Publications by authors named "M C Zody"

The human genome is packaged within a three-dimensional (3D) nucleus and organized into structural units known as compartments, topologically associating domains (TADs), and loops. TAD boundaries, separating adjacent TADs, have been found to be well conserved across mammalian species and more evolutionarily constrained than TADs themselves. Recent studies show that structural variants (SVs) can modify 3D genomes through the disruption of TADs, which play an essential role in insulating genes from outside regulatory elements' aberrant regulation.

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Article Synopsis
  • * It achieves a high level of completeness, closing 92% of previous assembly gaps and fully assembling complex regions, including 1,852 complex structural variants and 1,246 human centromeres.
  • * The findings lead to significant improvements in genotyping accuracy and enable the detection of over 26,000 structural variants per sample, enhancing the potential for future disease association research.
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  • * The 1000 Genomes Project and Oxford Nanopore Technologies are working together to produce LRS data from at least 800 samples to enhance the identification of genetic variations and better understand human genetic diversity.
  • * Initial analysis of 100 samples shows high accuracy in detecting genetic variants, including structural variants that disrupt gene function, and provides valuable data for the clinical genetics community to advance research on pathogenic variations.
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Large-scale, multi-ethnic whole-genome sequencing (WGS) studies, such as the National Human Genome Research Institute Genome Sequencing Program's Centers for Common Disease Genomics (CCDG), play an important role in increasing diversity for genetic research. Before performing association analyses, assessing Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium (HWE) is a crucial step in quality control procedures to remove low quality variants and ensure valid downstream analyses. Diverse WGS studies contain ancestrally heterogeneous samples; however, commonly used HWE methods assume that the samples are homogeneous.

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The mechanisms underlying the selective regional vulnerability to neurodegeneration in Huntington's disease (HD) have not been fully defined. To explore the role of astrocytes in this phenomenon, we used single-nucleus and bulk RNAseq, lipidomics, HTT gene CAG repeat-length measurements, and multiplexed immunofluorescence on HD and control post-mortem brains. We identified genes that correlated with CAG repeat length, which were enriched in astrocyte genes, and lipidomic signatures that implicated poly-unsaturated fatty acids in sensitizing neurons to cell death.

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