (defined as variants with allele frequencies > or =1% in at least one major ethnic group) had no activity or significantly reduced function. Decreased function variants had significantly lower allele frequencies and were more likely to alter evolutionarily conserved amino acid residues. However, variants at evolutionarily conserved positions with approximately normal activity in cellular assays were also at significantly lower allele frequencies, suggesting that some variants with apparently normal activity in biochemical assays may influence occult functions or quantitative degrees of function that are important in human fitness but not measured in these assays. For example, eight (14%) of the 58 variants for which we had measured the transport of at least two substrates showed substrate-specific defects in transport. These variants and the reduced function variants provide plausible candidates for disease susceptibility or variation in clinical drug response.     

Phylogenetic analysis of New Zealand tomato spotted wilt virus isolates suggests likely incursion history scenarios and mechanisms for population evolution

Tomato spotted wilt virus (TSWV) is an internationally significant pathogen with a wide host range, vectored by thrips. We have studied the sequence variation and evolutionary mechanisms at play in parts of the L, M and S subgenomes of 23 New Zealand TSWV isolates collected between 1992 and 2009, aiming to identify the possible geographic origins of isolates. Maximum-likelihood-based phylogenetic analyses of New Zealand and overseas TSWV isolates placed the L and M subgenome sequences of two isolates (MAF04 and PFR04) in distinct clades composed primarily of Korean, Japanese and Chinese isolates, in contrast to the remaining 21 isolates, which clustered with a cosmopolitan group of isolates. The nucleocapsid (N) gene sequences of MAF04 and PFR04 plus MAF02 clustered with Japanese isolates. Consequently, we postulate that these isolates may represent a distinct incursion into New Zealand, but we do not have enough evidence to indicate an incursion pathway. Alternately, these isolates may have arrived with an incursion that included a mixture of TSWV isolates of diverse international origins. The sequences of four of the TSWV isolates contained a number of sites with a mixture of nucleotides, suggesting that these isolates either consisted of several sequence variants or were from plants with mixed infections. One isolate (MAF02) was shown to be a either a reassortant or an S subgenome recombinant. Large amounts of low-level polymorphism were detected with low amino acid change fixation rates (purifying selection). Negative selection was indicated at four amino acid sites in the New Zealand TSWV N gene sequences.     

Small effective population sizes and rare nonsynonymous variants in potyviruses

Analysis of nucleotide sequence polymorphism in complete genomes of 12 species of potyviruses (single-stranded, positive-sense RNA viruses, family Potyviridae) revealed evidence that long-term effective population sizes of these viruses are on the order of 10⁴. Comparison of nucleotide diversity in non-coding regions and at synonymous and nonsynonymous sites in coding regions showed that purifying selection has acted to eliminate numerous deleterious mutations both at nonsynonymous sites and in non-coding regions. The ratio of nonsynonymous to synonymous polymorphic sites increased as a function of the number of genomes sampled, whereas mean gene diversity at nonsynonymous polymorphic sites decreased with increasing sample size at a substantially faster rate than does mean gene diversity at synonymous polymorphic sites. Very similar relationships were observed both in available genomic sequences of 12 potyvirus species and in subsets created by randomly sampling from among 98 TuMV genomes. Taken together, these observations imply that a greater proportion of nonsynonymous than of synonymous variants are relatively rare as the result of ongoing purifying selection, and thus many nonsynonymous variants are unlikely to be discovered without extensive sampling.     

长寿老人SIRT6基因的罕见及常见变异研究

目的 SIRT6基因属于Sirtuin家族的一员,是长寿候选基因.本文旨在长寿老人中探索SIRT6基因的罕见及常见变异分布情况.方法 从如皋长寿及衰老队列的长寿组中随机抽取102例长寿老人(≥95岁),对SIRT6基因的启动子及外显子区域进行PCR扩增和直接测序,识别罕见及常见变异,并与千人基因组中汉族人群数据进行频率比对.结果 总共完成约10 kb的测序,覆盖了SIRT6基因的8个外显子和1.5kb的启动子区域.在发现的20个已报道变异位点中,6个分布在启动子区,1个分布在外显子上,2个分布在3'UTR区域,11个分布在内含子区.共有12个已报道变异位点的最小等位基因频率(minor allele frequencies,MAFs)超过0.05;其中,rs352493(MAF=0.245)为非同义突变.在剩下8个MAF低于0.05的已报道位点中,rs117541451 (MAF=0.010)和rs146420357(MAF=0.029)与千人基因组中汉族人相应频率差异具有统计学意义(P=0.021).观察到5个新发位点,其MAF均为0.005.这5个位点中,有1个分布在外显子上,1个分布在启动子区,1个分布在3'UTR区域,2个则分布在内含子区.结论 在如皋长寿人群SIRT6基因上首次观察到20个已报道变异位点(12个为常见位点)及5个新发位点(均为罕见位点).这为长寿的遗传学探索及功能研究提供了新的重要候选位点,进一步强调了罕见变异在长寿中的重要作用.     

Hypermethylation of CpG islands is more prevalent than hypomethylation across the entire genome in breast carcinogenesis

This study aimed to establish a high-throughput, genome-wide and non-gene-specific approach to assess the methylation status of multiple CpG islands in parallel and employ it to detect the CpG island methylation profiling alterations in breast carcinogenesis. We used methylation-sensitive restriction fingerprint (MSRF) to screen the permutations of primers that could detect varied and specific methylation profiling in genomic DNA isolated from four different cell lines. Five permutations of nine arbitrary primers were determined for the following experiments based on the above test. We then examined the methylation profiling alterations of CpG islands in 31 breast cancer tissue samples relative to their adjacent non-neoplastic tissues with modified MSRF that replaced silver staining with denatured high-performance liquid chromatography for size fraction. We found that two pairs of primers could reveal specific alterations of CpG methylation in the examined tissues, and 83.9% (26/31) of breast cancer tissues exhibited specific CpG island methylation profiling relative to their adjacent non-neoplastic tissues. Size fraction analysis revealed that hypermethylation of CpG islands was responsible for the aberrant methylation profiling in breast cancer tissues. Our work not only established a relative high-throughput, genome-wide and economic method to detect methylation alterations of CpG island profiling, but also revealed that hypermethylation of CpG islands was more prevalent than hypomethylation across the entire genome in our examined cancer tissues. The methylation profiling alterations revealed by two primer pairs used in the present study might be a novel marker for breast cancer.     

Effect of the codon 72 polymorphism (c.215G>C, p.Arg72Pro) in combination with somatic sequence variants in the TP53 gene on survival in patients with advanced ovarian carcinoma

This study was conducted to evaluate the frequency and prognostic impact of TP53 alterations stratified for the TP53 codon 72 polymorphism (c.215G>C, p.Arg72Pro) in a cohort of 109 patients with advanced ovarian carcinomas. TP53 sequence variants were observed in 80 of the 109 (73.4%) tumors and were significantly associated with grade of differentiation (P=0.001). A tendency towards higher frequency of sequence variants in tumors with higher FIGO stages was seen (P=0.05). The type of TP53 sequence variant (transition A:T>G:C vs. G:C>A:T at CpG dinucleotides, and transversion G:C>T:A) had significant correlation with patients' age (P=0.04) with more A:T>G:C in patients over 60 years old. No significant associations were found between frequency of sequence variants and age at diagnosis, histological type, size of residual tumor after primary surgery, or long-term survival. Analyses of the codon 72 polymorphism in tumor DNA gave a higher frequency of homozygosity/hemizygosity than expected from the population frequency, particularly for the Pro allele. Tumors homozygous or hemizygous for the Pro allele had significantly higher frequency of TP53 sequence variants, particularly of the nonmissense type (P=0.002), and patients with these types of alterations had significantly shorter survival (P=0.04). TP53 protein accumulation, determined by immunohistochemistry (IHC), was found in 67.9% (74 out of 109) of the tumors, was significantly more common among serous than nonserous ovarian carcinomas (P=0.008), and had a significant effect on progression-free survival (P=0.03). p63 (TP73L; formerly TP63) and p73 (TP73) protein accumulation detected by IHC was seen in 67.9 and 0% of the tumors, respectively. A significantly higher frequency of p63-positive cases was seen among serous tumors (P=0.008) and tended to increase with increasing FIGO stages (P=0.05), but had no significant effect on survival. No association between p63 protein accumulation and TP53 protein accumulation was seen.     

Novel DCC variants in congenital mirror movements and evaluation of disease-associated missense variants

Congenital mirror movements (CMM) are involuntary movements of one side of the body that mirror intentional movements of the other side. Heterozygous missense, frameshift and nonsense variants and small intragenic deletions in DCC cause CMM, isolated agenesis of the corpus callosum (ACC) or both. We report here the clinical phenotype and natural history of ten individuals with CMM carrying five different monoallelic DCC variants, including the missense variant p.(Trp273Arg), two duplications, one deletion and one deletion-insertion; all are novel and absent from databases. We re-evaluated the 15 known disease-associated DCC missense variants by determining minor allele frequency (MAF) and pathogenicity using four in silico tools combining previous pathogenicity scores and the ACMG/AMP standards and guidelines and classified them in three groups. Group I contains three DCC missense variants that are rather unlikely to be associated with a higher risk to CMM and/or ACC. The five variants in group II may represent susceptibility factors to altered midline crossing in the central nervous system. Group III includes seven variants absent in publically available databases and representing possible pathogenic alleles, with four predicted to have a severe impact on protein function. Based on this data and the variable expressivity and incomplete penetrance present in heterozygous carriers of a DCC variant, classification and clinical interpretation of missense variants is challenging in the absence of evidence of pathogenicity originated from functional studies. Evaluation of missense variants by MAF and a weighted combination of several computational algorithms is recommended.     

Human genetic variation recognizes functional elements in noncoding sequence

Noncoding DNA, particularly intronic DNA, harbors important functional elements that affect gene expression and RNA splicing. Yet, it is unclear which specific noncoding sites are essential for gene function and regulation. To identify functional elements in noncoding DNA, we characterized genetic variation within introns using ethnically diverse human polymorphism data from three public databases—PMT, NIEHS, and SeattleSNPs. We demonstrate that positions within introns corresponding to known functional elements involved in pre-mRNA splicing, including the branch site, splice sites, and polypyrimidine tract show reduced levels of genetic variation. Additionally, we observed regions of reduced genetic variation that are candidates for distance-dependent localization sites of functional elements, possibly intronic splicing enhancers (ISEs). Using several bioinformatics approaches, we provide additional evidence that supports our hypotheses that these regions correspond to ISEs. We conclude that studies of genetic variation can successfully discriminate and identify functional elements in noncoding regions. As more noncoding sequence data become available, the methods employed here can be utilized to identify additional functional elements in the human genome and provide possible explanations for phenotypic associations.Genome-wide association studies have begun to identify large numbers of genetic variants that influence the risk of human diseases and variability in human traits. A striking feature of the newly associated variants is that the top signals often occur at DNA sites that do not encode amino acids. Because the function of noncoding DNA is less well understood than that of coding DNA, researchers are left to speculate about the functional effect of these variants. Methods that elucidate the function of noncoding DNA can complement the knowledge gained from association studies and in so doing lead to a more complete understanding of gene function and disease etiology. Here, we examine the distribution of genetic variation that exists within the human species to identify functional elements in the human genome.The most common differences in DNA sequence between individuals are single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs), that is, changes to a single DNA base pair. Sites with low genetic diversity have been suggested to be under purifying selection and therefore indicate functionally important regions within the genome. Consequently, calculation of nucleotide diversity, which provides a measure of genetic variation, is commonly employed to recognize functional sites and to characterize genetic variation (Cargill et al. 1999; Halushka et al. 1999; Leabman et al. 2003; Myrick et al. 2005; Urban et al. 2006).To this end, surveys of DNA variation in humans have been undertaken to better understand the characteristics of functional sites in the genome. To date, most of these surveys have focused on genes. Two surveys—one of variation in 106 genes associated with cardiovascular disease, endocrinology, and neuropsychiatry, and another of 75 genes involved in blood pressure homeostasis and hypertension—showed that there was reduced variation at nonsynonymous (change in amino acid) sites within coding regions, particularly when the changes led to nonconservative (change in amino acid whose biochemical properties differ from the native amino acid) mutations (Cargill et al. 1999; Halushka et al. 1999). Additional work on 24 human membrane transporter genes showed that sequence variants in positions that lead to nonsynonymous substitutions have lower allele frequencies when compared with other sequence changes (Leabman et al. 2003). Follow-up work by the same group measured the in vitro activity of polymorphic transmembrane transporters, revealing that the transporters with high-frequency variants retained function, while those with low-frequency variants more often lost activity or displayed reduced function (Urban et al. 2006). In general, alleles that are functionally deleterious will be selected against and thus under-represented among high-frequency variants, and overrepresented among low-frequency variants.Supported by experiments like those described above, many have emphasized studying coding as opposed to noncoding variants for phenotypic effects since these changes can have a direct effect on the protein sequence, and therefore are more likely to alter its function (Risch 2000). There are, however, also clear examples of mutations in noncoding regions, including those within introns, being responsible for diseases (Langford et al. 1984; Vijayraghavan et al. 1986; Kuivenhoven et al. 1996; Webb et al. 1996; Yu et al. 1999). Additionally, many genome-wide association (GWA) studies have now found associations between intronic variants and diseases such as breast cancer and diabetes (Easton et al. 2007; Hunter et al. 2007; Scott et al. 2007).An important problem in GWA studies is that even after a locus is implicated in causing a disease, using linkage disequilibrium to associate a specific noncoding variant with the disease can be inconclusive since these noncoding variants typically don''t offer any information about the functional effect of the DNA change, whereas changes in coding DNA have clearer consequences (Freimer and Sabatti 2007). Given that previous studies have successfully used human polymorphism data to characterize functional elements within human coding regions, the present study demonstrates that biologically active sites within noncoding regions, specifically introns, show the same reduced genetic variation characteristics that are seen within coding regions. In addition, we use human polymorphism data to identify novel location-specific intronic sites that suggest the presence of functional elements within noncoding DNA, which may represent intronic splicing enhancers.     

Patterns of nucleotide difference in overlapping and non-overlapping reading frames of papillomavirus genomes

On the basis of a phylogenetic analysis of papillomavirus complete genomes, 30 pairs of closely related genomes were chosen for examination of the pattern of synonymous and non-synonymous nucleotide difference in overlapping and non-overlapping reading frames. The proportion of synonymous differences per synonymous site (pS) was generally reduced in overlapping regions in comparison to non-overlapping regions. This reduction in pS appears to result from purifying selection acting on the overlapping reading frame because of functional constraint on the amino acid sequence that it encodes. As a consequence of such purifying selection, a trade-off was observed between synonymous substitution in one reading frame and non-synonymous substitution in the other; this pattern was particularly evident in the overlap between the E2 and E1 reading frames, which encodes a highly conserved portion of the E2 protein. Fifty-three sequences of the hinge region of the HPV16 E2 protein (where the E2 and E4 reading frames overlap) showed an elevated level of non-synonymous nucleotide substitution in the E2 reading frame, particularly in a region believed to be involved in immune recognition. Non-synonymous substitutions in this region occurred disproportionately in such a way as to cause synonymous substitutions in the E4 reading frame. Thus, positive diversifying selection on the E2 hinge region appears to coexist with purifying selection on the overlapping region of E4.     

Extensive variation and low heritability of DNA methylation identified in a twin study

Disturbance of DNA methylation leading to aberrant gene expression has been implicated in the etiology of many diseases. Whereas variation at the genetic level has been studied extensively, less is known about the extent and function of epigenetic variation. To explore variation and heritability of DNA methylation, we performed bisulfite sequencing of 1760 CpG sites in 186 regions in the human major histocompatibility complex (MHC) in CD4+ lymphocytes from 49 monozygotic (MZ) and 40 dizygotic (DZ) twin pairs. Individuals show extensive variation in DNA methylation both between and within regions. In addition, many regions also have a complex pattern of variation. Globally, there appears to be a bimodal distribution of DNA methylation in the regions, but a significant fraction of the CpG sites are also heterogeneously methylated. Classification of regions into CpG islands (intragenic and intergenic), 5' end of genes not associated with a defined CpG island, conserved noncoding regions, and random CpG sites shows region-type differences in variation and heritability. Analyses revealed slightly lower intra-pair differences among MZ than among DZ pairs, suggesting some genetic influences on DNA methylation variation, with most of the variance attributed to nongenetic factors. Overall, heritability estimates of DNA methylation were low. Our heritability estimates are, however, somewhat deflated due to the presence of batch effects that artificially inflate the estimates of shared environment.     

Polymorphic variants in the human mitochondrial cytochrome b gene.

We report the polymorphic variants of the human cytochrome b gene based on sequence analysis in 32 Caucasian individuals. We found 27 variants (12 synonymous changes and 15 amino acid replacements). Of these, 15 (8 silent changes and 7 amino acid replacements) have not been previously reported. Based on restriction length polymorphism analysis of patients and their maternal relatives, we conclude that these new amino acid replacements represent maternally inherited polymorphisms. Comparative analysis of the data suggests that four different genotypes can be defined for the human cytochrome b gene.     

Computational prediction of the functional effects of amino acid substitutions in signal peptides using a model-based approach

Signal peptides are N-terminal sequences that mediate the targeting and translocation of secreted or cell-surface proteins to the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) membrane. Because of the variability among signal peptides, traditional methods for predicting the effects of an amino acid substitution based on sequence conservation methods may be limited in their use. To address this, we present a scoring function that assesses the effects of an amino acid change within the signal peptide by using data from SignalP, a signal peptide prediction algorithm. Our score incorporates the maximum alterations of the C- and S-scores from SignalP between original and changed versions of the signal peptide. We demonstrate that this metric can discriminate disease-associated mutations from single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in signal peptides. We further show that polymorphisms with low minor allele frequency (MAF) are more likely to affect the function of the signal peptide. In conjunction with Sorting Intolerant From Tolerant (SIFT), a conservation-based amino acid substitution prediction method, our approach classifies such changes to signal peptides more accurately than other known alternatives, including D-score-based methods. We also examine experimentally characterized mutations and find that our metric minimizes false positives and can predict whether the mutation will affect cleavage or translocation. Finally, we apply our approach to a set of recently produced large-scale cancer somatic mutations from colon and breast cancers and generate a prioritized list of mutations in signal peptides that might impair protein function.     

Extensive Variation in the Mutation Rate Between and Within Human Genes Associated with Mendelian Disease

We have investigated whether the mutation rate varies between genes and sites using de novo mutations (DNMs) from three genes associated with Mendelian diseases (RB1, NF1, and MECP2). We show that the relative frequency of mutations at CpG dinucleotides relative to non‐CpG sites varies between genes and relative to the genomic average. In particular we show that the rate of transition mutation at CpG sites relative to the rate of non‐CpG transversion is substantially higher in our disease genes than amongst DNMs in general; the rate of CpG transition can be several hundred‐fold greater than the rate of non‐CpG transversion. We also show that the mutation rate varies significantly between sites of a particular mutational type, such as non‐CpG transversion, within a gene. We estimate that for all categories of sites, except CpG transitions, there is at least a 30‐fold difference in the mutation rate between the 10% of sites with the highest and lowest mutation rates. However, our best estimate is that the mutation rate varies by several hundred‐fold variation. We suggest that the presence of hypermutable sites may be one reason certain genes are associated with disease.     

Phylogeny and evolution of Newcastle disease virus genotypes isolated in Asia during 2008–2011

The full-length fusion (F) genes of 51 Newcastle disease (ND) strains isolated from chickens in Asia during the period 2008-2011 were genetically analyzed. Phylogenetic analysis showed that genotype VII of NDV still predominant in the domestic poultry of Asia. The sub-genotype VIIb circulated in the Iran and Indian sub-continent countries, whereas VIId sub-genotype existed in Far East countries. The non-synonymous to synonymous substitutions ratio was calculated 0.27 for VIId sub-genotype and 0.51 for VIIb sub-genotype indicates purifying/stabilizing selection which resulted in a low evolution rate in F gene of VIIb sub-genotype. There is evidence of localized positive selection when comparing these sub-genotypes protein sequences. Five codons in F gene of ND viruses had a posterior probability >90% using the Bayesian method, indicating these sites were under positive selection. To identify sites under positive selection; amino acid substitution classified depends on their radicalism and neutrality. The results indicate that although most positions were under purifying selection and can be eliminated, a few positions located in sub-genotype specific regions were subject to positive selection.     

Molecular analysis of 5-azacytidine-induced variants in mammalian cells

5-azacytidine induces 6-thioguanine resistance in AS52 cells. To characterize these resistant clones, we isolated 148 of them from 50 independently treated flasks. Less than nine (6%) of the 148 variants were spontaneous. PCR amplification of the DNA primers flanking the gpt gene produced no product in 15 clones (10%). Of the 133 remaining clones, 52 showed sequence alterations in the gpt structural gene. Of these 52, 34 (65%) were GC-->CG transversions. Only seven were located in CpG sequences. Thus, methyltransferase complexes are not major contributors to 5-azacytidine-induced point mutations in AS52 cells. The remaining 81 clones had no sequence alterations within the coding region of the gpt gene. Southern blot analysis of a sample of these variants (37/81) indicated that the 6-thioguanine-resistant phenotype was not due to local rearrangements or deletions (resolution 50 bp). Sequence analysis of the early promoter region of another sample of these variants (24/81) indicated that lesions in the promoter could not be responsible for the 6-thioguanine resistance observed. Thus, a majority of these variants were formed via a mechanism other than small genomic rearrangements, point mutations or deletions of the gpt structural gene or its promoter. Neither the mechanisms leading to these variants nor the biological and morphological consequences of these variants are known.