Daniel Janies

Genome Analysis Linking Recent European and African Influenza (H5N1) Viruses

Although linked, these viruses are distinct from earlier outbreak strains.

Bacterial 16S Sequence Analysis of Severe Caries in Young Permanent Teeth

ABSTRACT Previous studies have confirmed the association of the acid producers Streptococcus mutans and Lactobacillus spp. with childhood caries, but they also suggested these microorganisms are not sufficient to explain all cases of caries. In addition, health-associated bacterial community profiles are not well understood, including the importance of base production and acid catabolism in pH homeostasis. The bacterial community composition in health and in severe caries of the young permanent dentition was compared using Sanger sequencing of the ribosomal 16S rRNA genes. Lactobacillus species were dominant in severe caries, and levels rose significantly as caries progressed from initial to deep lesions. S. mutans was often observed at high levels in the early stages of caries but also in some healthy subjects and was not statistically significantly associated with caries progression in the overall model. Lactobacillus or S. mutans was found either at low levels or not present in several samples. Other potential acid producers observed at high levels in these subjects included strains of Selenomonas, Neisseria, and Streptococcus mitis. Propionibacterium FMA5 was significantly associated with caries progression but was not found at high levels. An overall loss of community diversity occurred as caries progressed, and species that significantly decreased included the Streptococcus mitis-S. pneumoniae-S. infantis group, Corynebacterium matruchotii, Streptococcus gordonii, Streptococcus cristatus, Capnocytophaga gingivalis, Eubacterium IR009, Campylobacter rectus, and Lachnospiraceae sp. C1. The relationship of acid-base metabolism to 16S rRNA gene-based species assignments appears to be complex, and metagenomic approaches that would allow functional profiling of entire genomes will be helpful in elucidating the microbial pathogenesis of caries.

GRASSIUS: A Platform for Comparative Regulatory Genomics across the Grasses

Transcription factors (TFs) are major players in gene regulatory networks and interactions between TFs and their target genes furnish spatiotemporal patterns of gene expression. Establishing the architecture of regulatory networks requires gathering information on TFs, their targets in the genome, and the corresponding binding sites. We have developed GRASSIUS (Grass Regulatory Information Services) as a knowledge-based Web resource that integrates information on TFs and gene promoters across the grasses. In its initial implementation, GRASSIUS consists of two separate, yet linked, databases. GrassTFDB holds information on TFs from maize (Zea mays), sorghum (Sorghum bicolor), sugarcane (Saccharum spp.), and rice (Oryza sativa). TFs are classified into families and phylogenetic relationships begin to uncover orthologous relationships among the participating species. This database also provides a centralized clearinghouse for TF synonyms in the grasses. GrassTFDB is linked to the grass TFome collection, which provides clones in recombination-based vectors corresponding to full-length open reading frames for a growing number of grass TFs. GrassPROMDB contains promoter and cis-regulatory element information for those grass species and genes for which enough data are available. The integration of GrassTFDB and GrassPROMDB will be accomplished through GrassRegNet as a first step in representing the architecture of grass regulatory networks. GRASSIUS can be accessed from www.grassius.org.

Total evidence, sequence alignment, evolution of polychrotid lizards, and a reclassification of the Iguania (Squamata, Iguania).

Abstract Using the techniques of direct optimization and sensitivity analysis, the phylogenetics of polychrotid lizards were examined on the basis of both molecular and morphological data (ca. 1040 bp of 12S rDNA, valine tDNA, and 16S rDNA, and 82 characters of morphology). A sensitivity analysis of sequence alignment and morphological change cost functions demonstrated that equal weighting provided the most parsimonious solution for all data. The Polychrotidae is found not to be monophyletic, containing instead the Corytophanidae as the sister taxon of Anolis plus Polychrus Based on these and other results over the last 12 years, the taxonomy of the Iguania is reformulated, with the Iguania composed of two subsidiary taxa, Acrodonta and Pleurodonta, the Acrodonta containing the likely paraphyletic and basally unresolved “Agamidae” as well as the Chamaeleonidae, and the Pleurodonta containing the Corytophanidae, Crotaphytidae, Hoplocercidae, Iguanidae, Leiocephalidae (newly elevated from its former status as a subfamily of the Tropiduridae), Leiosauridae (new taxon including Anisolepis, Aperopristis, Diplolaemus, Enyalius, Leiosaurus, Pristidactylus and Urostrophus), Liolaemidae (newly elevated from its former status as a subfamily of the Tropiduridae), Opluridae, Phrynosomatidae, Polychrotidae (restricted to Anolis and Polychrus), and Tropiduridae (excluding the former subfamilies Leiocephalinae and Liolaeminae).

CORE: A Phylogenetically-Curated 16S rDNA Database of the Core Oral Microbiome

Comparing bacterial 16S rDNA sequences to GenBank and other large public databases via BLAST often provides results of little use for identification and taxonomic assignment of the organisms of interest. The human microbiome, and in particular the oral microbiome, includes many taxa, and accurate identification of sequence data is essential for studies of these communities. For this purpose, a phylogenetically curated 16S rDNA database of the core oral microbiome, CORE, was developed. The goal was to include a comprehensive and minimally redundant representation of the bacteria that regularly reside in the human oral cavity with computationally robust classification at the level of species and genus. Clades of cultivated and uncultivated taxa were formed based on sequence analyses using multiple criteria, including maximum-likelihood-based topology and bootstrap support, genetic distance, and previous naming. A number of classification inconsistencies for previously named species, especially at the level of genus, were resolved. The performance of the CORE database for identifying clinical sequences was compared to that of three publicly available databases, GenBank nr/nt, RDP and HOMD, using a set of sequencing reads that had not been used in creation of the database. CORE offered improved performance compared to other public databases for identification of human oral bacterial 16S sequences by a number of criteria. In addition, the CORE database and phylogenetic tree provide a framework for measures of community divergence, and the focused size of the database offers advantages of efficiency for BLAST searching of large datasets. The CORE database is available as a searchable interface and for download at http://microbiome.osu.edu.

Tracking the geographical spread of avian influenza (H5N1) with multiple phylogenetic trees

Avian influenza (H5N1) has been of great social and economic importance since it first infected humans in Hong Kong in 1997. A highly pathogenic strain has spread from China and has killed humans in east Asia, west Africa, south Asia, and the Middle East. Recently, several molecular phylogenetic studies have focused on the relationships of various clades of H5N1 and their spread over time, space, and various hosts. These studies examining the geographical spread of H5N1 have based their conclusions on a single tree. This tree often results from the analysis of the genomic segment coding for the haemagglutinin (HA) or neuraminidase (NA) proteins and a limited sample of viral isolates. Here we present the first study using multiple candidate trees to estimate geographical transmission routes of H5N1. In addition, we use all high‐quality HA and NA sequences available to the public as of June 2008. We estimated geographical transmission routes of H5N1 by optimizing multistate characters with states representing different geographical regions over a pool of presumed minimum‐length trees. We also developed means to visualize our results in Keyhole Markup Language (KML) for virtual globes. We provide these methods as a web application entitled “Routemap” (http://routemap.osu.edu). The resulting visualizations are akin to airline route maps but they depict the routes of spread of viral lineages. We compare our results with the results of previous studies. We focus on the sensitivity of results to sampling of tree space, character coding schemes, optimization methods, and taxon sampling. In conclusion, we find that using one tree and a single character optimization method will ignore many of the transmission routes indicated by genetic sequence and geographical data.

Bioinformatics Research and Applications

PNImodeler: Web Server for Inferring Protein Binding Nucleotides from Sequence Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 367 Jinyong Im, Narankhuu Tuvshinjargal, Byungkyu Park, Wook Lee, and Kyungsook Han A MCI Decision Support System Based on Ontology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 368 Xiaowei Zhang, Yang Zhou, Bin Hu, Jing Chen, and Xu Ma Context Similarity Based Feature Selection Methods for Protein Interaction Article Classification . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 369 Yifei Chen, Yuxing Sun, and Ping Hou XVI Table ofThis book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 9th International Symposium on Bioinformatics Research and Applications, ISBRA 2013, held in Charlotte, NC, USA, in May 2013. The 25 revised full papers presented together with 4 invited talks were carefully reviewed and selected from 46 submissions. The papers cover a wide range of biomedical databases and data integration, high-performance bio-computing, biomolecular imaging, high-throughput sequencing data analysis, bio-ontologies, molecular evolution, comparative genomics and phylogenomics, molecular modeling and simulation, pattern discovery and classification, computational proteomics, population genetics, data mining and visualization, software tools and applications.

Zika Virus: Medical Countermeasure Development Challenges

Introduction Reports of high rates of primary microcephaly and Guillain–Barré syndrome associated with Zika virus infection in French Polynesia and Brazil have raised concerns that the virus circulating in these regions is a rapidly developing neuropathic, teratogenic, emerging infectious public health threat. There are no licensed medical countermeasures (vaccines, therapies or preventive drugs) available for Zika virus infection and disease. The Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) predicts that Zika virus will continue to spread and eventually reach all countries and territories in the Americas with endemic Aedes mosquitoes. This paper reviews the status of the Zika virus outbreak, including medical countermeasure options, with a focus on how the epidemiology, insect vectors, neuropathology, virology and immunology inform options and strategies available for medical countermeasure development and deployment. Methods Multiple information sources were employed to support the review. These included publically available literature, patents, official communications, English and Lusophone lay press. Online surveys were distributed to physicians in the US, Mexico and Argentina and responses analyzed. Computational epitope analysis as well as infectious disease outbreak modeling and forecasting were implemented. Field observations in Brazil were compiled and interviews conducted with public health officials.

Life Cycle Evolution in Asteroids: What is a Larva?

The diversity of larval forms and developmental patterns in asteroid echinoderms has become increasingly apparent over the past 10-15 years. However, the classification of developmental patterns has been ambiguous because the patterns have not been defined as unique sets of ecological and developmental character states. In addition, character states have not been defined consistently. Thus attempts to understand the evolutionary changes in development (e.g., heterochrony and heterotopy in morphogenesis) that underlie larval diversity have been hampered. We propose a multifactor classification of asteroid developmental patterns that uses an explicit set of characters that provide information on habitat (e.g., pelagic or benthic) and mode of nutrition (e.g., feeding or nonfeeding) of the developing young, as well as the type of morphological development (indirect = larval; direct = nonlarval). We conclude that direct development is exceptionally rare. All asteroids whose development has been studied, except Pteraster tesselatus, have the indirect type of development. We also propose definitions of some important terms that have been used inconsistently in the literature (e.g., larva, metamorphosis, indirect development, and direct development). Our definitions take into account the continuous nature of development and the evolutionary diversification of ontogenetic sequences. These definitions are intended to provide a clear conceptual basis for analyzing asteroid life cycle evolution. We argue that the ancestral asteroid life cycle involved pelagic larval development with both bipinnarian and brachiolarian stages. We then present a series of hypotheses for six types of evolutionary transitions in development that can account for the diversity of larval forms and developmental patterns in starfish.

Genetic Diversity and Recombination of Porcine Sapoviruses

ABSTRACT Sapoviruses (SaVs) are emerging enteric pathogens that cause diarrhea in humans and animals. Human SaVs are genetically variable and have been classified into four genogroups (GI, -II, -IV, and -V). To date, only two genetically similar porcine SaV strains have been reported that belong to GIII. To investigate the genetic diversity of porcine SaVs and their genetic relatedness to human strains, we sequenced 286 nucleotides (nt) of the RNA-dependent RNA polymerase (RdRp) region of nine porcine SaVs detected from field pig fecal samples collected in U.S. swine farms during the period from 1999 to 2003. One strain (Po/SaV/MI-QW19/2002/US) was most closely related to human GII SaVs. We also sequenced 3 kb of the viral genome, including the partial RdRp (766 to 790 nt), the complete capsid, the ORF2 and the 3′-untranslated region of four strains representative for the positive farms or for the distinct genetic clusters. From the sequence analysis of the complete capsid, we identified a potential new genogroup of porcine SaVs, with Po/SaV/OH-JJ681/00/US as the representative strain. Furthermore, two potential porcine SaV recombinants were identified. To our knowledge this is the first report of a porcine SaV strain more closely related genetically to human SaVs and the occurrence of porcine SaV recombinants. The presence of porcine SaVs more similar to human SaVs is a significant finding because of the potential for zoonotic infections or generation of porcine/human recombinants if intragenogroup human strains exist.