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Background: Copy number variations (CNVs) represent an important type of genetic variation that deeply impact phenotypic polymorphisms and human diseases. The advent of high-throughput sequencing technologies provides an opportunity to revolutionize the discovery of CNVs and to explore their relationship with diseases. However, most of the existing methods depend on sequencing depth and show instability with low sequence coverage. In this study, using low coverage whole-genome sequencing (LCS) we have developed an effective population-scale CNV calling (PSCC) method. Methodology/Principal Findings: In our novel method, two-step correction was used to remove biases caused by local GC content and complex genomic characteristics. We chose a binary segmentation method to locate CNV segments and designed combined statistics tests to ensure the stable performance of the false positive control. The simulation data showed that our PSCC method could achieve 99.7%/100% and 98.6%/100% sensitivity and specificity for over 300 kb CNV calling in the condition of LCS (∼2×) and ultra LCS (∼0.2×), respectively. Finally, we applied this novel method to analyze 34 clinical samples with an average of 2× LCS. In the final results, all the 31 pathogenic CNVs identified by aCGH were successfully detected. In addition, the performance comparison revealed that our method had significant advantages over existing methods using ultra LCS. Conclusions/Significance: Our study showed that PSCC can sensitively and reliably detect CNVs using low coverage or even ultra-low coverage data through population-scale sequencing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS) is a synthetic material that has been widely used in industrial applications for decades. Exposure to PFOS has been associated with decreased adult testosterone level, and Leydig cell impairment during the time of adulthood. However, little is known about PFOS effects in utero on fetal Leydig cells (FLC). Methods and Results: The present study investigated effects of PFOS on FLC function. Pregnant Sprague Dawley female rats received vehicle (0.05% Tween20) or PFOS (5, 20 mg/kg) by oral gavage from gestational day (GD) 11–19. At GD20, testosterone (T) production, FLC numbers and ultrastructure, testicular gene and protein expression levels were examined. The results indicate that exposures to PFOS have affected FLC function as evidenced by decreased T production, impaired FLC, reduced FLC number, and decreased steroidogenic capacity and cholesterol level in utero. Conclusion: The present study shows that PFOS is an endocrine disruptor of male reproductive system as it causes reduction of T production and impairment of rat fetal Leydig cells. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The discovery of cell free fetal DNA (cff-DNA) in maternal plasma has brought new insight for noninvasive prenatal diagnosis. Combining with the rapidly developed massively parallel sequencing technology, noninvasive prenatal detection of chromosome aneuploidy and single base variation has been successfully validated. However, few studies discussed the possibility of noninvasive pathogenic CNVs detection. Methodology/Principal Findings: A novel algorithm for noninvasive prenatal detection of fetal pathogenic CNVs was firstly tested in 5 pairs of parents with heterozygote α-thalassemia of Southeast Asian (SEA) deletion using target region capture sequencing for maternal plasma. Capture probes were designed for α-globin (HBA) and β-globin (HBB) gene, as well as 4,525 SNPs selected from 22 automatic chromosomes. Mixed adaptors with 384 different barcodes were employed to construct maternal plasma DNA library for massively parallel sequencing. The signal of fetal CNVs was calculated using the relative copy ratio (RCR) of maternal plasma combined with the analysis of R-score and L-score by comparing with normal control. With mean of 101.93× maternal plasma sequencing depth for the target region, the RCR value combined with further R-score and L-score analysis showed a possible homozygous deletion in the HBA gene region for one fetus, heterozygous deletion for two fetus and normal for the other two fetus, which was consistent with that of invasive prenatal diagnosis. Conclusions/Significance: Our study showed the feasibility to detect pathogenic CNVs using target region capture sequencing, which might greatly extend the scope of noninvasive prenatal diagnosis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Currently very few noninvasive molecular genetic approaches are available to determine zygosity for twin pregnancies in clinical laboratories. This study aimed to develop a novel method to determine zygosity by using maternal plasma target region sequencing. Methods: We constructed a statistic model to calculate the possibility of each zygosity type using likelihood ratios (Li) and empirical dynamic thresholds targeting at 4,524 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) loci on 22 autosomes. Then two dizygotic (DZ) twin pregnancies,two monozygotic (MZ) twin pregnancies and two singletons were recruited to evaluate the performance of our novel method. Finally we estimated the sensitivity and specificity of the model in silico under different cell-free fetal DNA (cff-DNA) concentration and sequence depth. Results/Conclusions: We obtained 8.90 Gbp sequencing data on average for six clinical samples. Two samples were classified as DZ with L values of 1.891 and 1.554, higher than the dynamic DZ cut-off values of 1.162 and 1.172, respectively. Another two samples were judged as MZ with 0.763 and 0.784 of L values, lower than the MZ cut-off values of 0.903 and 0.918. And the rest two singleton samples were regarded as MZ twins, with L values of 0.639 and 0.757, lower than the MZ cut-off values of 0.921 and 0.799. In silico, the estimated sensitivity of our noninvasive zygosity determination was 99.90% under 10% total cff-DNA concentration with 2 Gbp sequence data. As the cff-DNA concentration increased to 15%, the specificity was as high as 97% with 3.50 Gbp sequence data, much higher than 80% with 10% cff-DNA concentration. Significance: This study presents the feasibility to noninvasively determine zygosity of twin pregnancy using target region sequencing, and illustrates the sensitivity and specificity under various detecting condition. Our method can act as an alternative approach for zygosity determination of twin pregnancies in clinical practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]