Publications by authors named "Beggs A"

Upon infection, human papillomavirus (HPV) manipulates host cell gene expression to create an environment that is supportive of a productive and persistent infection. The virus-induced changes to the host cell's transcriptome are thought to contribute to carcinogenesis. Here, we show by RNA-sequencing that oncogenic HPV18 episome replication in primary human foreskin keratinocytes (HFKs) drives host transcriptional changes that are consistent between multiple HFK donors.

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Background: The FOxTROT trial has reported advantages of neoadjuvant chemotherapy (NAC) in locally advanced colon cancer (LACC). Here we present results of the embedded randomized phase II trial testing the addition of panitumumab to neoadjuvant FOLFOX compared with FOLFOX alone in RAS and BRAF-wild-type patients and with biomarker hyperselction.

Patients And Methods: Patients had operable, CT-predicted stage T3-4, N0-2, M0 colon adenocarcinoma.

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Introduction: Structural variants (SVs) of the nebulin gene (), including intragenic duplications, deletions, and copy number variation of the triplicate region, are an established cause of recessively inherited nemaline myopathies and related neuromuscular disorders. Large deletions have been shown to cause dominantly inherited distal myopathies. Here we provide an overview of 35 families with muscle disorders caused by such SVs in .

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Introduction: Primary sclerosing cholangitis (PSC) is the classical hepatobiliary manifestation of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). The strong association between gut and liver inflammation has driven several pathogenic hypotheses to which the intestinal microbiome is proposed to contribute. Pilot studies of faecal microbiota transplantation (FMT) in PSC and IBD are demonstrated to be safe and associated with increased gut bacterial diversity.

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Purpose: Genomic sequencing of newborns can initiate disease surveillance and therapy for children and may identify at-risk relatives through reverse cascade testing. We explored genetic risk communication and reverse cascade testing among families of newborns who underwent exome sequencing and were identified as having a risk for an autosomal dominant disease.

Methods: We conducted semistructured interviews with parents of newborns enrolled in the BabySeq Project who had a pathogenic or likely pathogenic variant associated with an autosomal dominant childhood- and/or adult-onset disease returned.

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Dystrophin-deficient zebrafish larvae are a small, genetically tractable vertebrate model of Duchenne muscular dystrophy well suited for early stage therapeutic development. However, current approaches for evaluating their impaired mobility, a physiologically relevant therapeutic target, are characterized by low resolution and high variability. To address this, we used high speed videography and deep learning-based markerless motion capture to develop linked-segment models of larval escape response (ER) swimming.

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Tumour content plays a pivotal role in directing the bioinformatic analysis of molecular profiles such as copy number variation (CNV). In clinical application, tumour purity estimation (TPE) is achieved either through visual pathological review [conventional pathology (CP)] or the deconvolution of molecular data. While CP provides a direct measurement, it demonstrates modest reproducibility and lacks standardisation.

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Background And Objectives: Hypotonia is a relatively common finding among infants in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU). Consideration of genetic testing is recommended early in the care of infants with unexplained hypotonia. We aimed to assess the diagnostic yield and overall impact of exome and genome sequencing (ES and GS).

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Background: We conducted a single-arm interventional study, to explore mucosal changes associated with clinical remission under oral vancomycin (OV) treatment, in primary sclerosing cholangitis associated inflammatory bowel disease (PSC-IBD); NCT05376228.

Method: Fifteen patients with PSC and active colitis (median faecal calprotectin 459µg/g; median total Mayo score 5) were treated with OV (125mg QID) for 4 weeks and followed-up for a further 4 weeks of treatment withdrawal (8 weeks, end-of-study). Colonic biopsies were obtained at baseline and week 4.

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Boston Children's Hospital has established a genomic sequencing and analysis research initiative to improve clinical care for pediatric rare disease patients. Through the Children's Rare Disease Collaborative (CRDC), the hospital offers CLIA-grade exome and genome sequencing, along with other sequencing types, to patients enrolled in specialized rare disease research studies. The data, consented for broad research use, are harmonized and analyzed with CRDC-supported variant interpretation tools.

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Article Synopsis
  • The first Clinical and Scientific Conference on ADSS1 myopathy took place on June 3, 2024, at NIH in Maryland, focusing on this rare inherited neuromuscular disease.
  • The conference highlighted geographical patient clusters from South Korea, Japan, India, and the USA, along with research on pre-clinical models to better understand the disease.
  • Experts identified biochemical pathways for potential therapies and created an ADSS1 myopathy consortium to guide new treatment development.
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Introduction: Autosomal dominant retinitis pigmentosa type 17 (adRP, type RP17) is caused by complex structural variants (SVs) affecting a locus on chromosome 17 (chr17q22). The SVs disrupt the 3D regulatory landscape by altering the topologically associating domain (TAD) structure of the locus, creating novel TAD structures (neo-TADs) and ectopic enhancer-gene contacts. Currently, screening for RP17-associated SVs is not included in routine diagnostics given the complexity of the variants and a lack of cost-effective detection methods.

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Protein aggregate myopathies can result from pathogenic variants in genes encoding protein chaperones. DNAJB4 is a cochaperone belonging to the heat shock protein-40 (HSP40) family and plays a vital role in cellular proteostasis. Recessive loss-of-function variants in cause myopathy with early respiratory failure and spinal rigidity, presenting from infancy to adulthood.

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Background: The 100,000 Genomes Project established infrastructure for Whole Genome Sequencing (WGS) in the United Kingdom.

Methods: A retrospective study of cancer patients recruited to the 100,000 Genomes Project by the West Midlands Genomics Medicine Centre, evaluating clinical relevance of results.

Results: After excluding samples with no sequencing data (1678/4851; 34.

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Protein aggregate myopathies can result from pathogenic variants in genes encoding protein chaperones. DNAJB4 is a cochaperone belonging to the heat shock protein-40 (HSP40) family and plays a vital role in cellular proteostasis. Recessive loss-of-function variants in DNAJB4 cause myopathy with early respiratory failure and spinal rigidity, presenting from infancy to adulthood.

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Background: While surgery plays a pivotal role in the management of ileal Crohn's disease, the risk of endoscopic recurrence following an ileocaecal resection can be greater than 65% within 12 months of surgery. More than 90% of patients with Crohn's disease have a concomitant diagnosis of bile acid diarrhea following an ileal resection. This pilot study aimed to assess whether the use of bile acid sequestrants in patients with Crohn's disease who have undergone a primary terminal ileal resection with concomitant bile acid diarrhea can alter the microbiome and prevent disease recurrence.

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Article Synopsis
  • Researchers identified bi-allelic disruptive variants as the cause of autosomal recessive intellectual developmental disorder type 65, while dominant variants are harder to link to specific traits due to their presence in unaffected individuals.
  • The study involved a retrospective analysis of 21 individuals with likely pathogenic variants, focusing on clinical information and molecular data from their families.
  • Key findings revealed that those with dominant disruptive variants exhibited more developmental and behavioral problems, while individuals with dominant missense variants had a higher occurrence of renal and skin anomalies, enhancing the understanding of the related neurodevelopmental disorder.
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Intracellular trafficking involves an intricate machinery of motor complexes including the dynein complex to shuttle cargo for autophagolysosomal degradation. Deficiency in dynein axonemal chains as well as cytoplasmic light and intermediate chains have been linked with ciliary dyskinesia and skeletal dysplasia. The cytoplasmic dynein 1 heavy chain protein (DYNC1H1) serves as a core complex for retrograde trafficking in neuronal axons.

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Background: As circulating tumour DNA (ctDNA) liquid biopsy analysis is increasingly incorporated into modern oncological practice, establishing the impact of genomic intra-tumoural heterogeneity (ITH) upon data output is paramount. Despite advances in other cancer types the evidence base in head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC) remains poor. We sought to investigate the utility of ctDNA to detect ITH in HNSCC.

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Article Synopsis
  • Researchers sequenced the genomes of 822 families with suspected rare monogenic diseases that were previously undiagnosed through standard genetic tests, including exome sequencing.
  • They found that genome sequencing provided a molecular diagnosis for 29.3% of the initial families, with 8.2% requiring genome sequencing to identify variants that exome sequencing missed.
  • The study showed that both research and clinical approaches could benefit from genome sequencing, demonstrating its importance in uncovering previously undetected genetic variations.
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Background: Autosomal-recessive mutations in SPEG (striated muscle preferentially expressed protein kinase) have been linked to centronuclear myopathy with or without dilated cardiomyopathy (CNM5). Loss of SPEG is associated with defective triad formation, abnormal excitation-contraction coupling, calcium mishandling and disruption of the focal adhesion complex in skeletal muscles. To elucidate the underlying molecular pathways, we have utilized multi-omics tools and analysis to obtain a comprehensive view of the complex biological processes and molecular functions.

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Copy number variants (CNVs) are significant contributors to the pathogenicity of rare genetic diseases and, with new innovative methods, can now reliably be identified from exome sequencing. Challenges still remain in accurate classification of CNV pathogenicity. CNV calling using GATK-gCNV was performed on exomes from a cohort of 6,633 families (15,759 individuals) with heterogeneous phenotypes and variable prior genetic testing collected at the Broad Institute Center for Mendelian Genomics of the Genomics Research to Elucidate the Genetics of Rare Diseases consortium and analyzed using the seqr platform.

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Article Synopsis
  • Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) is a tough cancer to treat because it can hide from the immune system, making it one of the deadliest types of cancer.
  • Scientists want to learn more about why PDAC is so good at avoiding the immune system and how the gut microbiome, which helps our immune system, can impact this.
  • Research shows that the gut microbiome can change the kinds of immune cells in PDAC patients and may also affect how the tumor interacts with these immune cells, suggesting that improving gut health could help fight PDAC better.
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-Related Myopathy (-RM) is a rare congenital myopathy caused by mutations of the gene characterized by axial muscle weakness and progressive respiratory insufficiency. Muscle histopathology commonly includes multiminicores or a dystrophic pattern but is often non-specific. The gene encodes selenoprotein N (SelN), a selenocysteine-containing redox enzyme located in the endo/sarcoplasmic reticulum membrane where it colocalizes with mitochondria-associated membranes.

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