Browsing by Author "Glass, Carolyn"
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Item Open Access A multiple instance learning approach for detecting COVID-19 in peripheral blood smears.(PLOS digital health, 2022-08) Cooke, Colin L; Kim, Kanghyun; Xu, Shiqi; Chaware, Amey; Yao, Xing; Yang, Xi; Neff, Jadee; Pittman, Patricia; McCall, Chad; Glass, Carolyn; Jiang, Xiaoyin Sara; Horstmeyer, RoarkeA wide variety of diseases are commonly diagnosed via the visual examination of cell morphology within a peripheral blood smear. For certain diseases, such as COVID-19, morphological impact across the multitude of blood cell types is still poorly understood. In this paper, we present a multiple instance learning-based approach to aggregate high-resolution morphological information across many blood cells and cell types to automatically diagnose disease at a per-patient level. We integrated image and diagnostic information from across 236 patients to demonstrate not only that there is a significant link between blood and a patient's COVID-19 infection status, but also that novel machine learning approaches offer a powerful and scalable means to analyze peripheral blood smears. Our results both backup and enhance hematological findings relating blood cell morphology to COVID-19, and offer a high diagnostic efficacy; with a 79% accuracy and a ROC-AUC of 0.90.Item Open Access APOB Genotypes and CDH13 Haplotypes in the Cholesterol-Related Pathway Genes Predict Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer Survival.(Cancer epidemiology, biomarkers & prevention : a publication of the American Association for Cancer Research, cosponsored by the American Society of Preventive Oncology, 2020-04) Deng, Wei; Liu, Hongliang; Luo, Sheng; Clarke, Jeffrey; Glass, Carolyn; Su, Li; Lin, Lijuan; Christiani, David C; Wei, QingyiBACKGROUND:Several oncogenic signals are involved in the synthesis, metabolism, transportation, and modulation of cholesterol. However, the roles of genetic variants of the cholesterol pathway genes in cancer survival remain unclear. METHODS:We investigated associations between 26,781 common SNPs in 209 genes of the cholesterol pathway and non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) survival by utilizing genotyping data from two published genome-wide association studies. We used multivariate Cox proportional hazards regression and expression quantitative trait loci analyses to identify survival-associated SNPs and their correlations with the corresponding mRNA expression, respectively. We also used the Kaplan-Meier survival analysis and bioinformatics functional prediction to further evaluate the identified independent SNPs. RESULTS:We found five independent SNPs (APOB rs1801701C>T; CDH13 rs35859010 C>T, rs1833970 T>A, rs254315 T>C, and rs425904 T>C) to be significantly associated with NSCLC survival in both discovery and replication datasets. When the unfavorable genotype (APOB rs1801701CC) and haplotypes (CDH13 rs35859010-rs1833970-rs254315-rs425904 C-A-T-C and T-T-T-T) were combined into a genetic score as the number of unfavorable genotypes/haplotypes (NUGH) in the multivariate analysis, an increased NUGH was associated with worse survival (P trend < 0.0001). In addition, both APOB rs1801701TItem Open Access Genetic variants in DDO and PEX5L in peroxisome-related pathways predict non-small cell lung cancer survival.(Molecular carcinogenesis, 2022-05-03) Chen, Allan S; Liu, Hongliang; Wu, Yufeng; Luo, Sheng; Patz, Edward F; Glass, Carolyn; Su, Li; Du, Mulong; Christiani, David C; Wei, QingyiPeroxisomes play a role in lipid metabolism and regulation of reactive oxygen species, but its role in development and progression of non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) is not well understood. Here, we investigated the associations between 9708 single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in 113 genes in the peroxisome-related pathways and survival of NSCLC patients from the Prostate, Lung, Colorectal, and Ovarian Cancer Screening Trial (PLCO) and the Harvard Lung Cancer Susceptibility (HLCS) study. In 1185 NSCLC patients from the PLCO trial, we found that 213 SNPs were significantly associated with NSCLC overall survival (OS) (p ≤ 0.05, Bayesian false discovery probability [BFDP] ≤ 0.80), of which eight SNPs were validated in the HLCS data set. In a multivariate Cox proportional hazards regression model, two independent SNPs (rs9384742 DDO and rs9825224 PEX5L) were significantly associated with NSCLC survival (hazards ratios [HR] of 1.17 with 95% CI [confidence interval] of 1.06-1.28 and 0.86 with 95% CI of 0.77-0.96, respectively). Patients with one or two protective genotypes had a significantly higher OS (HR: 0.787 [95% CI: 0.620-0.998] and 0.691 [95% CI: 0.543-0.879], respectively). Further expression quantitative trait loci analysis using whole blood and lung tissue showed that the minor allele of rs9384742 DDO was significantly associated with decreased messenger RNA (mRNA) expression levels and that DDO expression was also decreased in NSCLC tumor tissue. Additionally, high PEX5L expression levels were significantly associated with lower survival of NSCLC. Our data suggest that variants in these peroxisome-related genes may influence gene regulation and are potential predictors of NSCLC OS, once validated by additional studies.Item Open Access Genetic variants of DOCK2, EPHB1 and VAV2 in the natural killer cell-related pathway are associated with non-small cell lung cancer survival.(American journal of cancer research, 2021-01) Du, Hailei; Liu, Lihua; Liu, Hongliang; Luo, Sheng; Patz, Edward F; Glass, Carolyn; Su, Li; Du, Mulong; Christiani, David C; Wei, QingyiAlthough natural killer (NK) cells are a known major player in anti-tumor immunity, the effect of genetic variation in NK-associated genes on survival in patients with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) remains unknown. Here, in 1,185 with NSCLC cases of a discovery dataset, we evaluated associations of 28,219 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in 276 NK-associated genes with their survival. These patients were from the reported genome-wide association study (GWAS) from the Prostate, Lung, Colorectal and Ovarian (PLCO) Cancer Screening Trial. We further validated the findings in an additional 984 cases from the Harvard Lung Cancer Susceptibility (HLCS) Study. We identified three SNPs (i.e., DOCK2 rs261083 G>C, VAV2 rs2519996 C>T and EPHB1 rs36215 A>G) to be independently associated with overall survival (OS) in NSCLC cases with adjusted hazards ratios (HRs) of 1.16 (95% confidence interval [CI] = 1.07-1.26, P = 3.34×10-4), 1.28 (1.12-1.47, P = 4.57×10-4) and 0.75 (0.67-0.83, P = 1.50×10-7), respectively. Additional joint assessment of the unfavorable genotypes of the three SNPs showed significant associations with OS and disease-specific survival of NSCLC cases in the PLCO dataset (P trend<0.0001 and <0.0001, respectively). Moreover, the survival-associated DOCK2 rs261083 C allele had a significant correlation with reduced DOCK2 transcript levels in lung adenocarcinoma (LUAD), while the rs36215 G allele was significantly correlated with reduced EPHB1 transcript levels in lymphoblastoid cell lines in the 1000 Genomes Project. These results revealed that DOCK2 and EPHB1 genetic variants may be prognostic biomarkers of NSCLC survival, likely via transcription regulation of respective genes.Item Open Access Genetic variants of CHEK1, PRIM2 and CDK6 in the mitotic phase-related pathway are associated with nonsmall cell lung cancer survival.(International journal of cancer, 2021-05-31) Mu, Rui; Liu, Hongliang; Luo, Sheng; Patz, Edward F; Glass, Carolyn; Su, Li; Du, Mulong; Christiani, David C; Jin, Lei; Wei, QingyiThe mitotic phase is a vital step in cell division and may be involved in cancer progression, but it remains unclear whether genetic variants in mitotic phase-related pathways genes impact the survival of these patients. Here, we investigated associations between 31 032 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in 368 mitotic phase-related pathway genes and overall survival (OS) of patients with nonsmall cell lung cancer (NSCLC). We assessed the associations in a discovery data set of 1185 NSCLC patients from the Prostate, Lung, Colorectal and Ovarian (PLCO) Cancer Screening Trial and validated the findings in another data set of 984 patients from the Harvard Lung Cancer Susceptibility Study. As a result, we identified three independent SNPs (ie, CHEK1 rs76744140 T>C, PRIM2 rs6939623 G>T and CDK6 rs113181986 G>C) to be significantly associated with NSCLC OS with an adjusted hazard ratio of 1.29 (95% confidence interval = 1.11-1.49, P = 8.26 × 10-4 ), 1.26 (1.12-1.42, 1.10 × 10-4 ) and 0.73 (0.63-0.86, 1.63 × 10-4 ), respectively. Moreover, the number of combined unfavorable genotypes of these three SNPs was significantly associated with NSCLC OS and disease-specific survival in the PLCO data set (Ptrend < .0001 and .0003, respectively). Further expression quantitative trait loci analysis showed that the rs76744140C allele predicted CHEK1 mRNA expression levels in normal lung tissues and that rs113181986C allele predicted CDK6 mRNA expression levels in whole blood tissues. Additional analyses indicated CHEK1, PRIM2 and CDK6 may impact NSCLC survival. Taken together, these findings suggested that these genetic variants may be prognostic biomarkers of patients with NSCLC.Item Open Access Genetic Variants of CLEC4E and BIRC3 in Damage-Associated Molecular Patterns-Related Pathway Genes Predict Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer Survival.(Front Oncol, 2021) Liu, Lihua; Liu, Hongliang; Luo, Sheng; Patz, Edward F; Glass, Carolyn; Su, Li; Lin, Lijuan; Christiani, David C; Wei, QingyiAccumulating evidence supports a role of various damage-associated molecular patterns (DAMPs) in progression of lung cancer, but roles of genetic variants of the DAMPs-related pathway genes in lung cancer survival remain unknown. We investigated associations of 18,588 single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in 195 DAMPs-related pathway genes with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) survival in a subset of genotyping data for 1,185 patients from the Prostate, Lung, Colorectal and Ovarian (PLCO) Cancer Screening Trial and validated the findings in another independent subset of genotyping data for 984 patients from Harvard Lung Cancer Susceptibility Study. We performed multivariate Cox proportional hazards regression analysis, followed by expression quantitative trait loci (eQTL) analysis, Kaplan-Meier survival analysis and bioinformatics functional prediction. We identified that two SNPs (i.e., CLEC4E rs10841847 G>A and BIRC3 rs11225211 G>A) were independently associated with NSCLC overall survival, with adjusted allelic hazards ratios of 0.89 (95% confidence interval=0.82-0.95 and P=0.001) and 0.82 (0.73-0.91 and P=0.0003), respectively; so were their combined predictive alleles from discovery and replication datasets (P trend=0.0002 for overall survival). We also found that the CLEC4E rs10841847 A allele was associated with elevated mRNA expression levels in normal lymphoblastoid cells and whole blood cells, while the BIRC3 rs11225211 A allele was associated with increased mRNA expression levels in normal lung tissues. Collectively, these findings indicated that genetic variants of CLEC4E and BIRC3 in the DAMPs-related pathway genes were associated with NSCLC survival, likely by regulating the mRNA expression of the corresponding genes.Item Open Access Novel genetic variants in HDAC2 and PPARGC1A of the CREB-binding protein pathway predict survival of non-small-cell lung cancer.(Molecular carcinogenesis, 2019-11-12) Tang, Dongfang; Zhao, Yu Chen; Qian, Danwen; Liu, Hongliang; Luo, Sheng; Patz, Edward F; Moorman, Patricia G; Su, Li; Shen, Sipeng; Christiani, David C; Glass, Carolyn; Gao, Wen; Wei, QingyiThe CREB-binding protein (CBP) pathway plays an important role in transcription and activity of acetyltransferase that acetylates lysine residues of histones and nonhistone proteins. In the present study, we hypothesized that genetic variants in the CBP pathway genes played a role in survival of non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC). We tested this hypothesis using the genotyping data from the genome-wide association study (GWAS) dataset from the Prostate, Lung, Colorectal, and Ovarian (PLCO) Cancer Screening Trial. In the single-locus analysis, we evaluated associations between 13 176 (1107 genotyped and 12 069 imputed) single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in 72 genes and survival of 1185 patients with NSCLC. The identified 106 significant SNPs in the discovery were further validated in additional genotyping data from another GWAS dataset of 984 patients with NSCLC in the Harvard Lung Cancer Susceptibility Study. The combined results of two datasets showed that two independent, potentially functional SNPs (i.e., HDAC2 rs13213007G>A and PPARGC1A rs60571065T>A) were significantly associated with NSCLC overall survival, with a combined hazards ratio (HR) of 1.26 (95% confidence interval (CI), 1.09-1.45; P = .002) and 1.23 (1.04-1.47; P = .017), respectively. Furthermore, we performed an expression quantitative trait loci analysis and found that the survival-associated HDAC2 rs13213007A allele (GA+AA), but not PPARGC1A rs60571065A allele (TA+AA), was significantly associated with increased messenger RNA expression levels of HDAC2 in 373 lymphoblastoid cell lines. These results indicate that the HDAC2 rs13213007A allele is a potential predictor of NSCLC survival, likely by altering the HDAC2 expression.Item Open Access Novel genetic variants in KIF16B and NEDD4L in the endosome-related genes are associated with non-small cell lung cancer survival.(International journal of cancer, 2019-10-16) Yang, Sen; Tang, Dongfang; Zhao, Yu C; Liu, Hongliang; Luo, Sheng; Stinchcombe, Thomas E; Glass, Carolyn; Su, Li; Shen, Sipeng; Christiani, David C; Wang, Qiming; Wei, QingyiThe endosome is a membrane-bound organ inside most eukaryotic cells, playing an important role in adaptive immunity by delivering endocytosed antigens to both MHC class I and II pathways. Here, by analyzing two published genome-wide association studies (GWASs), we evaluated associations between genetic variants in the endosome-related gene-set and survival of patients with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). The discovery included 44,112 (3,478 genotyped and 40,634 imputed) single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in 220 genes in a single locus analysis for their associations with survival of 1,185 NSCLC patients from the Prostate, Lung, Colorectal, and Ovarian (PLCO) Cancer Screening Trial. After validation of the 821 survival-associated significant SNPs in additional 984 NSCLC patients from the Harvard Lung Cancer Susceptibility study, 14 SNPs remained significant. The final multivariate stepwise Cox proportional hazards regression model in the PLCO datasets identified three potentially functional and independent SNPs (KIF16B rs1555195 C>T, NEDD4L rs11660748 A>G and rs73440898 A>G) with an adjusted hazards ratio (HR) of 0.86 [95% confidence interval (CI)=0.79-0.94, P=0.0007], 1.31 (1.16-1.47, P=6.0×10-5 ) and 1.27 (1.12-1.44, P=0.0001) for overall survival (OS), respectively. Combined analysis of the adverse genotypes of these three SNPs revealed a trend in the genotype-survival association (Ptrend <0.0001 for OS and Ptrend <0.0001 for disease-specific survival). Furthermore, the survival-associated KIF16B rs1555195T allele was significantly associated with decreased mRNA expression levels of KIF16B in both lung tissues and blood cells. Therefore, genetic variants of the endosome-related genes may be biomarker for NSCLC survival, possibly through modulating the expression of corresponding genes. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.Item Open Access Novel genetic variants of KIR3DL2 and PVR involved in immunoregulatory interactions are associated with non-small cell lung cancer survival.(American journal of cancer research, 2020-01) Wu, Yufeng; Yang, Sen; Liu, Hongliang; Luo, Sheng; Stinchcombe, Thomas E; Glass, Carolyn; Su, Li; Shen, Sipeng; Christiani, David C; Wang, Qiming; Wei, QingyiImmunoregulatory interactions play a pivotal role in immune surveillance, recognition, and killing, particularly its internal pathway, likely playing an important role in immune escape. By using two genotyping datasets, one from the Prostate, Lung, Colorectal and Ovarian (PLCO) Cancer screening trial (n = 1,185) as the discovery, and the other from Harvard Lung Cancer Susceptibility (HLCS) study (n = 984) as the validation, we evaluated associations between 4,713 genetic variants (338 genotyped and 4,375 imputed) in 60 genes involved in immunoregulatory interactions and survival of non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). We found that 115 SNPs were significantly associated with NSCLC overall survival in the discovery, of which four remained significant after validation by the HLCS dataset after multiple test correction by Bayesian false discovery probability. Final combined analysis identified two independent SNPs (KIR3DL2 rs4487030 A>G and PVR rs35385129 C>A) that predicted NSCLC survival with a combined hazards ratio of 0.84 (95% confidence interval = 0.76-0.93, P = 0.001) and 0.84 (95% confidence interval = 0.73-0.97, P = 0.021), respectively. Besides, expression quantitative trait loci analyses showed that these two survival-associated SNPs of KRI3DL2 and PVR were significantly associated with their mRNA expression levels in both normal lung tissues and whole blood cells. Additional analyses suggested an oncogenic role for KRI3DL2 and a suppressor role for PVR on the survival. Once further validated, genetic variants of KIR3DL2 and PVR may be potential prognostic markers for NSCLC survival.Item Open Access Novel genetic variants of SYK and ITGA1 related lymphangiogenesis signaling pathway predict non-small cell lung cancer survival.(American journal of cancer research, 2020-01) Liu, Lihua; Liu, Hongliang; Luo, Sheng; Patz, Edward F; Glass, Carolyn; Su, Li; Lin, Lijuan; Christiani, David C; Wei, QingyiAlthough lymphangiogenesis is a vital step in lung cancer metastasis, the association between lymphangiogenesis and non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) survival remains unclear. Since single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) have been reported to predict NSCLC survival, we investigated associations between SNPs in lymphangiogenesis-related pathway genes and NSCLC survival in a discovery genotyping dataset of 1,185 patients from the Prostate, Lung, Colorectal and Ovarian (PLCO) Cancer Screening Trial and validated the findings in another genotyping dataset of 984 patients from the Harvard Lung Cancer Susceptibility Study. We evaluated associations between 34,509 genetic variants (3252 genotyped and 31,257 imputed) in 247 genes involved in lymphangiogenesis-related pathway and NSCLC survival. After validation, we finally identified two independent SNPs (SYK rs11787670 A>G and ITGA1 rs67715745 T>C) to be significantly associated with NSCLC overall survival (OS), with adjusted hazards ratios of 0.77 and 0.83 (95% confidence interval =0.66-0.90, P=7.20×10-4) and 0.84 (95% confidence interval =0.75-0.92, P=3.50×10-4), respectively. Moreover, an increasing number of combined protective alleles of these two SNPs was significantly associated with an improved NSCLC OS and disease-specific survival (DSS) in the PLCO dataset (P trend=0.011 and 0.006, respectively). Furthermore, the addition of these protective alleles to the prediction model for the 5-year survival increased the time-dependent area under the curve both from 87% to 87.67% for OS (P=0.029) and from 88.54% to 89.06% for DSS (P=0.022). Subsequent expression quantitative trait loci (eQTL) functional analysis revealed that the rs11787670 G allele was significantly associated with an elevated SYK mRNA expression in normal tissues. Additional analyses suggested a suppressor role for both SYK and ITGA1 in NSCLC survival. Collectively, these findings indicated that SYK rs11787670 A>G and ITGA1 rs67715745 T>C may be independent prognostic factors for NSCLC survival once further validated.Item Open Access Novel variants of ELP2 and PIAS1 in the interferon gamma signaling pathway are associated with non-small cell lung cancer survival.(Cancer epidemiology, biomarkers & prevention : a publication of the American Association for Cancer Research, cosponsored by the American Society of Preventive Oncology, 2020-06-03) Zhao, Yu Chen; Tang, Dongfang; Yang, Sen; Liu, Hongliang; Luo, Sheng; Stinchcombe, Thomas E; Glass, Carolyn; Su, Li; Shen, Sipeng; Christiani, David C; Wei, QingyiBACKGROUND:Interferon gamma (IFNγ) is a pleiotropic cytokine that plays critical immunomodulatory roles in intercellular communication in innate and adaptive immune responses. Despite recognition of IFNγ signaling effects on host defense against viral infection and its utility in immunotherapy and tumor progression, the roles of genetic variants of the IFNγ signaling pathway genes in cancer patient survival remain unknown. METHODS:We used a discovery genotyping dataset from the Prostate, Lung, Colorectal and Ovarian Cancer Screening Trial (n=1,185) and a replication genotyping dataset from the Harvard Lung Cancer Susceptibility Study (n=984) to evaluate associations between 14,553 genetic variants in 150 IFNγ pathway genes and survival of non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). RESULTS:The combined analysis identified two independent potentially functional single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs), ELP2 rs7242481G>A and PIAS1 rs1049493T>C, to be significantly associated with NSCLC survival, with a combined hazards ratio (HR) of 0.85 [95% CI= 0.78-0.92, P<0.0001] and 0.87 (0.81-0.93, P<0.0001), respectively. Expression quantitative trait loci analyses showed that the survival-associated ELP2 rs7242481A allele was significantly associated with increased mRNA expression levels of ELP2 in 373 lymphoblastoid cell lines and 369 whole blood samples. The PIAS1 rs1049493C allele was significantly associated with decreased mRNA expression levels of PIAS1 in 383 normal lung tissues and 369 whole blood samples. CONCLUSIONS:Genetic variants of IFNγ signaling genes are potential prognostic markers for NSCLC survival, likely through modulating the expression of key genes involved in host immune response. IMPACT:Once validated, these variants could be useful predictors of NSCLC survival.Item Open Access Potentially functional genetic variants in PLIN2, SULT2A1 and UGT1A9 genes of the ketone pathway and survival of nonsmall cell lung cancer.(International journal of cancer, 2020-02-18) Tang, Dongfang; Zhao, Yu C; Liu, Hongliang; Luo, Sheng; Clarke, Jeffrey M; Glass, Carolyn; Su, Li; Shen, Sipeng; Christiani, David C; Gao, Wen; Wei, QingyiThe ketone metabolism pathway is a principle procedure in physiological homeostasis and induces cancer cells to switch between glycolysis and oxidative phosphorylation for energy production. We conducted a two-phase analysis for associations between genetic variants in the ketone metabolism pathway genes and survival of nonsmall cell lung cancer (NSCLC) by analyzing genotyping data from two published genome-wide association studies (GWASs). In the discovery, we used a genotyping dataset from the Prostate, Lung, Colorectal and Ovarian Cancer Screening Trial in the multivariable Cox proportional hazards regression analysis. We used Bayesian false discovery probability (≤0.80) for multiple testing correction to evaluate associations between 25,819 (2,176 genotyped and 23,643 imputed) single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in 162 genes and survival of 1,185 NSCLC patients. Subsequently, we validated the identified significant SNPs with an additional 984 NSCLC patients from the Harvard Lung Cancer Susceptibility GWAS study. Finally, we found that three independent and potentially functional SNPs in three different genes (i.e., PLIN2 rs7867814 G>A, SULT2A1 rs2547235 C>T and UGT1A9 rs2011404 C>T) were independently associated with risk of death from NSCLC, with a combined hazards ratio of 1.22 [95% confidence interval = 1.09-1.36 and p = 0.0003], 0.82 (0.74-0.91 and p = 0.0002) and 1.21 (1.10-1.33 and p = 0.0001), respectively. Additional expression quantitative trait loci analysis found that the survival-associated PLIN2 rs7867814 GA + AA genotypes, but not the genotypes of other two SNPs, were significantly associated with increased mRNA expression levels (p = 0.005). These results indicated that PLIN2 variants may be potential predictors of NSCLC survival through regulating the PLIN2 expression.Item Open Access Potentially functional variants of ERAP1, PSMF1 and NCF2 in the MHC-I-related pathway predict non-small cell lung cancer survival.(Cancer immunology, immunotherapy : CII, 2021-03-02) Yang, Sen; Tang, Dongfang; Zhao, Yu Chen; Liu, Hongliang; Luo, Sheng; Stinchcombe, Thomas E; Glass, Carolyn; Su, Li; Shen, Sipeng; Christiani, David C; Wang, Qiming; Wei, QingyiBackground
Cellular immunity against tumor cells is highly dependent on antigen presentation by major histocompatibility complex class I (MHC-I) molecules. However, few published studies have investigated associations between functional variants of MHC-I-related genes and clinical outcomes of lung cancer patients.Methods
We performed a two-phase Cox proportional hazards regression analysis by using two previously published genome-wide association studies to evaluate associations between genetic variants in the MHC-I-related gene set and the survival of non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients, followed by expression quantitative trait loci analysis.Results
Of the 7811 single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in 89 genes of 1185 NSCLC patients in the discovery dataset of the Prostate, Lung, Colorectal and Ovarian Cancer Screening Trial, 24 SNPs remained statistically significant after validation in additional 984 NSCLC patients from the Harvard Lung Cancer Susceptibility Study. In a multivariate stepwise Cox model, three independent functional SNPs (ERAP1 rs469783 T > C, PSMF1 rs13040574 C > A and NCF2 rs36071574 G > A) remained significant with an adjusted hazards ratio (HR) of 0.83 [95% confidence interval (CI) = 0.77-0.89, P = 8.0 × 10-7], 0.86 (0.80-0.93, P = 9.4 × 10-5) and 1.31 (1.11-1.54, P = 0.001) for overall survival (OS), respectively. Further combined genotypes revealed a poor survival in a dose-response manner in association with the number of unfavorable genotypes (Ptrend < 0.0001 and 0.0002 for OS and disease-specific survival, respectively). Also, ERAP1 rs469783C and PSMF1 rs13040574A alleles were associated with higher mRNA expression levels of their genes.Conclusion
These potentially functional SNPs of the MHC-I-related genes may be biomarkers for NSCLC survival, possibly through modulating the expression of corresponding genes.Item Open Access Potentially functional variants of HBEGF and ITPR3 in GnRH signaling pathway genes predict survival of non-small cell lung cancer patients.(Translational research : the journal of laboratory and clinical medicine, 2021-01-02) Wu, Yufeng; Liu, Zhensheng; Tang, Dongfang; Liu, Hongliang; Luo, Sheng; Stinchcombe, Thomas E; Glass, Carolyn; Su, Li; Lin, Lijuan; Christiani, David C; Wang, Qiming; Wei, QingyiThe gonadotropin-releasing hormone (GnRH) signaling pathway controls reproductive functions and cancer growth and progression. However, few studies investigated roles of genetic variants of GnRH pathway genes in survival of patients with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). Therefore, we first evaluated associations between 22,528 single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in 101 GnRH pathway genes and survival of 1185 NSCLC patients using a dataset from Prostate, Lung, Colorectal and Ovarian Cancer Screening Trial. We found 572 SNPs to be significantly associated with overall survival (OS) of NSCLC (P ≤ 0.05, Bayesian false discovery probability ≤0.80). We then validated these SNPs in another dataset with 984 NSCLC patients from the Harvard Lung Cancer Susceptibility Study. Finally, two independent SNPs (HBEGF rs4150236G>A and ITPR3 rs116454384C>T) remained significantly associated with NSCLC OS in the combined analysis with hazards ratios of 0.84 (95% confidence interval = 0.76-0.92, P = 0.0003) and 0.85 (0.78-0.94, 0.0012), respectively; their genetic score (the number of protective genotypes) was associated with a better OS and disease-specific survival (Ptrend = 0.0002 and 0.0001, respectively). Further expression quantitative trail loci analysis showed a significant correlation between ITPR3 rs116454384 T allele and an increased mRNA expression level in both whole blood and normal lung tissue, and high ITPR3 mRNA expression levels in tumors were associated with a better survival of NSCLC patients. Because ITPR3 mutations were rare in tumors, ITPR3 rs116454384C>T likely had an effect on cancer progression by regulating the gene expression. Therefore, genetic variants of HBEGF rs4150236G>A and ITPR3 rs116454384C>T may be predictors for NSCLC survival, but HBEGF rs4150236G>A functional relevance remains to be determined.Item Open Access Quantitative Jones matrix imaging using vectorial Fourier ptychography(2021-09-30) Dai, Xiang; Xu, Shiqi; Yang, Xi; Zhou, Kevin C; Glass, Carolyn; Konda, Pavan Chandra; Horstmeyer, RoarkeThis paper presents a microscopic imaging technique that uses variable-angle illumination to recover the complex polarimetric properties of a specimen at high resolution and over a large field-of-view. The approach extends Fourier ptychography, which is a synthetic aperture-based imaging approach to improve resolution with phaseless measurements, to additionally account for the vectorial nature of light. After images are acquired using a standard microscope outfitted with an LED illumination array and two polarizers, our vectorial Fourier Ptychography (vFP) algorithm solves for the complex 2x2 Jones matrix of the anisotropic specimen of interest at each resolved spatial location. We introduce a new sequential Gauss-Newton-based solver that additionally jointly estimates and removes polarization-dependent imaging system aberrations. We demonstrate effective vFP performance by generating large-area (29 mm$^2$), high-resolution (1.24 $\mu$m full-pitch) reconstructions of sample absorption, phase, orientation, diattenuation, and retardance for a variety of calibration samples and biological specimens.Item Open Access Rapid tissue prototyping with micro-organospheres.(Stem cell reports, 2022-09) Wang, Zhaohui; Boretto, Matteo; Millen, Rosemary; Natesh, Naveen; Reckzeh, Elena S; Hsu, Carolyn; Negrete, Marcos; Yao, Haipei; Quayle, William; Heaton, Brook E; Harding, Alfred T; Bose, Shree; Driehuis, Else; Beumer, Joep; Rivera, Grecia O; van Ineveld, Ravian L; Gex, Donald; DeVilla, Jessica; Wang, Daisong; Puschhof, Jens; Geurts, Maarten H; Yeung, Athena; Hamele, Cait; Smith, Amber; Bankaitis, Eric; Xiang, Kun; Ding, Shengli; Nelson, Daniel; Delubac, Daniel; Rios, Anne; Abi-Hachem, Ralph; Jang, David; Goldstein, Bradley J; Glass, Carolyn; Heaton, Nicholas S; Hsu, David; Clevers, Hans; Shen, XilingIn vitro tissue models hold great promise for modeling diseases and drug responses. Here, we used emulsion microfluidics to form micro-organospheres (MOSs), which are droplet-encapsulated miniature three-dimensional (3D) tissue models that can be established rapidly from patient tissues or cells. MOSs retain key biological features and responses to chemo-, targeted, and radiation therapies compared with organoids. The small size and large surface-to-volume ratio of MOSs enable various applications including quantitative assessment of nutrient dependence, pathogen-host interaction for anti-viral drug screening, and a rapid potency assay for chimeric antigen receptor (CAR)-T therapy. An automated MOS imaging pipeline combined with machine learning overcomes plating variation, distinguishes tumorspheres from stroma, differentiates cytostatic versus cytotoxic drug effects, and captures resistant clones and heterogeneity in drug response. This pipeline is capable of robust assessments of drug response at individual-tumorsphere resolution and provides a rapid and high-throughput therapeutic profiling platform for precision medicine.Item Open Access Single nucleotide polymorphisms in FOXP1 and RORA of the lymphocyte activation-related pathway affect survival of lung cancer patients(Translational Lung Cancer Research, 2022-05) Du, Hailei; Mu, Rui; Liu, Lihua; Liu, Hongliang; Luo, Sheng; Patz, Edward F; Glass, Carolyn; Su, Li; Du, Mulong; Christiani, David C; Li, Hecheng; Wei, Qingyi