NeuroLINCS Project

The NeuroLINCS Project is part of the NIH Common Fund’s Library of Integrated Network-based Cellular Signatures (LINCS) program, which aims to characterize how a variety of human cells, tissues and entire organism respond to perturbations by drugs and other molecular factors. As Part of the LINCS program, the NeuroLINCS study concentrates on human brain cells, which are far less understood than other cells in the body. Our initial focus is to produce diseased motor neurons from patients by utilizing high-quality induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC) lines from Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) and Spinal Muscular Atrophy (SMA) patients in addition to unaffected normal healthy controls. Using state-of-the-art OMICS methods (genomics, epigenomics, transcriptomics, and proteomics), we intend to create a wealth of cellular data that is patient-specific in the context of their baseline genetic perturbations and in the presence of other genetic and environmental perturbagens (e.g. endoplasmic reticulum stress). The primary data will be used to build cell signatures that convey the key features that distinguish the state of a cell and determine its behavior. Ultimately, the analysis of these datasets will lead to the identification of a network of unique signatures relevant to each of these motor neuron diseases.

Getting You Started

Here are some information and videos that will help you get started using Galaxy and the NeuroLINCS pipelines. You can use these workflows/pipelines with your own data or rerun the NeuroLINCS Data found on dbGap and LINCSproject. Links to data provided below.

Galaxy Resources

NeuroLINCS Data Links

• Experiment 1: ATAC-Seq, RNA-Seq and proteomics were carried out on samples obtained from induced Pluripotnent Stem Cells (iPSC) cell lines. These lines were derived from ALS, SMA and Control (unaffected) individuals (three of each).
  • ATAC-Seq
  • RNA-Seq
  • Proteomics - NOTE: We do not have a proteomic workflow in Galaxy but you can still access the data for analysis using your tools.
• Experiment 2: ATAC-Seq, RNA-Seq and proteomics were carried out on samples obtained from motor neuron lines generated from subject induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC) lines.
  • ATAC-Seq
  • RNA-Seq
  • Proteomics - NOTE: We do not have a proteomic workflow in Galaxy but you can still access the data for analysis using your tools.

Analyzing data using the pipelines/workflow

RNA-Seq Workflow

1. Use RNA-Seq Step 1 ‘Secondary Analysis’ workflow below to generate the count matrix (level 3 data) for all samples using raw fastq files.
2. If technical or growth replicates are present, use the Rcode to generate the differentially expressed genes (level 4 data). If not, use the RNA-Seq Step 2 ‘Statistical Analysis of Gene Expression’ workflow below to generate the differentially expressed gene list.

ATAC-Seq Workflow

The ATAC pipeline on galaxy will generate BAM files from bowtie2 alignment and narrowPeak files from MACS2 peak calling.

1. Download the BAM and narrowPeak files to your computer or server. BAM files are very large so if possible, use an FTP client to transfer them to their destination.
2. Create a sample sheet for use with DiffBind using this example as a template. For each sample, provide the path to the BAM file in the “bamReads” column of the sample sheet and the path to the narrowPeak file in the “Peaks” column.
3. Fill out the “PeakCaller” section with “macs” for all samples.
4. The “SampleID”, “Tissue”, “Factor”, “Condition”, “Treatment”, and “Replicate” column should be filled out with appropriate values for each sample although only the “SampleID” column is required; the other columns provide information to make convenient comparisons in DiffBind.
5. Once the sample sheet has been filled out, you can start using the DiffBind ATAC R vignette here to analyze your data.

Workflows

The workflows described below are used for primary analysis of NeuroLINCS cell line data.

Web-based Pipeline For Differential Gene Expression Analysis (RNA-Seq)

NeuroLINCs Transcriptomics Center, UC Irvine

The workflows describes a standard analysis of bulk RNA-seq analysis. For a schematic of the pipeline, click here.

Step 1. Secondary Analysis

Step 2. Statistical Analysis of gene expression

This step uses DESeq2 standard workflow to test differential expression across two groups, e.g. control vs. ALS.

For more information regarding DESeq2, please visit this page.

Web-based Pipeline For Assay for Transposase-Accessible Chromatin followed by sequencing (ATAC-Seq)

NeuroLINCs Epigenomics Center, MIT

Assay overview

The ATAC-seq experiment provides genome-wide profiles of chromatin accessibility. Briefly, the ATAC-seq method works as follows: loaded transposase inserts sequencing primers into open chromatin sites across the genome, and reads are then sequenced. The ends of the reads mark open chromatin sites. The ATAC-seq pipeline is used for statistical signal processing of short-read sequencing data and quality control, producing alignments and measures of enrichment. In its current form, it is a prototype and will likely undergo substantial change within the next year.

ATAC Pipeline

Our ATAC pipeline takes in BAM files containing aligned reads and outputs peaks and peak annotations.

The first step in the pipeline is to remove all reads mapped to mitochondrial DNA from the BAM file. Since we observe 30-60% mitochondrial contamination for NeuroLINCS samples, removing mitochondrial reads will remove considerable noise from downstream analysis. Afterward, peak calling is performed on BAM using MACS2 with the following parameters: –format BAM –gsize hs –qvalue .05. We have prepared a background bam file for MACS2 peak calling by extracting naked genomic DNA from iMNS, performing ATAC on the genomic DNA, and sequencing the resulting library. Peak annotation is performed using the script “map_peaks_to_known_genes.py” from the ChipSeqUtil package; we map genes to peaks within a window of +/- 10kb. Bigwig files for the reads and BigBed files for the peaks are generated for visualization of data on a genome browser.