Publications by authors named "Allison Creason"

Patients with metastatic pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma survive longer if disease spreads to the lung but not the liver. Here we generated overlapping, multi-omic datasets to identify molecular and cellular features that distinguish patients whose disease develops liver metastasis (liver cohort) from those whose disease develops lung metastasis without liver metastases (lung cohort). Lung cohort patients survived longer than liver cohort patients, despite sharing the same tumor subtype.

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Multiplex tissue imaging are a collection of increasingly popular single-cell spatial proteomics and transcriptomics assays for characterizing biological tissues both compositionally and spatially. However, several technical issues limit the utility of multiplex tissue imaging, including the limited number of molecules (proteins and RNAs) that can be assayed, tissue loss, and protein probe failure. In this work, we demonstrate how machine learning methods can address these limitations by imputing protein abundance at the single-cell level using multiplex tissue imaging datasets from a breast cancer cohort.

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The National Cancer Institute (NCI) supports many research programs and consortia, many of which use imaging as a major modality for characterizing cancerous tissue. A trans-consortia Image Analysis Working Group (IAWG) was established in 2019 with a mission to disseminate imaging-related work and foster collaborations. In 2022, the IAWG held a virtual hackathon focused on addressing challenges of analyzing high dimensional datasets from fixed cancerous tissues.

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Mechanisms of therapeutic resistance and vulnerability evolve in metastatic cancers as tumor cells and extrinsic microenvironmental influences change during treatment. To support the development of methods for identifying these mechanisms in individual people, here we present an omic and multidimensional spatial (OMS) atlas generated from four serial biopsies of an individual with metastatic breast cancer during 3.5 years of therapy.

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Highly multiplexed tissue imaging makes detailed molecular analysis of single cells possible in a preserved spatial context. However, reproducible analysis of large multichannel images poses a substantial computational challenge. Here, we describe a modular and open-source computational pipeline, MCMICRO, for performing the sequential steps needed to transform whole-slide images into single-cell data.

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In a pilot study, we evaluated the feasibility of real-time deep analysis of serial tumor samples from triple negative breast cancer patients to identify mechanisms of resistance and treatment opportunities as they emerge under therapeutic stress engendered by poly-ADP-ribose polymerase (PARP) inhibitors (PARPi). In a BRCA-mutant basal breast cancer exceptional long-term survivor, a striking tumor destruction was accompanied by a marked infiltration of immune cells containing CD8 effector cells, consistent with pre-clinical evidence for association between STING mediated immune activation and benefit from PARPi and immunotherapy. Tumor cells in the exceptional responder underwent extensive protein network rewiring in response to PARP inhibition.

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Article Synopsis
  • A study was conducted to confirm the recommended phase II dose of olaparib, a PARP inhibitor, in combination with the AKT inhibitor capivasertib, focusing on various cancers such as endometrial, triple-negative breast, and ovarian cancers.
  • Out of 38 enrolled patients, dose-limiting toxicities occurred in the highest dose group, leading to identification of a lower dose as the safest option, which also showed promising treatment efficacy, especially in endometrial cancer.
  • The treatment had manageable side effects, with strong correlations found between tumor response and various biological markers, indicating that tumor samples can aid in predicting patient responses to therapy.
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  • Accurately identifying and quantifying RNA isoforms in cancer is crucial for understanding genetic variations, analyzing biological pathways, and developing biomarkers.
  • The ICGC-TCGA DREAM SMC-RNA challenge was a collaborative project aimed at evaluating methods for RNA isoform quantification and fusion detection using RNA sequencing data, concluding in 2018 with results from 77 fusion detection and 65 isoform quantification submissions.
  • The challenge provided a collection of benchmark entries and detailed leaderboards, emphasizing the use of containerized workflows for easy accessibility and reproducibility of the methods developed, with supplementary information on the peer review process.
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Supervised machine learning is an essential but difficult to use approach in biomedical data analysis. The Galaxy-ML toolkit (https://galaxyproject.org/community/machine-learning/) makes supervised machine learning more accessible to biomedical scientists by enabling them to perform end-to-end reproducible machine learning analyses at large scale using only a web browser.

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Article Synopsis
  • * A new precision oncology platform integrates serial biopsies, multi-omic analyses, and patient monitoring to gain a better understanding of each patient's unique cancer ecosystem.
  • * The study reveals significant differences in receptor status and genomic alterations among lesions, suggesting that repeat biopsies could help refine targeted therapies for patients with rapidly progressing or mixed responses to treatment.
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is a genus of Gram-positive bacteria with species that can cause growth deformations to a large number of plant species. This ability to cause disease is hypothesized to be dependent on a cluster of three gene loci on an almost 200 kb-sized linear plasmid. To reevaluate the roles of some of the genes in pathogenicity, we constructed and characterized deletion mutants of and four genes.

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Challenges are achieving broad acceptance for addressing many biomedical questions and enabling tool assessment. But ensuring that the methods evaluated are reproducible and reusable is complicated by the diversity of software architectures, input and output file formats, and computing environments. To mitigate these problems, some challenges have leveraged new virtualization and compute methods, requiring participants to submit cloud-ready software packages.

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Advances in sequencing technologies permit the analysis of a larger selection of genes for preconception carrier screening. The study was designed as a sequential carrier screen using genome sequencing to analyze 728 gene-disorder pairs for carrier and medically actionable conditions in 131 women and their partners (n = 71) who were planning a pregnancy. We report here on the clinical laboratory results from this expanded carrier screening program.

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Understanding how bacteria affect plant health is crucial for developing sustainable crop production systems. We coupled ecological sampling and genome sequencing to characterize the population genetic history of and the distribution patterns of virulence plasmids in isolates from nurseries. Analysis of chromosome sequences shows that plants host multiple lineages of , and suggested that these bacteria are transmitted due to independent introductions, reservoir populations, and point source outbreaks.

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The plant cytoskeleton underpins the function of a multitude of cellular mechanisms, including those associated with developmental- and stress-associated signaling processes. In recent years, the actin cytoskeleton has been demonstrated to play a key role in plant immune signaling, including a recent demonstration that pathogens target actin filaments to block plant defense and immunity. Herein, we quantified spatial changes in host actin filament organization after infection with Pseudomonas syringae pv.

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From a screen of 36 plant-associated strains of Burkholderia spp., we identified 24 strains that suppressed leaf and pseudobulb necrosis of orchid caused by B. gladioli.

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The accurate diagnosis of diseases caused by pathogenic bacteria requires a stable species classification. Rhodococcus fascians is the only documented member of its ill-defined genus that is capable of causing disease on a wide range of agriculturally important plants. Comparisons of genome sequences generated from isolates of Rhodococcus associated with diseased plants revealed a level of genetic diversity consistent with them representing multiple species.

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Members of Gram-positive Actinobacteria cause economically important diseases to plants. Within the Rhodococcus genus, some members can cause growth deformities and persist as pathogens on a wide range of host plants. The current model predicts that phytopathogenic isolates require a cluster of three loci present on a linear plasmid, with the fas operon central to virulence.

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Bacteria have many export and secretion systems that translocate cargo into and across biological membranes. Seven secretion systems contribute to pathogenicity by translocating proteinaceous cargos that can be released into the extracellular milieu or directly into recipient cells. In this review, we describe these secretion systems and how their complexities and functions reflect differences in the destinations, states, functions, and sizes of the translocated cargos as well as the architecture of the bacterial cell envelope.

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Article Synopsis
  • Two opposing models exist for how microbes and their host plants evolve together: one suggests a competitive arms race while the other indicates stability with resolved conflicts.
  • Researchers studied two types of mutualistic rhizobia to understand which model applies by examining specific genes crucial for host interactions.
  • Findings showed that the type III effector genes in these rhizobia are highly conserved, contradicting the arms race theory and indicating that mutualistic relationships may be more stable than previously thought.
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Background: Pseudomonas fluorescens is a genetically and physiologically diverse species of bacteria present in many habitats and in association with plants. This species of bacteria produces a large array of secondary metabolites with potential as natural products. P.

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