Single-Cell Mutation Monitoring Systems

Single-Cell Mutation Monitoring Systems
Author: Aftab A. Ansari
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Total Pages: 399
Release: 2012-12-06
Genre: Medical
ISBN: 1468446649

There is general agreement that increased environmental pollution poses a potential health hazard to humans and that effective control of such genetic injury requires monitoring the exposed individuals for genetic damage and identifying chemicals that may cause mutation or cancer. Tests available for identifying mutagens or carcinogens range from relatively simple, rapid assays in prokaryotes and test systems utilizing mammalian cells in tissue culture to highly elaborate tests in intact animals. No single test can provide data for an unequivocal assessment of the mutagenicity of a given chemical and the risk it might pose to human health. A tier approach, therefore, was suggested for mutagenicity testing in which the suspected agents would be initially evaluated with simple, inexpensive tests that would give qualitative results. Chemicals found to be positive in the first-tier testing would then be evaluated with more complex tests, including those based on mammalian cells in culture. Testing in the final tier requires whole-animal studies, and is expensive and time-consum ing, and even the results from these studies need to be extrapolated for human risk assessment. The mutation systems based on whole animals require scoring large num bers of animals, and therefore are not practical for the routine testing of muta gens. As an alternative to monitoring the pedigree, cells from exposed individ uals may be considered for screening for point mutations through the use of an appropriate marker protein.

Cancer Evolution

Cancer Evolution
Author: Charles Swanton
Publisher: Perspectives Cshl
Total Pages: 350
Release: 2017
Genre: Medical
ISBN: 9781621821434

Tumor progression is driven by mutations that confer growth advantages to different subpopulations of cancer cells. As a tumor grows, these subpopulations expand, accumulate new mutations, and are subjected to selective pressures from the environment, including anticancer interventions. This process, termed clonal evolution, can lead to the emergence of therapy-resistant tumors and poses a major challenge for cancer eradication efforts. Written and edited by experts in the field, this collection from Cold Spring Harbor Perspectives in Medicine examines cancer progression as an evolutionary process and explores how this way of looking at cancer may lead to more effective strategies for managing and treating it. The contributors review efforts to characterize the subclonal architecture and dynamics of tumors, understand the roles of chromosomal instability, driver mutations, and mutation order, and determine how cancer cells respond to selective pressures imposed by anticancer agents, immune cells, and other components of the tumor microenvironment. They compare cancer evolution to organismal evolution and describe how ecological theories and mathematical models are being used to understand the complex dynamics between a tumor and its microenvironment during cancer progression. The authors also discuss improved methods to monitor tumor evolution (e.g., liquid biopsies) and the development of more effective strategies for managing and treating cancers (e.g., immunotherapies). This volume will therefore serve as a vital reference for all cancer biologists as well as anyone seeking to improve clinical outcomes for patients with cancer.

Evolution of Translational Omics

Evolution of Translational Omics
Author: Institute of Medicine
Publisher: National Academies Press
Total Pages: 354
Release: 2012-09-13
Genre: Science
ISBN: 0309224187

Technologies collectively called omics enable simultaneous measurement of an enormous number of biomolecules; for example, genomics investigates thousands of DNA sequences, and proteomics examines large numbers of proteins. Scientists are using these technologies to develop innovative tests to detect disease and to predict a patient's likelihood of responding to specific drugs. Following a recent case involving premature use of omics-based tests in cancer clinical trials at Duke University, the NCI requested that the IOM establish a committee to recommend ways to strengthen omics-based test development and evaluation. This report identifies best practices to enhance development, evaluation, and translation of omics-based tests while simultaneously reinforcing steps to ensure that these tests are appropriately assessed for scientific validity before they are used to guide patient treatment in clinical trials.

Single Cell Sequencing and Systems Immunology

Single Cell Sequencing and Systems Immunology
Author: Xiangdong Wang
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 184
Release: 2015-03-27
Genre: Medical
ISBN: 9401797536

The volume focuses on the genomics, proteomics, metabolomics, and bioinformatics of a single cell, especially lymphocytes and on understanding the molecular mechanisms of systems immunology. Based on the author’s personal experience, it provides revealing insights into the potential applications, significance, workflow, comparison, future perspectives and challenges of single-cell sequencing for identifying and developing disease-specific biomarkers in order to understand the biological function, activation and dysfunction of single cells and lymphocytes and to explore their functional roles and responses to therapies. It also provides detailed information on individual subgroups of lymphocytes, including cell characters, function, surface markers, receptor function, intracellular signals and pathways, production of inflammatory mediators, nuclear receptors and factors, omics, sequencing, disease-specific biomarkers, bioinformatics, networks and dynamic networks, their role in disease and future prospects. Dr. Xiangdong Wang is a Professor of Medicine, Director of Shanghai Institute of Clinical Bioinformatics, Director of Fudan University Center for Clinical Bioinformatics, Director of the Biomedical Research Center of Zhongshan Hospital, Deputy Director of Shanghai Respiratory Research Institute, Shanghai, China.

Renal Fibrosis

Renal Fibrosis
Author: Mohammed S. Razzaque
Publisher: Karger Medical and Scientific Publishers
Total Pages: 222
Release: 2003-01-01
Genre: Medical
ISBN: 3805575688

This publication provides a synopsis of the rapid progress made in the field of renal cell biology during the last decade, progress which has resulted in a better conceptual understanding of the cellular and molecular mechanisms of fibrotic renal disease. These developments have provided new therapeutic choices and led to the discovery of gene-based therapeutic options. The topics covered in this book have been carefully selected from the immense number of aspects of the disease to provide essential information on the molecular basis of renal fibrosis. Individual chapters discuss topics such as proteinuria and tubulointerstitial injury, the roles and regulation of TGF-beta, chemokines, oxidant stress, matrix remodeling, significance of renal expression of NF-kappa, and the potential impact of cell death in renal fibrosis.Written so as to present the complex information as simply as possible, this publication will be a very useful tool for general health professionals involved in the fields of immunology and cell biology, as well as for clinicians and researchers within the fields of nephrology, pathology and matrix biology.

Molecular Evolution

Molecular Evolution
Author: Ziheng Yang
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 509
Release: 2014
Genre: Science
ISBN: 0199602603

Studies of evolution at the molecular level have experienced phenomenal growth in the last few decades, due to rapid accumulation of genetic sequence data, improved computer hardware and software, and the development of sophisticated analytical methods. The flood of genomic data has generated an acute need for powerful statistical methods and efficient computational algorithms to enable their effective analysis and interpretation. Molecular Evolution: a statistical approach presents and explains modern statistical methods and computational algorithms for the comparative analysis of genetic sequence data in the fields of molecular evolution, molecular phylogenetics, statistical phylogeography, and comparative genomics. Written by an expert in the field, the book emphasizes conceptual understanding rather than mathematical proofs. The text is enlivened with numerous examples of real data analysis and numerical calculations to illustrate the theory, in addition to the working problems at the end of each chapter. The coverage of maximum likelihood and Bayesian methods are in particular up-to-date, comprehensive, and authoritative. This advanced textbook is aimed at graduate level students and professional researchers (both empiricists and theoreticians) in the fields of bioinformatics and computational biology, statistical genomics, evolutionary biology, molecular systematics, and population genetics. It will also be of relevance and use to a wider audience of applied statisticians, mathematicians, and computer scientists working in computational biology.

Introduction to Single Cell Omics

Introduction to Single Cell Omics
Author: Xinghua Pan
Publisher: Frontiers Media SA
Total Pages: 129
Release: 2019-09-19
Genre:
ISBN: 2889459209

Single-cell omics is a progressing frontier that stems from the sequencing of the human genome and the development of omics technologies, particularly genomics, transcriptomics, epigenomics and proteomics, but the sensitivity is now improved to single-cell level. The new generation of methodologies, especially the next generation sequencing (NGS) technology, plays a leading role in genomics related fields; however, the conventional techniques of omics require number of cells to be large, usually on the order of millions of cells, which is hardly accessible in some cases. More importantly, harnessing the power of omics technologies and applying those at the single-cell level are crucial since every cell is specific and unique, and almost every cell population in every systems, derived in either vivo or in vitro, is heterogeneous. Deciphering the heterogeneity of the cell population hence becomes critical for recognizing the mechanism and significance of the system. However, without an extensive examination of individual cells, a massive analysis of cell population would only give an average output of the cells, but neglect the differences among cells. Single-cell omics seeks to study a number of individual cells in parallel for their different dimensions of molecular profile on genome-wide scale, providing unprecedented resolution for the interpretation of both the structure and function of an organ, tissue or other system, as well as the interaction (and communication) and dynamics of single cells or subpopulations of cells and their lineages. Importantly single-cell omics enables the identification of a minor subpopulation of cells that may play a critical role in biological process over a dominant subpolulation such as a cancer and a developing organ. It provides an ultra-sensitive tool for us to clarify specific molecular mechanisms and pathways and reveal the nature of cell heterogeneity. Besides, it also empowers the clinical investigation of patients when facing a very low quantity of cell available for analysis, such as noninvasive cancer screening with circulating tumor cells (CTC), noninvasive prenatal diagnostics (NIPD) and preimplantation genetic test (PGT) for in vitro fertilization. Single-cell omics greatly promotes the understanding of life at a more fundamental level, bring vast applications in medicine. Accordingly, single-cell omics is also called as single-cell analysis or single-cell biology. Within only a couple of years, single-cell omics, especially transcriptomic sequencing (scRNA-seq), whole genome and exome sequencing (scWGS, scWES), has become robust and broadly accessible. Besides the existing technologies, recently, multiplexing barcode design and combinatorial indexing technology, in combination with microfluidic platform exampled by Drop-seq, or even being independent of microfluidic platform but using a regular PCR-plate, enable us a greater capacity of single cell analysis, switching from one single cell to thousands of single cells in a single test. The unique molecular identifiers (UMIs) allow the amplification bias among the original molecules to be corrected faithfully, resulting in a reliable quantitative measurement of omics in single cells. Of late, a variety of single-cell epigenomics analyses are becoming sophisticated, particularly single cell chromatin accessibility (scATAC-seq) and CpG methylation profiling (scBS-seq, scRRBS-seq). High resolution single molecular Fluorescence in situ hybridization (smFISH) and its revolutionary versions (ex. seqFISH, MERFISH, and so on), in addition to the spatial transcriptome sequencing, make the native relationship of the individual cells of a tissue to be in 3D or 4D format visually and quantitatively clarified. On the other hand, CRISPR/cas9 editing-based In vivo lineage tracing methods enable dynamic profile of a whole developmental process to be accurately displayed. Multi-omics analysis facilitates the study of multi-dimensional regulation and relationship of different elements of the central dogma in a single cell, as well as permitting a clear dissection of the complicated omics heterogeneity of a system. Last but not the least, the technology, biological noise, sequence dropout, and batch effect bring a huge challenge to the bioinformatics of single cell omics. While significant progress in the data analysis has been made since then, revolutionary theory and algorithm logics for single cell omics are expected. Indeed, single-cell analysis exert considerable impacts on the fields of biological studies, particularly cancers, neuron and neural system, stem cells, embryo development and immune system; other than that, it also tremendously motivates pharmaceutic RD, clinical diagnosis and monitoring, as well as precision medicine. This book hereby summarizes the recent developments and general considerations of single-cell analysis, with a detailed presentation on selected technologies and applications. Starting with the experimental design on single-cell omics, the book then emphasizes the consideration on heterogeneity of cancer and other systems. It also gives an introduction of the basic methods and key facts for bioinformatics analysis. Secondary, this book provides a summary of two types of popular technologies, the fundamental tools on single-cell isolation, and the developments of single cell multi-omics, followed by descriptions of FISH technologies, though other popular technologies are not covered here due to the fact that they are intensively described here and there recently. Finally, the book illustrates an elastomer-based integrated fluidic circuit that allows a connection between single cell functional studies combining stimulation, response, imaging and measurement, and corresponding single cell sequencing. This is a model system for single cell functional genomics. In addition, it reports a pipeline for single-cell proteomics with an analysis of the early development of Xenopus embryo, a single-cell qRT-PCR application that defined the subpopulations related to cell cycling, and a new method for synergistic assembly of single cell genome with sequencing of amplification product by phi29 DNA polymerase. Due to the tremendous progresses of single-cell omics in recent years, the topics covered here are incomplete, but each individual topic is excellently addressed, significantly interesting and beneficial to scientists working in or affiliated with this field.

The European Blood and Marrow Transplantation Textbook for Nurses

The European Blood and Marrow Transplantation Textbook for Nurses
Author: Michelle Kenyon
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 318
Release: 2018-03-14
Genre: Medical
ISBN: 3319500260

This book is open access under a CC BY 4.0 license. This textbook, endorsed by the European Society for Blood and Marrow Transplantation (EBMT), provides adult and paediatric nurses with a full and informative guide covering all aspects of transplant nursing, from basic principles to advanced concepts. It takes the reader on a journey through the history of transplant nursing, including essential and progressive elements to help nurses improve their knowledge and benefit the patient experience, as well as a comprehensive introduction to research and auditing methods. This new volume specifically intended for nurses, complements the ESH-EBMT reference title, a popular educational resource originally developed in 2003 for physicians to accompany an annual training course also serving as an educational tool in its own right. This title is designed to develop the knowledge of nurses in transplantation. It is the first book of its kind specifically targeted at nurses in this specialist field and acknowledges the valuable contribution that nursing makes in this area. This volume presents information that is essential for the education of nurses new to transplantation, while also offering a valuable resource for more experienced nurses who wish to update their knowledge.