Publications by authors named "Toby Hunt"

Most human transcription factor (TF) genes encode multiple protein isoforms differing in DNA-binding domains, effector domains, or other protein regions. The global extent to which this results in functional differences between isoforms remains unknown. Here, we systematically compared 693 isoforms of 246 TF genes, assessing DNA binding, protein binding, transcriptional activation, subcellular localization, and condensate formation.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Ensembl (www.ensembl.org) is an open platform integrating publicly available genomics data across the tree of life with a focus on eukaryotic species related to human health, agriculture and biodiversity.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

GENCODE produces comprehensive reference gene annotation for human and mouse. Entering its twentieth year, the project remains highly active as new technologies and methodologies allow us to catalog the genome at ever-increasing granularity. In particular, long-read transcriptome sequencing enables us to identify large numbers of missing transcripts and to substantially improve existing models, and our long non-coding RNA catalogs have undergone a dramatic expansion and reconfiguration as a result.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • - Accurate gene annotations are essential for interpreting how genomes function, and the GENCODE consortium has spent twenty years creating reference annotations for human and mouse genomes, serving as a vital resource for researchers globally.
  • - Previous annotations of long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) were incomplete and poorly organized, hindering research, prompting GENCODE to launch a comprehensive effort that resulted in adding nearly 18,000 novel human genes and over 22,000 novel mouse genes, significantly increasing the catalog of transcripts.
  • - The new annotations not only show evolutionary patterns and link to genetic variants associated with traits but also improve understanding of previously unclear genomic functions, greatly advancing research into both human and mouse genetic diseases.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • * They generated over 427 million long-read sequences and found that longer, more accurate sequences yield better transcript detection, while increased read depth enhances quantification.
  • * The study suggests that using reference-based tools works best for well-annotated genomes and recommends incorporating extra data to better identify rare transcripts, providing a benchmark for improving transcriptome analysis techniques in the future.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Most human Transcription factors (TFs) genes encode multiple protein isoforms differing in DNA binding domains, effector domains, or other protein regions. The global extent to which this results in functional differences between isoforms remains unknown. Here, we systematically compared 693 isoforms of 246 TF genes, assessing DNA binding, protein binding, transcriptional activation, subcellular localization, and condensate formation.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Ensembl (https://www.ensembl.org) is a freely available genomic resource that has produced high-quality annotations, tools, and services for vertebrates and model organisms for more than two decades.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • The Long-read RNA-Seq Genome Annotation Assessment Project (LRGASP) Consortium aimed to evaluate long-read sequencing for analyzing transcripts by generating over 427 million sequences from various species.
  • The findings highlighted that longer, accurate sequences yield better transcript identification, while increased read depth enhances quantification accuracy, particularly in well-annotated genomes.
  • The study serves as a benchmark for transcriptome analysis strategies and suggests using additional data for detecting rare transcripts or employing reference-free methods.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF

GENCODE produces high quality gene and transcript annotation for the human and mouse genomes. All GENCODE annotation is supported by experimental data and serves as a reference for genome biology and clinical genomics. The GENCODE consortium generates targeted experimental data, develops bioinformatic tools and carries out analyses that, along with externally produced data and methods, support the identification and annotation of transcript structures and the determination of their function.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Ensembl (https://www.ensembl.org) has produced high-quality genomic resources for vertebrates and model organisms for more than twenty years.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Comprehensive genome annotation is essential to understand the impact of clinically relevant variants. However, the absence of a standard for clinical reporting and browser display complicates the process of consistent interpretation and reporting. To address these challenges, Ensembl/GENCODE and RefSeq launched a joint initiative, the Matched Annotation from NCBI and EMBL-EBI (MANE) collaboration, to converge on human gene and transcript annotation and to jointly define a high-value set of transcripts and corresponding proteins.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Ensembl (https://www.ensembl.org) is unique in its flexible infrastructure for access to genomic data and annotation.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • - The study examines how splicing varies across different brain regions, focusing on the hippocampus and prefrontal cortex, using single-cell long-read sequencing to analyze 45 cell types at a specific developmental stage (postnatal day 7).
  • - Researchers find that specific isoforms (variants of proteins) are expressed differently across brain regions, with most of these differences being linked to individual cell types, although some genes show influences from multiple cell types.
  • - The approach combines spatial transcriptomics with long-read sequencing to create a detailed map of splicing patterns, enhancing our understanding of the brain's molecular and cellular complexity.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF

The GENCODE project annotates human and mouse genes and transcripts supported by experimental data with high accuracy, providing a foundational resource that supports genome biology and clinical genomics. GENCODE annotation processes make use of primary data and bioinformatic tools and analysis generated both within the consortium and externally to support the creation of transcript structures and the determination of their function. Here, we present improvements to our annotation infrastructure, bioinformatics tools, and analysis, and the advances they support in the annotation of the human and mouse genomes including: the completion of first pass manual annotation for the mouse reference genome; targeted improvements to the annotation of genes associated with SARS-CoV-2 infection; collaborative projects to achieve convergence across reference annotation databases for the annotation of human and mouse protein-coding genes; and the first GENCODE manually supervised automated annotation of lncRNAs.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Question Addressed By The Study: Endogenous opioids (endorphins) have been reported to modulate exercise-induced breathlessness, but the relative contribution of peripheral opioid receptors has not been tested.

Materials Participants And Methods: This was a double-blind, randomised, three-arm, cross-over trial in outpatients with spirometry-verified moderate to severe chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Participants undertook an incremental symptom-limited treadmill test followed by five endurance treadmill tests at 75% of their maximal work rate; two tests for familiarisation and three tests 30 min after intravenous injection of either methylnaltrexone 0.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

The Atlantic herring is a model species for exploring the genetic basis for ecological adaptation, due to its huge population size and extremely low genetic differentiation at selectively neutral loci. However, such studies have so far been hampered because of a highly fragmented genome assembly. Here, we deliver a chromosome-level genome assembly based on a hybrid approach combining a de novo Pacific Biosciences (PacBio) assembly with Hi-C-supported scaffolding.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

The most widely appreciated role of DNA is to encode protein, yet the exact portion of the human genome that is translated remains to be ascertained. We previously developed PhyloCSF, a widely used tool to identify evolutionary signatures of protein-coding regions using multispecies genome alignments. Here, we present the first whole-genome PhyloCSF prediction tracks for human, mouse, chicken, fly, worm, and mosquito.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

The accurate identification and description of the genes in the human and mouse genomes is a fundamental requirement for high quality analysis of data informing both genome biology and clinical genomics. Over the last 15 years, the GENCODE consortium has been producing reference quality gene annotations to provide this foundational resource. The GENCODE consortium includes both experimental and computational biology groups who work together to improve and extend the GENCODE gene annotation.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Descriptions of time use patterns in people with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) are scarce and the relationship between use-of-time and COPD severity remains unclear. This study aimed to describe a typical day for people with COPD and to explore the differences in time-use patterns across the Body Mass-Index, Airflow Obstruction, Dyspnoea and Exercise Capacity (BODE) index using compositional analyses. Using a cross-sectional design, 141 adults with clinically stable COPD had their demographics, objective measures of function (pulmonary, exercise capacity and physical activity), and self-reported COPD-related impairment recorded.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

The Consensus Coding Sequence (CCDS) project provides a dataset of protein-coding regions that are identically annotated on the human and mouse reference genome assembly in genome annotations produced independently by NCBI and the Ensembl group at EMBL-EBI. This dataset is the product of an international collaboration that includes NCBI, Ensembl, HUGO Gene Nomenclature Committee, Mouse Genome Informatics and University of California, Santa Cruz. Identically annotated coding regions, which are generated using an automated pipeline and pass multiple quality assurance checks, are assigned a stable and tracked identifier (CCDS ID).

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: Rhinovirus infection is a major cause of asthma exacerbations.

Objectives: We studied nasal and bronchial mucosal inflammatory responses during experimental rhinovirus-induced asthma exacerbations.

Methods: We used nasosorption on days 0, 2-5 and 7 and bronchosorption at baseline and day 4 to sample mucosal lining fluid to investigate airway mucosal responses to rhinovirus infection in patients with allergic asthma (n=28) and healthy non-atopic controls (n=11), by using a synthetic absorptive matrix and measuring levels of 34 cytokines and chemokines using a sensitive multiplex assay.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Purpose: To describe sedentary behaviors (duration, bouts and context) in people with and without a chronic health condition.

Methods: Design: Secondary analysis of two cross-sectional studies. Participants: People with stable chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) (n = 24, male:female 18:6) and their spousal carers (n = 24, 6:18); stroke survivors (n = 24, 16:8) and age- and sex-matched healthy adults (n = 19, 11:8).

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

We have generated an improved assembly and gene annotation of the pig X Chromosome, and a first draft assembly of the pig Y Chromosome, by sequencing BAC and fosmid clones from Duroc animals and incorporating information from optical mapping and fiber-FISH. The X Chromosome carries 1033 annotated genes, 690 of which are protein coding. Gene order closely matches that found in primates (including humans) and carnivores (including cats and dogs), which is inferred to be ancestral.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: Amplified gene families on sex chromosomes can harbour genes with important biological functions, especially relating to fertility. The Y-linked heat shock transcription factor (HSFY) family has become amplified on the Y chromosome of the domestic pig (Sus scrofa), in an apparently independent event to an HSFY expansion on the Y chromosome of cattle (Bos taurus). Although the biological functions of HSFY genes are poorly understood, they appear to be involved in gametogenesis in a number of mammalian species, and, in cattle, HSFY gene copy number may correlate with levels of fertility.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF