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94 Publications visible to you, out of a total of 94

Abstract

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Authors: Lenka Belicova, Urska Repnik, Julien Delpierre, Elzbieta Gralinska, Sarah Seifert, José Ignacio Valenzuela, Hernán Andrés Morales-Navarrete, Christian Franke, Helin Räägel, Evgeniya Shcherbinina, Tatiana Prikazchikova, Victor Koteliansky, Martin Vingron, Yannis L. Kalaidzidis, Timofei Zatsepin, Marino Zerial

Date Published: 4th Oct 2021

Publication Type: Journal

Abstract

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Authors: Nachiket Vartak, Dirk Drasdo, Fabian Geisler, Tohru Itoh, Ronald P.J. Oude Elferink, Stan F.J. van de Graaf, John Chiang, Verena Keitel, Michael Trauner, Peter Jansen, Jan G Hengstler

Date Published: 23rd Jun 2021

Publication Type: Journal

Abstract (Expand)

The liver has the remarkable capacity to regenerate. In the clinic, this capacity can be induced by portal vein embolization (PVE), which redirects portal blood flow resulting in liver hypertrophy inpertrophy in locations with increased blood supply, and atrophy of embolized segments. Here we apply single-cell and single-nucleus transcriptomics on healthy, hypertrophied, and atrophied patient-derived liver samples to explore cell states in the liver during regeneration. We first establish an atlas of cell subtypes from the healthy human liver using fresh and frozen tissues, and then compare post-PVE samples with their reference counterparts. We find that PVE alters portal-central zonation of hepatocytes and endothelial cells. Embolization upregulates expression programs associated with development, cellular adhesion and inflammation across cell types. Analysis of interlineage crosstalk revealed key roles for immune cells in modulating regenerating tissue responses. Altogether, our data provides a rich resource for understanding homeostatic mechanisms arising during human liver regeneration and degeneration.

Authors: Agnieska Brazovskaja, Tomás Gomes, Christiane Körner, Zhisong He, Theresa Schaffer, Julian Connor Eckel, René Hänsel, Malgorzata Santel, Timm Denecke, Michael Dannemann, Mario Brosch, Jochen Hampe, Daniel Seehofer, Georg Damm, J. Gray Camp, Barbara Treutlein

Date Published: 3rd Jun 2021

Publication Type: Journal

Abstract (Expand)

COVID-19 poses a major challenge to individuals and societies around the world. Yet, it is difficult to obtain a good overview of studies across different medical fields of research such as clinical trials, epidemiology, and public health. Here, we describe a consensus metadata model to facilitate structured searches of COVID-19 studies and resources along with its implementation in three linked complementary web-based platforms. A relational database serves as central study metadata hub that secures compatibilities with common trials registries (e.g. ICTRP and standards like HL7 FHIR, CDISC ODM, and DataCite). The Central Search Hub was developed as a single-page application, the other two components with additional frontends are based on the SEEK platform and MICA, respectively. These platforms have different features concerning cohort browsing, item browsing, and access to documents and other study resources to meet divergent user needs. By this we want to promote transparent and harmonized COVID-19 research.

Authors: C. O. Schmidt, J. Darms, A. Shutsko, M. Lobe, R. Nagrani, B. Seifert, B. Lindstadt, M. Golebiewski, S. Koleva, T. Bender, C. R. Bauer, U. Sax, X. Hu, M. Lieser, V. Junker, S. Klopfenstein, A. Zeleke, D. Waltemath, I. Pigeot, J. Fluck

Date Published: 27th May 2021

Publication Type: Journal

Abstract (Expand)

BACKGROUND & AIMS: Bacterial infections (BI) affect the natural course of cirrhosis and were suggested to be a landmark event marking the transition to the decompensated stage. Our specific aim was to evaluate the impact of BI on the natural history of compensated cirrhosis. METHODS: We analyzed 858 patients with cirrhosis, evaluated for the INCA trial (EudraCT 2013-001626-26) in 2 academic medical centers between February 2014 and May 2019. Only patients with previously compensated disease were included. They were divided into 4 groups: compensated without BI, compensated with BI, 1st decompensation without BI, and 1st decompensation with BI. RESULTS: About 425 patients (median 61 [53-69] years) were included in the final prospective analysis. At baseline, 257 patients were compensated (12 [4.7%] with BI), whereas 168 patients presented with their 1st decompensation (42 [25.0%] with BI). In patients who remained compensated MELD scores were similar in those with and without BI. Patients with their first decompensation and BI had higher MELD scores than those without BI. Amongst patients who remained compensated, BI had no influence on transplant-free survival, whereas patients with their 1st decompensation and concurrent BI had significantly reduced transplant-free survival as compared with those without BI. The development of BI or decompensation during follow-up had a greater impact on survival than each of these complications at baseline. CONCLUSIONS: In compensated patients with cirrhosis, the 1st decompensation associated to BI has worse survival than decompensation without BI. By contrast, BI without decompensation does not negatively impact survival of patients with compensated cirrhosis.

Authors: M. C. Reichert, C. Schneider, R. Greinert, M. Casper, F. Grunhage, A. Wienke, A. Zipprich, F. Lammert, C. Ripoll

Date Published: 1st Mar 2021

Publication Type: Journal

Abstract

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Authors: Leonard Schmiester, Yannik Schälte, Frank T. Bergmann, Tacio Camba, Erika Dudkin, Janine Egert, Fabian Fröhlich, Lara Fuhrmann, Adrian L. Hauber, Svenja Kemmer, Polina Lakrisenko, Carolin Loos, Simon Merkt, Wolfgang Müller, Dilan Pathirana, Elba Raimúndez, Lukas Refisch, Marcus Rosenblatt, Paul L. Stapor, Philipp Städter, Dantong Wang, Franz-Georg Wieland, Julio R. Banga, Jens Timmer, Alejandro F. Villaverde, Sven Sahle, Clemens Kreutz, Jan Hasenauer, Daniel Weindl

Date Published: 26th Jan 2021

Publication Type: Journal

Abstract (Expand)

Background Many functional analysis tools have been developed to extract functional and mechanistic insight from bulk transcriptome data. With the advent of single-cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq), it is in principle possible to do such an analysis for single cells. However, scRNA-seq data has characteristics such as drop-out events and low library sizes. It is thus not clear if functional TF and pathway analysis tools established for bulk sequencing can be applied to scRNA-seq in a meaningful way. Results To address this question, we perform benchmark studies on simulated and real scRNA-seq data. We include the bulk-RNA tools PROGENy, GO enrichment, and DoRothEA that estimate pathway and transcription factor (TF) activities, respectively, and compare them against the tools SCENIC/AUCell and metaVIPER, designed for scRNA-seq. For the in silico study, we simulate single cells from TF/pathway perturbation bulk RNA-seq experiments. We complement the simulated data with real scRNA-seq data upon CRISPR-mediated knock-out. Our benchmarks on simulated and real data reveal comparable performance to the original bulk data. Additionally, we show that the TF and pathway activities preserve cell type-specific variability by analyzing a mixture sample sequenced with 13 scRNA-seq protocols. We also provide the benchmark data for further use by the community. Conclusions Our analyses suggest that bulk-based functional analysis tools that use manually curated footprint gene sets can be applied to scRNA-seq data, partially outperforming dedicated single-cell tools. Furthermore, we find that the performance of functional analysis tools is more sensitive to the gene sets than to the statistic used.

Authors: Christian H. Holland, Jovan Tanevski, Javier Perales-Patón, Jan Gleixner, Manu P. Kumar, Elisabetta Mereu, Brian A. Joughin, Oliver Stegle, Douglas A. Lauffenburger, Holger Heyn, Bence Szalai, Julio Saez-Rodriguez

Date Published: 1st Dec 2020

Publication Type: Journal

Abstract (Expand)

While the role of cholesterol in liver carcinogenesis remains controversial, hepatocellular carcinoma generally prevails in males. Herein, we uncover pathways of female-prevalent progression to hepatocellular carcinoma due to chronic repression of cholesterogenic lanosterol 14alpha-demethylase (CYP51) in hepatocytes. Tumors develop in knock-out mice after year one, with 2:1 prevalence in females. Metabolic and transcription factor networks were deduced from the liver transcriptome data, combined by sterol metabolite and blood parameter analyses, and interpreted with relevance to humans. Female knock-outs show increased plasma cholesterol and HDL, dampened lipid-related transcription factors FXR, LXRalpha:RXRalpha, and importantly, crosstalk between reduced LXRalpha and activated TGF-beta signalling, indicating a higher susceptibility to HCC in aging females. PI3K/Akt signalling and ECM-receptor interaction are common pathways that are disturbed by sex-specific altered genes. Additionally, transcription factors (SOX9)2 and PPARalpha were recognized as important for female hepatocarcinogenesis, while overexpressed Cd36, a target of nuclear receptor RORC, is a new male-related regulator of ECM-receptor signalling in hepatocarcinogenesis. In conclusion, we uncover the sex-dependent metabolic reprogramming of cholesterol-related pathways that predispose for hepatocarcinogenesis in aging females. This is important in light of increased incidence of liver cancers in post-menopausal women.

Authors: K. B. Cokan, Z. Urlep, G. Lorbek, M. Matz-Soja, C. Skubic, M. Perse, J. Jeruc, P. Juvan, T. Rezen, D. Rozman

Date Published: 9th Nov 2020

Publication Type: Journal

Abstract (Expand)

We describe a large-scale community effort to build an open-access, interoperable, and computable repository of COVID-19 molecular mechanisms - the COVID-19 Disease Map. We discuss the tools, platforms, and guidelines necessary for the distributed development of its contents by a multi-faceted community of biocurators, domain experts, bioinformaticians, and computational biologists. We highlight the role of relevant databases and text mining approaches in enrichment and validation of the curated mechanisms. We describe the contents of the Map and their relevance to the molecular pathophysiology of COVID-19 and the analytical and computational modelling approaches that can be applied for mechanistic data interpretation and predictions. We conclude by demonstrating concrete applications of our work through several use cases and highlight new testable hypotheses.

Authors: Marek Ostaszewski, Anna Niarakis, Alexander Mazein, Inna Kuperstein, Robert Phair, Aurelio Orta-Resendiz, Vidisha Singh, Sara Sadat Aghamiri, Marcio Luis Acencio, Enrico Glaab, Andreas Ruepp, Gisela Fobo, Corinna Montrone, Barbara Brauner, Goar Frishman, Luis Cristóbal Monraz Gómez, Julia Somers, Matti Hoch, Shailendra Kumar Gupta, Julia Scheel, Hanna Borlinghaus, Tobias Czauderna, Falk Schreiber, Arnau Montagud, Miguel Ponce de Leon, Akira Funahashi, Yusuke Hiki, Noriko Hiroi, Takahiro G. Yamada, Andreas Dräger, Alina Renz, Muhammad Naveez, Zsolt Bocskei, Francesco Messina, Daniela Börnigen, Liam Fergusson, Marta Conti, Marius Rameil, Vanessa Nakonecnij, Jakob Vanhoefer, Leonard Schmiester, Muying Wang, Emily E. Ackerman, Jason Shoemaker, Jeremy Zucker, Kristie Oxford, Jeremy Teuton, Ebru Kocakaya, Gökçe Yağmur Summak, Kristina Hanspers, Martina Kutmon, Susan Coort, Lars Eijssen, Friederike Ehrhart, D. A. B. Rex, Denise Slenter, Marvin Martens, Nhung Pham, Robin Haw, Bijay Jassal, Lisa Matthews, Marija Orlic-Milacic, Andrea Senff Ribeiro, Karen Rothfels, Veronica Shamovsky, Ralf Stephan, Cristoffer Sevilla, Thawfeek Varusai, Jean-Marie Ravel, Rupsha Fraser, Vera Ortseifen, Silvia Marchesi, Piotr Gawron, Ewa Smula, Laurent Heirendt, Venkata Satagopam, Guanming Wu, Anders Riutta, Martin Golebiewski, Stuart Owen, Carole Goble, Xiaoming Hu, Rupert W. Overall, Dieter Maier, Angela Bauch, Benjamin M. Gyori, John A. Bachman, Carlos Vega, Valentin Grouès, Miguel Vazquez, Pablo Porras, Luana Licata, Marta Iannuccelli, Francesca Sacco, Anastasia Nesterova, Anton Yuryev, Anita de Waard, Denes Turei, Augustin Luna, Ozgun Babur, Sylvain Soliman, Alberto Valdeolivas, Marina Esteban- Medina, Maria Peña-Chilet, Kinza Rian, Tomáš Helikar, Bhanwar Lal Puniya, Dezso Modos, Agatha Treveil, Marton Olbei, Bertrand De Meulder, Aurélien Dugourd, Aurélien Naldi, Vincent Noë, Laurence Calzone, Chris Sander, Emek Demir, Tamas Korcsmaros, Tom C. Freeman, Franck Augé, Jacques S. Beckmann, Jan Hasenauer, Olaf Wolkenhauer, Egon L. Wilighagen, Alexander R. Pico, Chris T. Evelo, Marc E. Gillespie, Lincoln D. Stein, Henning Hermjakob, Peter D’Eustachio, Julio Saez-Rodriguez, Joaquin Dopazo, Alfonso Valencia, Hiroaki Kitano, Emmanuel Barillot, Charles Auffray, Rudi Balling, Reinhard Schneider

Date Published: 28th Oct 2020

Publication Type: Misc

Abstract (Expand)

BACKGROUND: Transarterial chemoembolization (TACE) is an important therapy for hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) in cirrhosis. In particular in advanced cirrhosis, post-TACE hepatic failure liver (PTHF) failure may develop. Currently, there is no standardization for the periinterventional risk assessment. The liver maximum capacity (LiMAx) test assesses the functional liver capacity, but has not been investigated in this setting. AIMS: The aim of this study was to prospectively evaluate periinterventional LiMAx and CT volumetry measurements in patients with cirrhosis and HCC undergoing repetitive TACE. METHODS: From 06/2016 to 11/2017, eleven patients with HCC and cirrhosis undergoing TACE were included. LiMAx measurements (n = 42) were conducted before and after each TACE. Laboratory parameters were correlated with the volume-function data. RESULTS: The median LiMAx levels before (276 +/- 166 microg/kg/h) were slightly reduced after TACE (251 +/- 122 microg/kg/h; p = 0.08). This corresponded to a median drop of 7.1%. Notably, there was a significant correlation between LiMAx levels before TACE and bilirubin (but not albumin nor albumin-bilirubin [ALBI] score) increase after TACE (p = 0.02, k = 0.56). Furthermore, a significantly higher increase in bilirubin in patients with LiMAx </= 150 microg/kg/h was observed (p = 0.011). LiMAx levels at different time points in single patients were similar (p = 0.2). CONCLUSION: In our prospective pilot study in patients with HCC and cirrhosis undergoing multiple TACE, robust and reliable LiMAx measurements were demonstrated. Lower LiMAx levels before TACE were associated with surrogate markers (bilirubin) of liver failure after TACE. Specific subgroups at high risk of PTHF should be investigated. This might facilitate the future development of strategies to prevent occurrence of PTHF.

Authors: M. C. Reichert, A. Massmann, A. Schulz, A. Buecker, M. Glanemann, F. Lammert, M. Malinowski

Date Published: 21st Aug 2020

Publication Type: Journal

Abstract (Expand)

AIMS: Unlike other Toll-like receptors (TLRs), the role of toll like receptor 2 (TLR-2) in the pathogenesis of chronic liver disease and hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is not well studied. We, therefore, set out to investigate the expression of TLR-2 in different chronic liver disease states along with other markers of cell death, cellular proliferation and tissue vascularisation METHODS AND RESULTS: Immunohistochemistry was performed on liver tissue microarrays comprising hepatitis, cirrhosis and HCC patient samples using antibodies against TLR-2, Ki-67, Caspase-3 and VEGF. This was done in order to characterise receptor expression and translocation, apoptosis, cell proliferation and vascularisation. Cytoplasmic TLR-2 expression was found to be weak in 5/8 normal liver cases, 10/19 hepatitis cases and 8/21 cirrhosis patients. Moderate to strong TLR-2 expression was observed in some cases of hepatitis and cirrhosis. Both, nuclear and cytoplasmic TLR-2 expression was present in HCC with weak intensity in 11/41 cases, and moderate to strong staining in 19/41 cases. Eleven HCC cases were TLR-2 negative. Surprisingly, both cytoplasmic and nuclear TLR-2 expression in HCC were found to significantly correlate with proliferative index (r = 0.24 and 0.37), Caspase-3 expression (r = 0.27 and 0.38) and vascularisation (r = 0.56 and 0.23). Further, nuclear TLR-2 localisation was predominant in HCC, whereas cytoplasmic expression was more prevalent in hepatitis and cirrhosis. Functionally, treatment of HUH7 HCC cells with a TLR-2 agonist induced the expression of cellular proliferation and vascularisation markers CD34 and VEGF. CONCLUSIONS: Our results demonstrate a positive correlation between the expression of TLR-2 and other markers of proliferation and vascularisation in HCC which suggests a possible role for TLR-2 in HCC pathogenesis.

Authors: F. E. A. Mohamed, S. Hammad, T. V. Luong, B. Dewidar, R. Al-Jehani, N. Davies, S. Dooley, R. Jalan

Date Published: 25th Jul 2020

Publication Type: Journal

Abstract (Expand)

Despite the ever-progressing technological advances in producing data in health and clinical research, the generation of new knowledge for medical benefits through advanced analytics still lags behind its full potential. Reasons for this obstacle are the inherent heterogeneity of data sources and the lack of broadly accepted standards. Further hurdles are associated with legal and ethical issues surrounding the use of personal/patient data across disciplines and borders. Consequently, there is a need for broadly applicable standards compliant with legal and ethical regulations that allow interpretation of heterogeneous health data through in silico methodologies to advance personalized medicine. To tackle these standardization challenges, the Horizon2020 Coordinating and Support Action EU-STANDS4PM initiated an EU-wide mapping process to evaluate strategies for data integration and data-driven in silico modelling approaches to develop standards, recommendations and guidelines for personalized medicine. A first step towards this goal is a broad stakeholder consultation process initiated by an EU-STANDS4PM workshop at the annual COMBINE meeting (COMBINE 2019 workshop report in same issue). This forum analysed the status quo of data and model standards and reflected on possibilities as well as challenges for cross-domain data integration to facilitate in silico modelling approaches for personalized medicine.

Authors: S. Brunak, C. Bjerre Collin, K. Eva O Cathaoir, M. Golebiewski, M. Kirschner, I. Kockum, H. Moser, D. Waltemath

Date Published: 24th Jul 2020

Publication Type: Journal

Abstract (Expand)

Systems biology has experienced dramatic growth in the number, size and complexity of computational models describing biology. To reproduce simulation results and reuse models, researchers need to exchange precise and unambiguous descriptions of model structure and meaning. SBML (the Systems Biology Markup Language) is a community-developed format for this purpose. The latest edition, called SBML Level 3, has a modular structure, with a core suited to representing reaction-based models, and packages that extend the core with features suited for a variety of model types. Examples include constraint-based models, reaction-diffusion models, logical network models, and rule-based models. SBML and its rich software ecosystem have transformed the way systems biologists build and interact with models, and has played an important role in increasing model interoperability and reuse over the past two decades. More recently, a rise of multiscale models of whole cells and organs, and new data sources such as single cells measurements and live imaging, have precipitated new ways of integrating data and models. SBML Level 3 provides the foundation needed to support this evolution.

Authors: SM Keating, D Waltemath, M König, F Zhang, A Dräger, C Chaouiya, FT Bergmann, A Finney, CS Gillespie, T Helikar, S Hoops, RS Malik-Sheriff, SL Moodie, II Moraru, CJ Myers, A Naldi, BG Olivier, S Sahle, JC Schaff, LP Smith, MJ Swat, DT, L Watanabe, DJ Wilkinson, ML Blinov, K Begley, JR Faeder, HF Gómez, TM Hamm, Y Inagaki, W Liebermeister, AL Lister, D Lucio, E Mjolsness, CJ Proctor, K Raman, N Rodriguez, CA Shaffer, BE Shapiro, J Stelling, N Swainston, N Tanimura, J Wagner, M Meier-Schellersheim, HM Sauro, B Palsson, H Bolouri, H Kitano, Akira Funahashi, H Hermjakob, JC Doyle, M Hucka, SBML Community members

Date Published: 1st Jul 2020

Publication Type: Journal

Abstract (Expand)

This paper presents a report on outcomes of the 10th Computational Modeling in Biology Network (COMBINE) meeting that was held in Heidelberg, Germany, in July of 2019. The annual event brings together researchers, biocurators and software engineers to present recent results and discuss future work in the area of standards for systems and synthetic biology. The COMBINE initiative coordinates the development of various community standards and formats for computational models in the life sciences. Over the past 10 years, COMBINE has brought together standard communities that have further developed and harmonized their standards for better interoperability of models and data. COMBINE 2019 was co-located with a stakeholder workshop of the European EU-STANDS4PM initiative that aims at harmonized data and model standardization for in silico models in the field of personalized medicine, as well as with the FAIRDOM PALs meeting to discuss findable, accessible, interoperable and reusable (FAIR) data sharing. This report briefly describes the work discussed in invited and contributed talks as well as during breakout sessions. It also highlights recent advancements in data, model, and annotation standardization efforts. Finally, this report concludes with some challenges and opportunities that this community will face during the next 10 years.

Authors: Dagmar Waltemath, Martin Golebiewski, Michael L Blinov, Padraig Gleeson, Henning Hermjakob, Michael Hucka, Esther Thea Inau, Sarah M Keating, Matthias König, Olga Krebs, Rahuman S Malik-Sheriff, David Nickerson, Ernst Oberortner, Herbert M Sauro, Falk Schreiber, Lucian Smith, Melanie I Stefan, Ulrike Wittig, Chris J Myers

Date Published: 29th Jun 2020

Publication Type: Journal

Abstract (Expand)

This special issue of the Journal of Integrative Bioinformatics presents papers related to the 10th COMBINE meeting together with the annual update of COMBINE standards in systems and synthetic biology.Not specified

Authors: Falk Schreiber, Björn Sommer, Tobias Czauderna, Martin Golebiewski, Thomas E. Gorochowski, Michael Hucka, Sarah M. Keating, Matthias König, Chris Myers, David Nickerson, Dagmar Waltemath

Date Published: 29th Jun 2020

Publication Type: Journal

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