Exposure to environmental and lifestyle factors, such as cigarette smoking, affect the epigenome and might mediate risk for diseases and cancers. We have performed a genome-wide DNA methylation study to determine the effect of smoke and snuff (smokeless tobacco) on DNA methylation. A total of 95 sites were differentially methylated [false discovery rate (FDR) q-values < 0.05] in smokers and a subset of the differentially methylated loci were also differentially expressed in smokers. We found no sites, neither any biological functions nor molecular processes enriched for smoke-less tobacco-related differential DNA methylation. This suggests that methylation changes are not caused by the basic components of the tobacco but from its burnt products. Instead, we see a clear enrichment (FDR q-value < 0.05) for genes, including CPOX, CDKN1A and PTK2, involved in response to arsenic-containing substance, which agrees with smoke containing small amounts of arsenic. A large number of biological functions and molecular processes with links to disease conditions are also enriched (FDR q-value < 0.05) for smoke-related DNA methylation changes. These include 'insulin receptor binding', and 'negative regulation of glucose import' which are associated with diabetes, 'positive regulation of interleukin-6-mediated signaling pathway', 'regulation of T-helper 2 cell differentiation', 'positive regulation of interleukin-13 production' which are associated with the immune system and 'sertoli cell fate commitment' which is important for male fertility. Since type 2 diabetes, repressed immune system and infertility have previously been associated with smoking, our results suggest that this might be mediated by DNA methylation changes.

Gut mucosal microbes evolved closest to the host, developing specialized local communities. There is, however, insufficient knowledge of these communities as most studies have employed sequencing technologies to investigate faecal microbiota only. This work used shotgun metagenomics of mucosal biopsies to explore the microbial communities' compositions of terminal ileum and large intestine in 5 healthy individuals. Functional annotations and genome-scale metabolic modelling of selected species were then employed to identify local functional enrichments. While faecal metagenomics provided a good approximation of the average gut mucosal microbiome composition, mucosal biopsies allowed detecting the subtle variations of local microbial communities. Given their significant enrichment in the mucosal microbiota, we highlight the roles of Bacteroides species and describe the antimicrobial resistance biogeography along the intestine. We also detail which species, at which locations, are involved with the tryptophan/indole pathway, whose malfunctioning has been linked to pathologies including inflammatory bowel disease. Our study thus provides invaluable resources for investigating mechanisms connecting gut microbiota and host pathophysiology.

The genetics behind predisposition to small intestinal neuroendocrine tumors (SI-NETs) is largely unknown, but there is growing awareness of a familial form of the disease. We aimed to identify germline mutations involved in the carcinogenesis of SI-NETs. The strategy included next-generation sequencing of exome- and/or whole-genome of blood DNA, and in selected cases, tumor DNA, from 24 patients from 15 families with the history of SI-NETs. We identified seven candidate mutations in six genes that were further studied using 215 sporadic SI-NET patients. The result was compared with the frequency of the candidate mutations in three control cohorts with a total of 35,688 subjects. A heterozygous variant causing an amino acid substitution p.(Gly396Asp) in the MutY DNA glycosylase gene (MUTYH) was significantly enriched in SI-NET patients (minor allele frequencies 0.013 and 0.003 for patients and controls respectively) and resulted in odds ratio of 5.09 (95% confidence interval 1.56-14.74; P value = 0.0038). We also found a statistically significant difference in age at diagnosis between familial and sporadic SI-NETs. MUTYH is involved in the protection of DNA from mutations caused by oxidative stress. The inactivation of this gene leads to specific increase of G:C- > T:A transversions in DNA sequence and has been shown to cause various cancers in humans and experimental animals. Our results suggest that p.(Gly396Asp) in MUTYH, and potentially other mutations in additional members of the same DNA excision-repair pathway (such as the OGG1 gene) might be involved in driving the tumorigenesis leading to familial and sporadic SI-NETs.

A multidrug-resistant lineage of Staphylococcus epidermidis named ST215 is a common cause of prosthetic joint infections and other deep surgical site infections in Northern Europe, but is not present elsewhere. The increasing resistance among S. epidermidis strains is a global concern. We used whole-genome sequencing to characterize ST215 from healthcare settings. We completed the genome of a ST215 isolate from a Swedish hospital using short and long reads, resulting in a circular 2,676,787 bp chromosome and a 2,326 bp plasmid. The new ST215 genome was placed in phylogenetic context using 1,361 finished public S. epidermidis reference genomes. We generated 10 additional short-read ST215 genomes and 11 short-read genomes of ST2, which is another common multidrug-resistant lineage at the same hospital. We studied recombination's role in the evolution of ST2 and ST215, and found multiple recombination events averaging 30-50 kb. By comparing the results of antimicrobial susceptibility testing for 31 antimicrobial drugs with the genome content encoding antimicrobial resistance in the ST215 and ST2 isolates, we found highly similar resistance traits between the isolates, with 22 resistance genes being shared between all the ST215 and ST2 genomes. The ST215 genome contained 29 genes that were historically identified as virulence genes of S. epidermidis ST2. We established that in the nucleotide sequence stretches identified as recombination events, virulence genes were overrepresented in ST215, while antibiotic resistance genes were overrepresented in ST2. This study features the extensive antibiotic resistance and virulence gene content in ST215 genomes. ST215 and ST2 lineages have similarly evolved, acquiring resistance and virulence through genomic recombination. The results highlight the threat of new multidrug-resistant S. epidermidis lineages emerging in healthcare settings.

Therapies targeting somatic bystander genetic events represent a new avenue for cancer treatment. We recently identified a subset of colorectal cancer (CRC) patients who are heterozygous for a wild-type and a low activity allele (NAT2*6) but lack the wild-type allele in their tumors due to loss of heterozygosity (LOH) at 8p22. These tumors were sensitive to treatment with a cytotoxic substrate of NAT2 (6-(4-aminophenyl)-N-(3,4,5-trimethoxyphenyl)pyrazin-2-amine, APA), and pointed to NAT2 loss being a therapeutically exploitable vulnerability of CRC tumors. To better estimate the total number of treatable CRC patients, we here determined whether tumor cells retaining also other NAT2 low activity variants after LOH respond to APA treatment. The prevalent low activity alleles NAT2*5 and NAT2*14, but not NAT2*7, were found to be low metabolizers with high sensitivity to APA. By analysis of two different CRC patient cohorts, we detected heterozygosity for NAT2 alleles targetable by APA, along with allelic imbalances pointing to LOH, in ~ 24% of tumors. Finally, to haplotype the NAT2 locus in tumor and patient-matched normal samples in a clinical setting, we develop and demonstrate a long-read sequencing based assay. In total, > 79.000 CRC patients per year fulfil genetic criteria for high sensitivity to a NAT2 LOH therapy and their eligibility can be assessed by clinical sequencing.

Capnocytophga canimorsus and Capnocytophga cynodegmi can be transmitted from cats and dogs to humans, and can cause a wide range of infections including wound infections, sepsis, or endocarditis. We and others recently discovered two new Capnocytophaga species, C. canis and C. stomatis, mainly associated with wound infections. The first-line treatment of animal bite related infections is penicillin, and in case of allergy, doxycycline and trimethoprim/sulfamethoxazole. However, there is a lack of antibiotic susceptibility patterns for animal bite associated Capnocytophaga species. Thus, we set out to study the antibiotic profiles against animal bite associated Capnocytophaga species isolated from wound and blood cultures after cat and dog bites and coupled the findings to whole genome sequencing data. A total of 24 strains were included in the study. Phenotypic analysis of antibiotic resistance was performed with E-tests. The web-based tool 'Resfinder' was used to identify resistance genes in the whole genome dataset. Two strains of C. cynodegmi and two strains of the recently discovered C. stomatis were resistant to penicillin (MIC > 24 mg/L) and cephalosporins (MIC > 24 mg/L), and three out of these strains also exhibited resistance to imipenem (MIC = 32 mg/L). Genomic analysis revealed that these strains carried a class D beta-lactamase gene, which has not previously been found in Capnocytophaga spp. A class D beta lactamase with broad substrate specificity was found in animal bite associated Capnocytophaga species, which could have important implications when treating wound infections after cat and dog bites. It also suggests that pet animal bacteria can harbour resistance genes with relevance for human infections.

A large number of genome-wide association studies have been performed during the past five years to identify associations between SNPs and human complex diseases and traits. The assignment of a functional role for the identified disease-associated SNP is not straight-forward. Genome-wide expression quantitative trait locus (eQTL) analysis is frequently used as the initial step to define a function while allele-specific gene expression (ASE) analysis has not yet gained a wide-spread use in disease mapping studies. We compared the power to identify cis-acting regulatory SNPs (cis-rSNPs) by genome-wide allele-specific gene expression (ASE) analysis with that of traditional expression quantitative trait locus (eQTL) mapping. Our study included 395 healthy blood donors for whom global gene expression profiles in circulating monocytes were determined by Illumina BeadArrays. ASE was assessed in a subset of these monocytes from 188 donors by quantitative genotyping of mRNA using a genome-wide panel of SNP markers. The performance of the two methods for detecting cis-rSNPs was evaluated by comparing associations between SNP genotypes and gene expression levels in sample sets of varying size. We found that up to 8-fold more samples are required for eQTL mapping to reach the same statistical power as that obtained by ASE analysis for the same rSNPs. The performance of ASE is insensitive to SNPs with low minor allele frequencies and detects a larger number of significantly associated rSNPs using the same sample size as eQTL mapping. An unequivocal conclusion from our comparison is that ASE analysis is more sensitive for detecting cis-rSNPs than standard eQTL mapping. Our study shows the potential of ASE mapping in tissue samples and primary cells which are difficult to obtain in large numbers.