AIAP: A Quality Control and Integrative Analysis Package to Improve ATAC-seq Data Analysis

Assay for transposase-accessible chromatin with high-throughput sequencing (ATAC-seq) is a technique widely used to investigate genome-wide chromatin accessibility. The recently published Omni-ATAC-seq protocol substantially improves the signal/noise ratio and reduces the input cell number. High-quality data are critical to ensure accurate analysis. Several tools have been developed for assessing sequencing quality and insertion size distribution for ATAC-seq data; however, key quality control (QC) metrics have not yet been established to accurately determine the quality of ATAC-seq data. Here, we optimized the analysis strategy for ATAC-seq and defined a series of QC metrics for ATAC-seq data, including reads under peak ratio (RUPr), background (BG), promoter enrichment (ProEn), subsampling enrichment (SubEn), and other measurements. We incorporated these QC tests into our recently developed ATAC-seq Integrative Analysis Package (AIAP) to provide a complete ATAC-seq analysis system, including quality assurance, improved peak calling, and downstream differential analysis. We demonstrated a significant improvement of sensitivity (20%–60%) in both peak calling and differential analysis by processing paired-end ATAC-seq datasets using AIAP. AIAP is compiled into Docker/Singularity, and it can be executed by one command line to generate a comprehensive QC report. We used ENCODE ATAC-seq data to benchmark and generate QC recommendations, and developed qATACViewer for the user-friendly interaction with the QC report. The software, source code, and documentation of AIAP are freely available at https://github.com/Zhang-lab/ATAC-seq_QC_analysis.     

An optimized MALDI MSI protocol for spatial detection of tryptic peptides in fresh frozen prostate tissue

MALDI MS imaging (MSI) is a powerful analytical tool for spatial peptide detection in heterogeneous tissues. Proper sample preparation is crucial to achieve high quality, reproducible measurements. Here we developed an optimized protocol for spatially resolved proteolytic peptide detection with MALDI time-of-flight MSI of fresh frozen prostate tissue sections. The parameters tested included four different tissue washes, four methods of protein denaturation, four methods of trypsin digestion (different trypsin densities, sprayers, and incubation times), and five matrix deposition methods (different sprayers, settings, and matrix concentrations). Evaluation criteria were the number of detected and excluded peaks, percentage of high mass peaks, signal-to-noise ratio, spatial localization, and average intensities of identified peptides, all of which were integrated into a weighted quality evaluation scoring system. Based on these scores, the optimized protocol included an ice-cold EtOH+H₂O wash, a 5 min heating step at 95°C, tryptic digestion incubated for 17h at 37°C and CHCA matrix deposited at a final amount of 1.8 μg/mm². Including a heat-induced protein denaturation step after tissue wash is a new methodological approach that could be useful also for other tissue types. This optimized protocol for spatial peptide detection using MALDI MSI facilitates future biomarker discovery in prostate cancer and may be useful in studies of other tissue types.     

A Short Term Quality Control Tool for Biodegradable Microspheres

Accelerated in vitro release testing methodology has been developed as an indicator of product performance to be used as a discriminatory quality control (QC) technique for the release of clinical and commercial batches of biodegradable microspheres. While product performance of biodegradable microspheres can be verified by in vivo and/or in vitro experiments, such evaluation can be particularly challenging because of slow polymer degradation, resulting in extended study times, labor, and expense. Three batches of Leuprolide poly(lactic-co-glycolic acid) (PLGA) microspheres having varying morphology (process variants having different particle size and specific surface area) were manufactured by the solvent extraction/evaporation technique. Tests involving in vitro release, polymer degradation and hydration of the microspheres were performed on the three batches at 55°C. In vitro peptide release at 55°C was analyzed using a previously derived modification of the Weibull function termed the modified Weibull equation (MWE). Experimental observations and data analysis confirm excellent reproducibility studies within and between batches of the microsphere formulations demonstrating the predictability of the accelerated experiments at 55°C. The accelerated test method was also successfully able to distinguish the in vitro product performance between the three batches having varying morphology (process variants), indicating that it is a suitable QC tool to discriminate product or process variants in clinical or commercial batches of microspheres. Additionally, data analysis utilized the MWE to further quantify the differences obtained from the accelerated in vitro product performance test between process variants, thereby enhancing the discriminatory power of the accelerated methodology at 55°C.     

Comprehensive quality control utilizing the prehybridization third-dye image leads to accurate gene expression measurements by cDNA microarrays

Background  

Gene expression profiling using microarrays has become an important genetic tool. Spotted arrays prepared in academic labs have the advantage of low cost and high design and content flexibility, but are often limited by their susceptibility to quality control (QC) issues. Previously, we have reported a novel 3-color microarray technology that enabled array fabrication QC. In this report we further investigated its advantage in spot-level data QC.     

Crystal Structure and Functional Analysis of the Glutaminyl Cyclase from Xanthomonas campestris

Glutaminyl cyclases (QCs) (EC 2.3.2.5) catalyze the formation of pyroglutamate (pGlu) at the N-terminus of many proteins and peptides, a critical step for the maturation of these bioactive molecules. Proteins having QC activity have been identified in animals and plants, but not in bacteria. Here, we report the first bacterial QC from the plant pathogen Xanthomonas campestris (Xc). The crystal structure of the enzyme was solved and refined to 1.44-Å resolution. The structure shows a five-bladed β-propeller and exhibits a scaffold similar to that of papaya QC (pQC), but with some sequence deletions and conformational changes. In contrast to the pQC structure, the active site of XcQC has a wider substrate-binding pocket, but its accessibility is modulated by a protruding loop acting as a flap. Enzyme activity analyses showed that the wild-type XcQC possesses only 3% QC activity compared to that of pQC. Superposition of those two structures revealed that an active-site glutamine residue in pQC is substituted by a glutamate (Glu⁴⁵) in XcQC, although position 45 is a glutamine in most bacterial QC sequences. The E45Q mutation increased the QC activity by an order of magnitude, but the mutation E45A led to a drop in the enzyme activity, indicating the critical catalytic role of this residue. Further mutagenesis studies support the catalytic role of Glu⁸⁹ as proposed previously and confirm the importance of several conserved amino acids around the substrate-binding pocket. XcQC was shown to be weakly resistant to guanidine hydrochloride, extreme pH, and heat denaturations, in contrast to the extremely high stability of pQC, despite their similar scaffold. On the basis of structure comparison, the low stability of XcQC may be attributed to the absence of both a disulfide linkage and some hydrogen bonds in the closure of β-propeller structure. These results significantly improve our understanding of the catalytic mechanism and extreme stability of type I QCs, which will be useful in further applications of QC enzymes.     

Rapid Methods for Testing the Efficacy of Sterilization-Grade Filter Membranes

The validation of sterilization-grade membranes is integral to ensuring the efficient and safe use of microfiltration systems. Here validation refers to the production of sterile filtrate for sterilizing-grade membranes under challenge test conditions. Current validation methods require 48 h of culture for results to become available, which creates time delays within the manufacturing process and quality control (QC) backlogs. This work compares four methods for the production of filter challenge test data, to the desired test sensitivity, within 24 h using bioluminescent and fluorescent recombinant strains of the test organism Brevundimonas diminuta. These methods should provide a way to implement more rapid QC test regimens for filters.     

Guidelines and considerations for the use of system suitability and quality control samples in mass spectrometry assays applied in untargeted clinical metabolomic studies

Background

Quality assurance (QA) and quality control (QC) are two quality management processes that are integral to the success of metabolomics including their application for the acquisition of high quality data in any high-throughput analytical chemistry laboratory. QA defines all the planned and systematic activities implemented before samples are collected, to provide confidence that a subsequent analytical process will fulfil predetermined requirements for quality. QC can be defined as the operational techniques and activities used to measure and report these quality requirements after data acquisition.

Aim of review

This tutorial review will guide the reader through the use of system suitability and QC samples, why these samples should be applied and how the quality of data can be reported.

Key scientific concepts of review

System suitability samples are applied to assess the operation and lack of contamination of the analytical platform prior to sample analysis. Isotopically-labelled internal standards are applied to assess system stability for each sample analysed. Pooled QC samples are applied to condition the analytical platform, perform intra-study reproducibility measurements (QC) and to correct mathematically for systematic errors. Standard reference materials and long-term reference QC samples are applied for inter-study and inter-laboratory assessment of data.

     

QC-Chain: Fast and Holistic Quality Control Method for Next-Generation Sequencing Data

Next-generation sequencing (NGS) technologies have been widely used in life sciences. However, several kinds of sequencing artifacts, including low-quality reads and contaminating reads, were found to be quite common in raw sequencing data, which compromise downstream analysis. Therefore, quality control (QC) is essential for raw NGS data. However, although a few NGS data quality control tools are publicly available, there are two limitations: First, the processing speed could not cope with the rapid increase of large data volume. Second, with respect to removing the contaminating reads, none of them could identify contaminating sources de novo, and they rely heavily on prior information of the contaminating species, which is usually not available in advance. Here we report QC-Chain, a fast, accurate and holistic NGS data quality-control method. The tool synergeticly comprised of user-friendly tools for (1) quality assessment and trimming of raw reads using Parallel-QC, a fast read processing tool; (2) identification, quantification and filtration of unknown contamination to get high-quality clean reads. It was optimized based on parallel computation, so the processing speed is significantly higher than other QC methods. Experiments on simulated and real NGS data have shown that reads with low sequencing quality could be identified and filtered. Possible contaminating sources could be identified and quantified de novo, accurately and quickly. Comparison between raw reads and processed reads also showed that subsequent analyses (genome assembly, gene prediction, gene annotation, etc.) results based on processed reads improved significantly in completeness and accuracy. As regard to processing speed, QC-Chain achieves 7–8 time speed-up based on parallel computation as compared to traditional methods. Therefore, QC-Chain is a fast and useful quality control tool for read quality process and de novo contamination filtration of NGS reads, which could significantly facilitate downstream analysis. QC-Chain is publicly available at: http://www.computationalbioenergy.org/qc-chain.html.     

Measurement of signs of chemical shift differences between ground and excited protein states: a comparison between H(S/M)QC and <Emphasis Type="Italic">R</Emphasis><Subscript>1<Emphasis Type="Italic">ρ</Emphasis></Subscript> methods

Carr-Purcell-Meiboom-Gill (CPMG) relaxation dispersion NMR spectroscopy has emerged as a powerful tool for quantifying the kinetics and thermodynamics of millisecond exchange processes between a major, populated ground state and one or more minor, low populated and often invisible ‘excited’ conformers. Analysis of CPMG data-sets also provides the magnitudes of the chemical shift difference(s) between exchanging states (|Δϖ|), that inform on the structural properties of the excited state(s). The sign of Δϖ is, however, not available from CPMG data. Here we present one-dimensional NMR experiments for measuring the signs of ¹H^N and ¹³C^α Δϖ values using weak off-resonance R _1ρ relaxation measurements, extending the spin-lock approach beyond previous applications focusing on the signs of ¹⁵N and ¹H^α shift differences. The accuracy of the method is established by using an exchanging system where the invisible, excited state can be converted to the visible, ground state by altering conditions so that the signs of Δϖ values obtained from the spin-lock approach can be validated with those measured directly. Further, the spin-lock experiments are compared with the established H(S/M)QC approach for measuring the signs of chemical shift differences. For the Abp1p and Fyn SH3 domains considered here it is found that while H(S/M)QC measurements provide signs for more residues than the spin-lock data, the two different methodologies are complementary, so that combining both approaches frequently produces signs for more residues than when the H(S/M)QC method is used alone.     

LogViewer: A Software Tool to Visualize Quality Control Parameters to Optimize Proteomics Experiments using Orbitrap and LTQ-FT Mass Spectrometers

Visualization tools that allow both optimization of instrument''s parameters for data acquisition and specific quality control (QC) for a given sample prior to time-consuming database searches have been scarce until recently and are currently still not freely available. To address this need, we have developed the visualization tool LogViewer, which uses diagnostic data from the RAW files of the Thermo Orbitrap and linear trap quadrupole-Fourier transform (LTQ-FT) mass spectrometers to monitor relevant metrics. To summarize and visualize the performance on our test samples, log files from RawXtract are imported and displayed. LogViewer is a visualization tool that allows a specific and fast QC for a given sample without time-consuming database searches. QC metrics displayed include: mass spectrometry (MS) ion-injection time histograms, MS ion-injection time versus retention time, MS² ion-injection time histograms, MS² ion-injection time versus retention time, dependent scan histograms, charge-state histograms, mass-to-charge ratio (M/Z) distributions, M/Z histograms, mass histograms, mass distribution, summary, repeat analyses, Raw MS, and Raw MS². Systematically optimizing all metrics allowed us to increase our protein identification rates from 600 proteins to routinely determine up to 1400 proteins in any 160-min analysis of a complex mixture (e.g., yeast lysate) at a false discovery rate of <1%. Visualization tools, such as LogViewer, make QC of complex liquid chromotography (LC)-MS and LC-MS/MS data and optimization of the instrument''s parameters accessible to users.     

Labelling strategy and membrane characterization of marine bacteria Vibrio splendidus by in vivo 2H NMR

Vibrio splendidus is a marine bacterium often considered as a threat in aquaculture hatcheries where it is responsible for mass mortality events, notably of bivalves' larvae. This bacterium is highly adapted to dynamic salty ecosystems where it has become an opportunistic and resistant species. To characterize their membranes as a first and necessary step toward studying bacterial interactions with diverse molecules, we established a labelling protocol for in vivo ²H solid-state nuclear magnetic resonance (SS-NMR) analysis of V. splendidus. ²H SS-NMR is a useful tool to study the organization and dynamics of phospholipids at the molecular level, and its application to intact bacteria is further advantageous as it allows probing acyl chains in their natural environment and study membrane interactions. In this study, we showed that V. splendidus can be labelled using deuterated palmitic acid, and demonstrated the importance of surfactant choice in the labelling protocol. Moreover, we assessed the impact of lipid deuteration on the general fitness of the bacteria, as well as the saturated-to-unsaturated fatty acid chains ratio and its impact on the membrane properties. We further characterize the evolution of V. splendidus membrane fluidity during different growth stages and relate it to fatty acid chain composition. Our results show larger membrane fluidity during the stationary growth phase compared to the exponential growth phase under labelling conditions - an information to take into account for future in vivo SS-NMR studies. Our lipid deuteration protocol optimized for V. splendidus is likely applicable other microorganisms for in vivo NMR studies.     

Protocols for the assurance of microarray data quality and process control

Microarrays represent a powerful technology that provides the ability to simultaneously measure the expression of thousands of genes. However, it is a multi-step process with numerous potential sources of variation that can compromise data analysis and interpretation if left uncontrolled, necessitating the development of quality control protocols to ensure assay consistency and high-quality data. In response to emerging standards, such as the minimum information about a microarray experiment standard, tools are required to ascertain the quality and reproducibility of results within and across studies. To this end, an intralaboratory quality control protocol for two color, spotted microarrays was developed using cDNA microarrays from in vivo and in vitro dose-response and time-course studies. The protocol combines: (i) diagnostic plots monitoring the degree of feature saturation, global feature and background intensities, and feature misalignments with (ii) plots monitoring the intensity distributions within arrays with (iii) a support vector machine (SVM) model. The protocol is applicable to any laboratory with sufficient datasets to establish historical high- and low-quality data.     

Monte Carlo simulation of the dose distribution of ICRP adult reference computational phantoms for acquisitions with a 320 detector-row cone-beam CT scanner

PurposeThe purpose of this study was to develop and validate a Monte Carlo (MC) simulation tool for patient dose assessment for a 320 detector-row CT scanner, based on the recommendations of International Commission on Radiological Protection (ICRP). Additionally, the simulation was applied on four clinical acquisition protocols, with and without automatic tube current modulation (TCM).MethodsThe MC simulation was based on EGS4 code and was developed specifically for a 320 detector-row cone-beam CT scanner. The ICRP adult reference phantoms were used as patient models. Dose measurements were performed free-in-air and also in four CTDI phantoms: 150 mm and 350 mm long CT head and CT body phantoms. The MC program was validated by comparing simulations results with these actual measurements acquired under the same conditions. The measurements agreed with the simulations across all conditions within 5%. Patient dose assessment was performed for four clinical axial acquisitions using the ICRP adult reference phantoms, one of them using TCM.ResultsThe results were nearly always lower than those obtained from other dose calculator tools or published in other studies, which were obtained using mathematical phantoms in different CT systems. For the protocol with TCM organ doses were reduced by between 28 and 36%, compared to the results obtained using a fixed mA value.ConclusionsThe developed simulation program provides a useful tool for assessing doses in a 320 detector-row cone-beam CT scanner using ICRP adult reference computational phantoms and is ready to be applied to more complex protocols.     

Quantitative quality control in microarray image processing and data acquisition

A new integrated image analysis package with quantitative quality control schemes is described for cDNA microarray technology. The package employs an iterative algorithm that utilizes both intensity characteristics and spatial information of the spots on a microarray image for signal–background segmentation and defines five quality scores for each spot to record irregularities in spot intensity, size and background noise levels. A composite score q_com is defined based on these individual scores to give an overall assessment of spot quality. Using q_com we demonstrate that the inherent variability in intensity ratio measurements is closely correlated with spot quality, namely spots with higher quality give less variable measurements and vice versa. In addition, gauging data by q_com can improve data reliability dramatically and efficiently. We further show that the variability in ratio measurements drops exponentially with increasing q_com and, for the majority of spots at the high quality end, this improvement is mainly due to an improvement in correlation between the two dyes. Based on these studies, we discuss the potential of quantitative quality control for microarray data and the possibility of filtering and normalizing microarray data using a quality metrics-dependent scheme.     

Pollen monitoring: minimum requirements and reproducibility of analysis

Training, quality assurance (QA) and quality control (QC) play an important role in building competence in monitoring and research in aerobiology. The main goals of this paper were to: (a) formulate an updated Minimum Requirements Report for pollen monitoring; (b) carry out a pilot QC exercise of staff involved in pollen counting from various national networks in order to examine between analysts reproducibility and develop a methodology that can be used in future QC exercises. A questionnaire survey was sent to coordinators of participating pollen monitoring networks. In addition, a total of 45 technicians from 15 European countries participated in the pilot QC exercise. All technicians were instructed to analyse two slides containing the following pollen types: (a) Poaceae and Betula pollen grains in the north of Europe; (b) Poaceae and Olea pollen grains in the south of Europe. Minimum Recommendations were produced based on the results of the questionnaire survey, published literature, and the outcomes of a workshop. In the QC exercise, it was noticed that technicians who followed the Minimum Recommendations and examined at least 10 % of the slide tended to have better indicators of precision and accuracy than those technicians who did not follow the Minimum Recommendations. The proposed Minimum Recommendations will help to improve the quality of scientific work, particularly for those who are considering the setting up of new monitoring sites. The results of the pilot QC exercise will help to develop a methodology that can be used again in the future, thereby ensuring data quality.     

Rapid detection of resistance in Staphylococcus aureus by using Quicolor ES

Traditional microbiological methods are dependent on the growth of microorganisms, and hence require prolonged periods. The methods used to detect resistance in Staphylococcus aureus should have high sensitivity and specificity, yet provide results in a timely manner. The aim of this study was to evaluate the use of Quicolor (QC) ES^® agar for the rapid detection of resistance in S. aureus. We evaluated 100 clinical S. aureus isolates. Resistance detection was performed using traditional microbiological methods. Methicillin resistance detection was evaluated using traditional and molecular microbiological methods. Traditional antibiotic susceptibility testing methods, such as disc diffusion, were conducted using QC ES and Mueller–Hinton (MH) media. The plates were incubated at 36 °C for 5, 6 and 24 h. Rapid results obtained using QC ES agar after 5 h of incubation were consistent with those using the overnight procedure with MH agar for 83 of the 100 S. aureus (including methicillin-susceptible S. aureus) strains. However, the correlation for oxacillin between MH (24 h) and QC ES (5 h) was not satisfactory (r = 0.770). The total agreement between QC ES and MH agar was 83 % after 5 h, 89 % after 6 h, and 94 % after 24 h. The accurate and rapid detection of resistance in S. aureus is critical due to the associated therapeutic problems and infection control measures. We believe that the use of QC ES for S. aureus will reduce the delay in resistance detection, thus providing physicians and infection control practitioners with early information for better management.     

Quality of Sterile Male Tsetse after Long Distance Transport as Chilled,Irradiated Pupae

Background

Tsetse flies transmit trypanosomes that cause human and African animal trypanosomosis, a debilitating disease of humans (sleeping sickness) and livestock (nagana). An area-wide integrated pest management campaign against Glossina palpalis gambiensis has been implemented in Senegal since 2010 that includes a sterile insect technique (SIT) component. The SIT can only be successful when the sterile males that are destined for release have a flight ability, survival and competitiveness that are as close as possible to that of their wild male counterparts.

Methodology/Principal Findings

Tests were developed to assess the quality of G. p. gambiensis males that emerged from pupae that were produced and irradiated in Burkina Faso and Slovakia (irradiation done in Seibersdorf, Austria) and transported weekly under chilled conditions to Dakar, Senegal. For each consignment a sample of 50 pupae was used for a quality control test (QC group). To assess flight ability, the pupae were put in a cylinder filtering emerged flies that were able to escape the cylinder. The survival of these flyers was thereafter monitored under stress conditions (without feeding). Remaining pupae were emerged and released in the target area of the eradication programme (RF group). The following parameter values were obtained for the QC flies: average emergence rate more than 69%, median survival of 6 days, and average flight ability of more than 35%. The quality protocol was a good proxy of fly quality, explaining a large part of the variances of the examined parameters.

Conclusions/Significance

The quality protocol described here will allow the accurate monitoring of the quality of shipped sterile male tsetse used in operational eradication programmes in the framework of the Pan-African Tsetse and Trypanosomosis Eradication Campaign.     

The Role of Quality Control in Targeted Next-generation Sequencing Library Preparation

Next-generation sequencing (NGS) is getting routinely used in the diagnosis of hereditary diseases, such as human cardiomyopathies. Hence, it is of utter importance to secure high quality sequencing data, enabling the identification of disease-relevant mutations or the conclusion of neg-ative test results. During the process of sample preparation, each protocol for target enrichment library preparation has its own requirements for quality control (QC); however, there is little evi-dence on the actual impact of these guidelines on resulting data quality. In this study, we analyzed the impact of QC during the diverse library preparation steps of Agilent SureSelect XT target enrichment and Illumina sequencing. We quantified the parameters for a cohort of around 600 sam-ples, which include starting amount of DNA, amount of sheared DNA, smallest and largest frag-ment size of the starting DNA; amount of DNA after the pre-PCR, and smallest and largest fragment size of the resulting DNA;as well as the amount of the final library, the corresponding smallest and largest fragment size, and the number of detected variants. Intriguingly, there is a high tolerance for variations in all QC steps, meaning that within the boundaries proposed in the current study, a considerable variance at each step of QC can be well tolerated without compromising NGS quality.     

qc3C: Reference-free quality control for Hi-C sequencing data

Hi-C is a sample preparation method that enables high-throughput sequencing to capture genome-wide spatial interactions between DNA molecules. The technique has been successfully applied to solve challenging problems such as 3D structural analysis of chromatin, scaffolding of large genome assemblies and more recently the accurate resolution of metagenome-assembled genomes (MAGs). Despite continued refinements, however, preparing a Hi-C library remains a complex laboratory protocol. To avoid costly failures and maximise the odds of successful outcomes, diligent quality management is recommended. Current wet-lab methods provide only a crude assay of Hi-C library quality, while key post-sequencing quality indicators used have—thus far—relied upon reference-based read-mapping. When a reference is accessible, this reliance introduces a concern for quality, where an incomplete or inexact reference skews the resulting quality indicators. We propose a new, reference-free approach that infers the total fraction of read-pairs that are a product of proximity ligation. This quantification of Hi-C library quality requires only a modest amount of sequencing data and is independent of other application-specific criteria. The algorithm builds upon the observation that proximity ligation events are likely to create k-mers that would not naturally occur in the sample. Our software tool (qc3C) is to our knowledge the first to implement a reference-free Hi-C QC tool, and also provides reference-based QC, enabling Hi-C to be more easily applied to non-model organisms and environmental samples. We characterise the accuracy of the new algorithm on simulated and real datasets and compare it to reference-based methods.