Kimberly Verniers

• Bachelor
• Technician at Ghent University

Neuroblastoma is a pediatric cancer of the sympathetic nervous system characterized by heterogeneous cell states that mirror normal differentiation trajectories. Each state is governed by a core regulatory transcriptional circuitry that reinforces cell identity through an autoregulatory feedforward loop. We identified the long non-coding RNA NESPR...

It is generally assumed that extracellular long RNA molecules in biofluids are fragmented. Few studies have indirectly hinted at the existence of possibly functional, intact long RNA transcripts. In search for such RNA molecules, we developed a long-read full transcript sequencing workflow for low-input and low-quality samples. We applied our metho...

Introduction IgM gammopathies encompass a heterogeneous group of hematological conditions, ranging from IgM monoclonal gammopathies of uncertain significance (IgM-MGUS) to asymptomatic Waldenström's Macroglobulinemia (aWM) and symptomatic WM (WM). This study aimed to investigate the potential of cell-free RNA (cfRNA) as a biomarker source in IgM ga...

The potential of RNA-based liquid biopsy is increasingly being recognized in diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL), the most common subtype of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. This study explores the cell-free transcriptome in a humanized DLBCL patient-derived tumor xenograft (PDTX) model. Blood plasma samples (n = 171) derived from a DLBCL PDTX model, incl...

The human immunodeficiency virus (HIV-1) is highly dependent on a variety of host factors. Beside proteins, host RNA molecules are reported to aid HIV-1 replication and latency maintenance. Here, we implement multiple workflows of native RNA immunoprecipitation and sequencing (nRIPseq) to determine direct host RNA interaction partners of all 18 HIV...

The use of blood-based extracellular RNA (cell-free RNA; exRNA) as clinical biomarker requires the implementation of a validated procedure for sample collection, processing, and profiling. So far, no study has systematically addressed the pre-analytical variables affecting transcriptome analysis of exRNAs. In the exRNAQC study, we evaluated ten blo...

Extracellular RNA (cell‐free RNA; exRNA) from blood‐derived liquid biopsies is an appealing, minimally invasive source of disease biomarkers. As pre‐analytical variables strongly influence exRNA measurements, their reporting is essential for meaningful interpretation and replication of results. The aim of this review was to chart to what extent pre...

Introduction Diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL) and primary mediastinal B-cell lymphoma (PMBCL) are aggressive histological subtypes of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. Improved understanding of the underlying molecular pathogenesis has led to new classification and risk stratification tools, including the development of cell-free biomarkers through liqu...

The detection of circular RNA molecules (circRNAs) is typically based on short-read RNA sequencing data processed using computational tools. Numerous such tools have been developed, but a systematic comparison with orthogonal validation is missing. Here, we set up a circRNA detection tool benchmarking study, in which 16 tools detected almost 300,00...

Circulating nucleic acids in blood plasma form an attractive resource to study human health and disease. Here, we applied mRNA capture sequencing of blood plasma cell-free RNA from 266 cancer patients and cancer-free controls (discovery n=208, 25 cancer types; validation n=58, 3 types). We observed cancer-type specific as well as pan-cancer alterat...

Archived formalin-fixed, paraffin-embedded (FFPE) tissue samples are being increasingly used in molecular cancer research. Compared with fresh-frozen tissue, the nucleic acid analysis of FFPE tissue is technically more challenging. This study aimed to compare the impact of 3 different RNA extraction methods on yield, quality, and sequencing-based g...

Background Blood plasma, one of the most studied liquid biopsies, contains various molecules that have biomarker potential for cancer detection, including cell-free DNA (cfDNA) and cell-free RNA (cfRNA). As the vast majority of cell-free nucleic acids in circulation are non-cancerous, a laboratory workflow with a high detection sensitivity of tumor...

Using blood-based extracellular RNA (circulating cell-free RNA; exRNA) as a clinical biomarker requires validated procedures for sample collection and processing and RNA quantification. No study to date has systematically tested pre-analytical variables affecting transcriptome-wide exRNA analysis. We evaluated and compared ten blood collection tube...

The detection of circular RNA molecules (circRNAs) is typically based on short-read RNA sequencing data processed by computational detection tools. During the last decade, a plethora of such tools have been developed, but a systematic comparison is missing. Here, we set up a circRNA detection tool benchmarking study, in which 16 tools were used and...

While cell-free DNA (cfDNA) is widely being investigated, free circulating RNA (extracellular RNA, exRNA) has the potential to improve cancer therapy response monitoring and detection due to its dynamic nature. However, it remains unclear in which blood subcompartment tumour-derived exRNAs primarily reside. We developed a host-xenograft deconvoluti...

We assess the performance of mRNA capture sequencing to identify fusion transcripts in FFPE tissue of different sarcoma types, followed by RT-qPCR confirmation. To validate our workflow, six positive control tumors with a specific chromosomal rearrangement were analyzed using the TruSight RNA Pan-Cancer Panel. Fusion transcript calling by FusionCat...

Molecular phenotyping through shallow 3′‐end RNA‐sequencing workflows is increasingly applied in the context of large‐scale chemical or genetic perturbation screens to study disease biology or support drug discovery. While these workflows enable accurate quantification of the most abundant genes, they are less effective for applications that requir...

RNA sequencing has become the gold standard for transcriptome analysis but comes with an inherent limitation with respect to quantification of low abundant transcripts. In contrast to microarray technology, RNA-sequencing reads are proportionally divided across transcripts. Therefore, low abundant RNAs can be out-competed by highly abundant--and so...

Background Most ovarian cancer patients are diagnosed at an advanced stage and have a high mortality rate. Current screening strategies fail to improve prognosis because markers that are sensitive for early stage disease are lacking. This medical need justifies the search for novel approaches using utero-tubal lavage as a proximal liquid biopsy. M...

Molecular phenotyping through shallow 3′-end RNA-sequencing workflows is increasingly applied in the context of large-scale chemical or genetic perturbation screens to study disease biology or support drug discovery. While these workflows enable accurate quantification of the most abundant genes, they are less effective for applications that requir...

Circular RNAs (circRNAs) are a class of endogenous noncoding RNAs that have been shown to play a role in normal development, homeostasis, and disease, including cancer. CircRNAs are formed through a process called back‐splicing, which results in a covalently closed loop with a nonlinear back‐spliced junction (BSJ). In general, circRNA BSJs are pred...

Comprehensive transcriptome analysis of extracellular RNA (exRNA) purified from human biofluids is challenging because of the low RNA concentration and compromised RNA integrity. Here, we describe an optimized workflow to (1) isolate exRNA from different types of biofluids and (2) to prepare messenger RNA (mRNA)-enriched sequencing libraries using...

The use of blood-based extracellular RNA (exRNA) as clinical biomarker requires the implementation of a validated procedure for sample collection, processing and profiling. So far, no study has systematically addressed the pre-analytical variables affecting transcriptome analysis of exRNAs. In the exRNAQC study, we evaluated 10 blood collection tub...

Liquid biopsies offer a minimally invasive alternative to tissue biopsies for both diagnosis and monitoring of treatment response. Extracellular RNAs present in biofluids have emerged as potential biomarkers in health and disease, including cancer. While current studies typically focus on plasma or serum, other biofluids may contain more informativ...

RNA profiling has emerged as a powerful tool to investigate the biomarker potential of human biofluids. Despite the interest in extracellular nucleic acids, RNA sequencing methods to quantify the total RNA content outside cells are rare. Therefore, we evaluated the performance of the SMARTer Stranded Total RNA-Seq method in human platelet-rich plas...

p>Cancer biomarker studies require procedures that provide accurate and precise test results with high analytical sensitivity. Consequently, the growing use of extracellular RNA from human biofluids as clinically relevant biomarker requires the implementation of benchmarked methods for sample collection, processing, and profiling. While several sma...

RNA profiling has emerged as a powerful tool to investigate the biomarker potential of human biofluids. However, despite enormous interest in extracellular nucleic acids, RNA sequencing methods to quantify the total RNA content outside cells are rare. Here, we evaluate the performance of the SMARTer Stranded Total RNA-Seq method in human platelet-r...

Extracellular RNAs present in biofluids have emerged as potential biomarkers for disease. Where most studies focus on plasma or serum, other biofluids may contain more informative RNA molecules, depending on the type of disease. Here, we present an unprecedented atlas of messenger, circular and small RNA transcriptomes of a comprehensive collection...

RNA profiling has emerged as a powerful tool to investigate the biomarker potential of human biofluids. However, despite enormous interest in extracellular nucleic acids, RNA sequencing methods to quantify the total RNA content outside cells are rare. Here, we evaluate the performance of the SMARTer Stranded Total RNA-Seq method in human platelet-r...

Accurate assessment of neuroblastoma outcome prediction remains challenging. Therefore, this study aims at establishing novel prognostic tumor DNA methylation biomarkers. In total, 396 low- and high-risk primary tumors were analyzed, of which 87 were profiled using methyl-CpG-binding domain (MBD) sequencing for differential methylation analysis bet...

The advent of next-generation sequencing technologies had a profound impact on molecular diagnostics. PCR is a popular method for target enrichment of disease gene panels. Using our proprietary primer-design pipeline, primerXL, we have created almost one million assays covering over 98% of the human exome. Here we describe the assay specification a...