Working Group Series

2009-2010

Working Group Organizer: Monica Ter-Minassian

For all local students, postdocs, and faculty - The PQG is launching a new, less formal working group seminar to provide the opportunity to present your data (a paper in progress, proposal, or a poster) or discuss a question on methods in genetic analysis including gene-environment interactions.

Upcoming Working Group

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Tuesday, December 15, 2009
12:30-2:00 PM
Biostatistics Conference Room (Building 2, Room 426)

Lu Qi - GWAS of Diabetes
Stalo Karageorgi - Topic TBA

Abstract information will be available shortly.

Additional Dates

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January 26, 2010
12:30-2:00, Kresge 201
John Quackenbush - Topic TBA

February 23, 2010
12:30-2:00, Kresge 201
Ed Silverman - Topic TBA
Curtis Huttenhower - Topic TBA

March 23, 2010
12:30-2:00, Kresge 201
Marianne Wessling-Resnick - Topic TBA

April 20, 2010
12:30-2:00, Kresge 201
Robert Wright - Topic TBA

 

Past Working Groups

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Tuesday, November 17, 2009
12:30-2:00 PM
Biostatistics Conference Room (Building 2, Room 426)

Zhaoxi (Michael) Wang, M.D., Ph.D.
Research Scientist, Environmental & Occupational Medicine and Epidemiology Program

"Mitochondrial Variations in NSCLC by Microarray-based Resequencing"

Mutations in human mitochondrial genome (mtDNA) genome have long been suspected to play an important role in the development of cancer. Although most cancer cells harbor mtDNA mutations, the question of whether such mutations are associated with clinical prognosis of cancer remains unclear. In this study, we resequenced the entire mitochondrial genomes of tumor tissue from a population of 249 Korean non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients using the Affymetrix GeneChips Human Mitochondrial Resequencing Array 2.0 (Santa Clara, CA). In early stage (stage I/ II) NSCLC, patients with the haplogroup D4 had the worst clinical prognosis. Interestingly, haplogroup D4 was previous reported as a marker for extreme longevity in Japanese.


Alkes Price
Assistant Professor of Statistical Genetics, HSPH

"Effects of Cis and Trans Family Heritability on Single-tissue and Cross-tissue Gene Expression Regulation"

Family heritability is a useful approach for understanding the genetic basis of gene expression. Heritability analyses can evaluate the contribution of both cis and trans regulation by considering genetic relatedness either genome-wide (trans), or at the genomic location proximal to the expressed gene (cis). We used gene expression data from blood and adipose tissue cohorts to estimate the contribution of cis and trans regulation to heritable variation in gene expression. We estimate that cis regulation contributes 45±7% of heritability in blood expression and 30±3% of heritability in adipose tissue expression, with the difference entirely attributable to greater trans effects in adipose tissue. We also conducted a cross-tissue analysis to investigate regulation that is shared across tissues. Strikingly, we observed that cross-tissue regulation is dominated by cis effects. These analyses point to a greater contribution for cis regulation than previous admixture-based analyses. This divergence would be consistent with a substantial role for epigenetic regulation, whose effects are included in heritability analyses but excluded in admixture analyses. Our results have implications for understanding the causes of "missing heritability" in genetic association studies.

 

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Tuesday, October 27, 2009
CANCELED

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Tuesday, September 22, 2009 1 2:30-2:00 PM
Building 2, Room 426 - Biostatistics Conference Room

Meet & Greet, Monica Ter-Minassian practice talk on Genetic Risk Factors of Neuroendocrine Tumor