Bicycle: a bioinformatics pipeline to analyze bisulfite sequencing data.

Summary: High-throughput sequencing of bisulfite-converted DNA is a technique used to measure DNA methylation levels. Although a considerable number of computational pipelines have been developed to analyze such data, none of them tackles all the peculiarities of the analysis together, revealing limitations that can force the user to manually perform additional steps needed for a complete processing of the data. This article presents bicycle, an integrated, flexible analysis pipeline for bisulfite sequencing data.

A novel high-content analysis tool reveals Rab8-driven cytoskeletal reorganization through Rho GTPases, calpain and MT1-MMP.

Rab8 is a small Ras-related GTPase that regulates polarized membrane transport to the plasma membrane. Here, we developed a high-content analysis (HCA) tool to dissect Rab8-mediated actin and focal adhesion reorganization that revealed that Rab8 activation significantly induced Rac1 and Tiam1 to mediate cortical actin polymerization and RhoA-dependent stress fibre disassembly. Rab8 activation increased Rac1 activity, whereas its depletion activated RhoA, which led to reorganization of the actin cytoskeleton.

Serum and tissue profiling in bladder cancer combining protein and tissue arrays.

Aiming at identifying biomarkers for bladder cancer, the serum proteome was explored in a pilot study through a profiling approach using protein arrays. Supervised analyses identified a panel 171 immunogenic proteins differentially expressed between patients with bladder cancer (n = 12) and controls without the disease (n = 10). The microanatomical expression patterns of novel immunogenic proteins, especially dynamin and clusterin, were found significantly associated with histopathologic variables and overall survival, as confirmed by immunohistochemistry using an independent series of bladder tumors contained in tissue microarrays (n = 289).