The transcriptional program that dictates haematopoietic cell fate and differentiation requires an epigenetic regulatory and memory function, provided by a network of epigenetic factors that regulate DNA methylation, post-translational histone modifications and chromatin structure. Disturbed epigenetic regulation causes perturbations in the blood cell differentiation program that results in various types of haematopoietic disorders. Thus, accurate epigenetic regulation is essential for functional haematopoiesis. In this study, we used a CRISPR-Cas9 screening approach to identify new epigenetic regulators in myeloid differentiation. We designed a Chromatin-UMI CRISPR guide library targeting 1092 epigenetic regulators. Phorbol 12-myristate 13-acetate (PMA) treatment of the chronic myeloid leukaemia cell line K-562 was used as a megakaryocytic myeloid differentiation model. Both previously described developmental epigenetic regulators and novel factors were identified in our screen. In this study, we validated and characterized a role for the chromatin remodeller CHD2 in myeloid proliferation and megakaryocytic differentiation.

Loss of recombination between sex chromosomes often depletes Y chromosomes of functional content and genetic variation, which might limit their potential to generate adaptive diversity. Males of the freshwater fish Poecilia parae occur as one of five discrete morphs, all of which shoal together in natural populations where morph frequency has been stable for over 50 years. Each morph uses a different complex reproductive strategy and morphs differ dramatically in colour, body size and mating behaviour. Morph phenotype is passed perfectly from father to son, indicating there are five Y haplotypes segregating in the species, which encode the complex male morph characteristics. Here, we examine Y diversity in natural populations of P. parae. Using linked-read sequencing on multiple P. parae females and males of all five morphs, we find that the genetic architecture of the male morphs evolved on the Y chromosome after recombination suppression had occurred with the X. Comparing Y chromosomes between each of the morphs, we show that, although the Ys of the three minor morphs that differ in colour are highly similar, there are substantial amounts of unique genetic material and divergence between the Ys of the three major morphs that differ in reproductive strategy, body size and mating behaviour. Altogether, our results suggest that the Y chromosome is able to overcome the constraints of recombination loss to generate extreme diversity, resulting in five discrete Y chromosomes that control complex reproductive strategies.

The genes regulating circulating levels of soluble gp130 (sgp130), the antagonist of the inflammatory response in atherosclerosis driven by interleukin 6, are largely unknown. Aims of the present study were to identify genetic loci associated with circulating sgp130 and to explore the potential association between variants associated with sgp130 and markers of subclinical atherosclerosis. The study is based on IMPROVE (n = 3703), a cardiovascular multicentre study designed to investigate the determinants of carotid intima media thickness, a measure of subclinical atherosclerosis. Genomic DNA was genotyped by the CardioMetaboChip and ImmunoChip. About 360,842 SNPs were tested for association with log-transformed sgp130, using linear regression adjusted for age, gender, and population stratification using PLINK v1.07. A p value of 1 × 10-5 was chosen as threshold for significance value. In an exploratory analysis, SNPs associated with sgp130 were tested for association with c-IMT measures. We identified two SNPs significantly associated with sgp130 levels and 24 showing suggestive association with sgp130 levels. One SNP (rs17688225) on chromosome 14 was positively associated with sgp130 serum levels (β = 0.03 SE = 0.007, p = 4.77 × 10-5) and inversely associated with c-IMT (c-IMTmean-max β = -0.001 SE = 0.005, p = 0.0342). Our data indicate that multiple loci regulate sgp130 levels and suggest a possible common pathway between sgp130 and c-IMT measures.

Recent genome wide association studies (GWAS) have identified a locus on chromosome 11p15.5, closely associated with serine/threonine kinase 33 (STK33), to be associated with body mass. STK33, a relatively understudied protein, has been linked to KRAS mutation-driven cancers and explored as a potential antineoplastic drug target. The strongest association with body mass observed at this loci in GWAS was rs4929949, a single nucleotide polymorphism located within intron 1 of the gene encoding STK33. The functional implications of rs4929949 or related variants have not been explored as of yet. We have genotyped rs4929949 in two cohorts, an obesity case-control cohort of 991 Swedish children, and a cross-sectional cohort of 2308 Greek school children. We found that the minor allele of rs4929949 was associated with obesity in the cohort of Swedish children and adolescents (OR = 1.199 (95%CI: 1.002-1.434), p = 0.047), and with body mass in the cross-sectional cohort of Greek children (β = 0.08147 (95% CI: 0.1345-0.1618), p = 0.021). We observe the effects of rs4929949 on body mass to be detectable already at adolescence. Subsequent analysis did not detect any association of rs4929949 to phenotypic measurements describing body adiposity or to metabolic factors such as insulin levels, triglycerides and insulin resistance (HOMA).

Cerebral Cavernous Malformation (CCM) is a brain vascular disease with various neurological symptoms. In this study, we describe the inflammatory profile in CCM and show for the first time the formation of neutrophil extracellular traps (NETs) in rodents and humans with CCM. Through RNA-seq analysis of cerebellum endothelial cells from wild-type mice and mice with an endothelial cell-specific ablation of the Ccm3 gene (Ccm3iECKO), we show that endothelial cells from Ccm3iECKO mice have an increased expression of inflammation-related genes. These genes encode proinflammatory cytokines and chemokines, as well as adhesion molecules, which promote recruitment of inflammatory and immune cells. Similarly, immunoassays showed elevated levels of these cytokines and chemokines in the cerebellum of the Ccm3iECKO mice. Consistently, both flow cytometry and immunofluorescence analysis showed infiltration of different subsets of leukocytes into the CCM lesions. Neutrophils, which are known to fight against infection through different strategies, including the formation of NETs, represented the leukocyte subset within the most pronounced increase in CCM. Here, we detected elevated levels of NETs in the blood and the deposition of NETs in the cerebral cavernomas of Ccm3iECKO mice. Degradation of NETs by DNase I treatment improved the vascular barrier. The deposition of NETs in the cavernomas of patients with CCM confirms the clinical relevance of NETs in CCM.

Mosaic loss of chromosome Y (LOY) is the most common somatic genetic aberration and is associated with increased risk for all-cause mortality, various forms of cancer and Alzheimer's disease, as well as other common human diseases. By tracking LOY frequencies in subjects from which blood samples have been serially collected up to five times during up to 22 years, we observed a pronounced intra-individual variation of changes in the frequency of LOY within individual men over time. We observed that in some individuals the frequency of LOY in blood clearly progressed over time and that in other men, the frequency was constant or showed other types of longitudinal development. The predominant method used for estimating LOY is calculation of the median Log R Ratio of probes located in the male specific part of chromosome Y (mLRRY) from intensity data generated by SNP-arrays, which is difficult to interpret due to its logarithmic and inversed scale. We present here a formula to transform mLRRY-values to percentage of LOY that is a more comprehensible unit. The formula was derived using measurements of LOY from matched samples analysed using SNP-array, whole genome sequencing and a new AMELX/AMELY-based assay for droplet digital PCR. The methods described could be applied for analyses of the vast amount of SNP-array data already generated in the scientific community, allowing further discoveries of LOY associated diseases and outcomes.

There is a need to accurately call human leukocyte antigen (HLA) genes from existing short-read sequencing data, however there is no single solution that matches the gold standard of Sanger sequenced lab typing. Here we aimed to combine results from available software programs, minimizing the biases of applied algorithm and HLA reference. The result is a robust HLA population resource for the published 1000 Swedish genomes, and a framework for future HLA interrogation. HLA 2nd-field alleles were called using four imputation and inference methods for the classical eight genes (class I: HLA-A, HLA-B, HLA-C; class II: HLA-DPA1, HLA-DPB1, HLA-DQA1, HLA-DQB1, HLA-DRB1). A high confidence population set (SweHLA) was determined using an n-1 concordance rule for class I (four software) and class II (three software) alleles. Results were compared across populations and individual programs benchmarked to SweHLA. Per gene, 875 to 988 of the 1000 samples were genotyped in SweHLA; 920 samples had at least seven loci called. While a small fraction of reference alleles were common to all software (class I = 1.9% and class II = 4.1%), this did not affect the overall call rate. Gene-level concordance was high compared to European populations (>0.83%), with COX and PGF the dominant SweHLA haplotypes. We noted that 15/18 discordant alleles (delta allele frequency >2) were previously reported as disease-associated. These differences could in part explain across-study genetic replication failures, reinforcing the need to use multiple software solutions. SweHLA demonstrates a way to use existing NGS data to generate a population resource agnostic to individual HLA software biases.