Publications by authors named "Sven Bergmann"

Introduction: In Germany, around 150,000 kg of mostly Siberian sturgeon (), were produced in 2021. Sudden mortalities affected negative control Russian sturgeon in experimental infection of several European aquacultured fish species with tilapia lake virus (TiLV). An investigation sought the causative agent.

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  • Conducted a genome-wide association study involving over 668,000 individuals of European descent to explore how genetics relates to income and socio-economic status.
  • Identified 162 genetic loci associated with income, with a polygenic index explaining only 1-5% of income variance and showing stronger connections to mental health issues than physical health.
  • Revealed that the genetic correlation between income and educational attainment is significant, with implications for understanding the dual impacts on health risks and behaviors.
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  • Fundus images help assess retinal blood vessels non-invasively, allowing researchers to extract 17 different vascular characteristics from over 130,000 images of UK Biobank subjects.
  • Genetic studies reveal that the heritability of these vascular traits ranges from 5% to 25%, and there are distinct genetic links among the traits, indicating different biological mechanisms at play.
  • The research identifies specific vascular features linked to health issues like heart attack and suggests that factors like blood pressure and body mass index may influence retinal vessel shapes.
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Expression quantitative trait loci (eQTL) studies typically consider exon expression of genes and discard intronic RNA sequencing reads despite their information on RNA metabolism. Here, we quantify genetic effects on exon and intron levels of genes and their ratio in lymphoblastoid cell lines, revealing thousands of cis-QTLs of each type. While genetic effects are often shared between cis-QTL types, 7814 (47%) are not detected as top cis-QTLs at exon levels.

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In this issue, we established rapid, cost-effective, and simple detection methods including recombines polymerase amplification with lateral flow dipstick (RPA-LFD) and real-time RPA for cyprinid herpesvirus 3(CyHV-3), and evaluated their sensitivity, specificity, and applicability, the real-time RPA method could achieve sensitive diagnosis of CyHV-3 within 1.3 copies per reaction, respectively. The real-time RPA method is 10-fold more sensitive than RPA-LFD method.

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Introduction: Carp oedema virus (CEV) is a relatively understudied poxvirus. It exhibits an affinity for gill and skin epithelial cells. Investigations were conducted into selected aspects of CEV biology, with a focus on determining cell and tissue tropism of CEV, acquiring gene sequences and updating CEV tests in fish tissues.

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Introduction: Herpesviruses are common agents in animals of the aquatic environment. They infect many species of fish but only lead to disease in one or two species. Nevertheless, infected fish without clinical symptoms can actively transfer infectious agents to disease-susceptible species.

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As a widespread epidemic virus, genotype II of the grass carp reovirus poses a significant threat to the grass carp farming industry in China. Different genotype II isolates cause different degrees of virulence, although the underlying pathogenic mechanisms remain largely unknown. In this work, infections of grass carp with the virulent isolate grass carp reovirus (GCRV)-HN1307 and the avirulent isolate GCRV-GD1108 were performed to reveal a possible mutual transcriptional discrepancy.

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Koi herpesvirus (KHV) is the causative agent of a koi herpesvirus disease (KHVD) inducing high mortality rates in common carp and koi (Cyprinus carpio). No widespread effective vaccination strategy has been implemented yet, which is partly due to side effects of the immunized fish. In this study, we present an evaluation of the purification of infectious KHV from host cell protein and DNA, using the steric exclusion chromatography.

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Summary: 'PascalX' is a Python library providing fast and accurate tools for mapping SNP-wise GWAS summary statistics. Specifically, it allows for scoring genes and annotated gene sets for enrichment signals based on data from, both, single GWAS and pairs of GWAS. The gene scores take into account the correlation pattern between SNPs.

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  • The study aims to find new genetic factors linked to variations in retinal vascular tortuosity, which could help in understanding its impact on certain diseases and their risk factors.
  • The research involved analyzing a large dataset of retinal images from over 63,000 participants, utilizing advanced imaging techniques and deep learning for accurate measurement of vessel tortuosity.
  • Results showed a significant connection between higher retinal tortuosity and various cardiovascular issues, leading to the identification of 175 genetic loci related to this trait, which could inform future medical studies and interventions.
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  • Researchers analyzed genetic data from over 785,000 individuals of European descent to find 43 specific genomic regions related to reproductive success, measured by the number of children and instances of childlessness.
  • These genetic regions influence various factors tied to reproduction, such as puberty onset, age at first birth, and conditions like endometriosis, highlighting complex biological networks at play.
  • The study also uncovered a potential trade-off between higher reproductive output and shortened reproductive lifespan in certain genes, suggesting some genetic traits are linked to ongoing natural selection affecting fertility.
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Lymphocystis disease viruses (LCDVs) are viruses that infect bony fish which has been found in different locations across the globe. Four virus species have been classified by the International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses (ICTV), despite remarkable discrepancies in genome size. Whole genome sequencing and phylogenetic analysis of LCDVs from wild fish from the North Sea and partial sequences from gilthead sea bream of an aquafarm located in the Aegean Sea in Turkey confirm that the LCDV1 genome at 100 kb is approximately half the size of the genomes of LCDV2-4.

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Hemorrhagic disease of grass carp, which is induced by grass carp reovirus II (GCRV-II), leads to mass mortality in grass carp culture and causes enormous economic loss. However, there is currently no quantitative analysis method for the detection of GCRV-II, which is greatly restricted the etiological and epidemiological study of the disease. In this study a reverse transcription TaqMan PCR (RT-qPCR) assay was developed for the quantitative detection of GCRV-II.

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Proximal genetic variants are frequently correlated, implying that the corresponding effect sizes detected by genome-wide association studies (GWAS) are also not independent. Methods already exist to account for this when aggregating effects from a single GWAS across genes or pathways. Here we present a rigorous yet fast method for detecting genes with coherent association signals for two traits, facilitating cross-GWAS analyses.

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  • * Researchers created a new live attenuated vaccine by culturing the virulent KHV, which effectively protected fish from the virus when administered through immersion or orally.
  • * The study demonstrated that the vaccine did not cause severe symptoms, induced protective antibodies, and allowed for differentiation between vaccinated and infected fish, with the vaccine's effectiveness linked to a specific genetic modification (deletion of open reading frame 150).
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Largemouth bass is an important commercially farmed fish in China, but the rapid expansion of its breeding has resulted in increased incidence of diseases caused by bacteria, viruses and parasites. In this study, moribund largemouth bass containing ulcer foci on body surfaces indicated the most likely pathogens were iridovirus and rhabdovirus members and this was confirmed using a combination of immunohistochemistry, cell culture, electron microscopy and conserved gene sequence analysis. We identified that these fish had been co-infected with these viruses.

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  • Reduced glomerular filtration rate (GFR) is a precursor to kidney failure, influenced by factors like genetics and diabetes (DM), but the interaction between these factors is not well understood.
  • A large-scale genome-wide association study (GWAS) analyzed eGFR across almost 1.5 million individuals, revealing distinct genetic loci that differ between those with and without diabetes.
  • The findings identified potential new targets for drug development aimed at protecting kidney function, highlighting that many drug interventions could be effective for both diabetic and non-diabetic populations.
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Grass carp haemorrhagic disease caused by grass carp reovirus II is a serious disease of the aquaculture industry and vaccination is the only effective method of GCRV protection. In this study, was used as oral vaccine delivery to express the GCRV II VP6 protein. We evaluated the protective efficacy of the live vaccine strain to induce mucosal immune protection.

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Largemouth bass ranavirus disease (LMBVD) caused by largemouth bass ranavirus (LMBV) has resulted in severe economic losses in the largemouth bass (Micropterus salmoides) farming industry in China. Early and accurate diagnosis is the key measure for the prevention and control of LMBVD. In this study, a quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR) and a real-time recombinase-aided amplification (real-time RAA) assay were established for the detection of LMBV.

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Background: Over the past decade, experimental procedures such as metabolic labeling for determining RNA turnover rates at the transcriptome-wide scale have been widely adopted and are now turning to single cell measurements. Several computational methods to estimate RNA synthesis, processing and degradation rates from such experiments have been suggested, but they all require several RNA sequencing samples. Here we present a method that can estimate those three rates from a single sample.

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Tilapia lake virus disease (TiLVD) caused by Tilapia lake virus (TiLV) is a great threat to the global tilapia culture industry. Effective prevention and control strategies have not been developed due to limited basic research of pathogenesis of TiLVD. Cell lines from different fish species have been found to be permissive to TiLV infection.

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Background: Uromodulin, the most abundant protein excreted in normal urine, plays major roles in kidney physiology and disease. The mechanisms regulating the urinary excretion of uromodulin remain essentially unknown.

Methods: We conducted a meta-analysis of genome-wide association studies for raw (uUMOD) and indexed to creatinine (uUCR) urinary levels of uromodulin in 29,315 individuals of European ancestry from 13 cohorts.

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Aging is a major risk factor for metabolic impairment that may lead to age-related diseases such as cardiovascular disease. Different mechanisms that may explain the interplay between aging and lipoproteins, and between aging and low-molecular-weight metabolites (LMWMs), in the metabolic dysregulation associated with age-related diseases have been described separately. Here, we statistically evaluated the possible mediation effects of LMWMs on the relationships between chronological age and lipoprotein concentrations in healthy men ranging from 19 to 75 years of age.

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Long intergenic noncoding RNAs (lincRNAs) represent a large fraction of transcribed loci in eukaryotic genomes. Although classified as noncoding, most lincRNAs contain open reading frames (ORFs), and it remains unclear why cytoplasmic lincRNAs are not or very inefficiently translated. Here, we analyzed signatures of hindered translation in lincRNA sequences from five eukaryotes, covering a range of natural selection pressures.

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