Shannon Dugan

• BA Biology, Rice University, 1994
• Research Associate at Baylor College of Medicine

Importance Determining the impact of germline cancer-predisposition variants (CPVs) on outcomes could inform novel approaches to testing and treating children with rhabdomyosarcoma. Objective To assess whether CPVs are associated with outcome among children with rhabdomyosarcoma. Design, Setting, and Participants In this cohort study, data were o...

Comprehensively mapping the genetic basis of human disease across diverse individuals is a long-standing goal for the field of human genetics 1–4 . The All of Us Research Program is a longitudinal cohort study aiming to enrol a diverse group of at least one million individuals across the USA to accelerate biomedical research and improve human healt...

The heterogeneity of the whole-exome sequencing (WES) data generation methods present a challenge to a joint analysis. Here we present a bioinformatics strategy for joint-calling 20,504 WES samples collected across nine studies and sequenced using ten capture kits in fourteen sequencing centers in the Alzheimer’s Disease Sequencing Project. The joi...

Mitochondria carry their own circular genome and disruption of the mitochondrial genome is associated with various aging-related diseases. Unlike the nuclear genome, mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) can be present at 1000 s to 10,000 s copies in somatic cells and variants may exist in a state of heteroplasmy, where only a fraction of the DNA molecules har...

The etiology of biliary atresia (BA) is unknown, but recent studies suggest a role for rare protein-altering variants (PAVs). Exome sequencing data from the National Birth Defects Prevention Study on 54 child-parent trios, one child-mother duo, and 1513 parents of children with other birth defects were analyzed. Most (91%) cases were isolated BA. W...

Background and Objectives Genetic variants affect both Parkinson disease (PD) risk and manifestations. Although genetic information is of potential interest to patients and clinicians, genetic testing is rarely performed during routine PD clinical care. The goal of this study was to examine interest in comprehensive genetic testing among patients w...

Background Several cancer-susceptibility syndromes are reported to underlie pediatric rhabdomyosarcoma (RMS); however, there have been no systematic efforts to characterize the heterogeneous genetic etiologies of this often-fatal malignancy. Methods We performed exome-sequencing on germline DNA from 615 patients with newly diagnosed RMS consented...

Studies of Y Chromosome evolution have focused primarily on gene decay, a consequence of suppression of crossing-over with the X Chromosome. Here, we provide evidence that suppression of X-Y crossing-over unleashed a second dynamic: selfish X-Y arms races that reshaped the sex chromosomes in mammals as different as cattle, mice, and men. Using supe...

Following publication of the original article [1], the authors would like to remove the phrase ‘vertically transmitted’ from the last sentence in the fourth paragraph under the heading Background. The sentence originally read: In addition to serving as crop disease vectors, thrips support vertically transmitted, facultative bacterial symbionts that...

Background Establishing a genetic diagnosis for individuals with intellectual disability (ID) benefits patients and their families as it may inform the prognosis, lead to appropriate therapy, and facilitate access to medical and supportive services. Exome sequencing has been successfully applied in a diagnostic setting, but most clinical exome refe...

The tremendous diversity of Hymenoptera is commonly attributed to the evolution of parasitoidism in the last common ancestor of parasitoid sawflies (Orussidae) and wasp-waisted Hymenoptera (Apocrita). However, Apocrita and Orussidae differ dramatically in their species richness, indicating that the diversification of Apocrita was promoted by additi...

Background: Halyomorpha halys (Stål), the brown marmorated stink bug, is a highly invasive insect species due in part to its exceptionally high levels of polyphagy. This species is also a nuisance due to overwintering in human-made structures. It has caused significant agricultural losses in recent years along the Atlantic seaboard of North Americ...

Background The western flower thrips, Frankliniella occidentalis (Pergande), is a globally invasive pest and plant virus vector on a wide array of food, fiber and ornamental crops. While there are numerous studies centered on thrips pest and vector biology, feeding behaviors, ecology, and insecticide resistance, the underlying genetic mechanisms of...

Background: Arthropods comprise the largest and most diverse phylum on Earth and play vital roles in nearly every ecosystem. Their diversity stems in part from variations on a conserved body plan, resulting from and recorded in adaptive changes in the genome. Dissection of the genomic record of sequence change enables broad questions regarding gen...

Background The Hemiptera (aphids, cicadas, and true bugs) are a key insect order, with high diversity for feeding ecology and excellent experimental tractability for molecular genetics. Building upon recent sequencing of hemipteran pests such as phloem-feeding aphids and blood-feeding bed bugs, we present the genome sequence and comparative analyse...

The bed bug, Cimex lectularius, has re-established itself as a ubiquitous human ectoparasite throughout much of the world during the past two decades. This global resurgence is likely linked to increased international travel and commerce in addition to widespread insecticide resistance. Analyses of the C. lectularius sequenced genome (650 Mb) and 1...

Background Having conquered water surfaces worldwide, the semi-aquatic bugs occupy ponds, streams, lakes, mangroves, and even open oceans. The diversity of this group has inspired a range of scientific studies from ecology and evolution to developmental genetics and hydrodynamics of fluid locomotion. However, the lack of a representative water stri...

Background Arthropods comprise the largest and most diverse phylum on Earth and play vital roles in nearly every ecosystem. Their diversity stems in part from variations on a conserved body plan, resulting from and recorded in adaptive changes in the genome. Dissection of the genomic record of sequence change enables broad questions regarding genom...

Background: Trichogrammatids are minute parasitoid wasps that develop within other insect eggs. They are less than half a millimeter long, smaller than some protozoans. The Trichogrammatidae are one of the earliest branching families of Chalcidoidea: a diverse superfamily of approximately half a million species of parasitoid wasps, proposed to hav...

The supporting information includes 142 pages of additional methods (S1, including Table S1), detailed annotation reports (S2-S4, including 17 tables and 22 figures), gene expression data tables and figures (Tables S5.1-S5.4 and Figure S5), supplemental sequence files (S6), and detailed author contributions (S7).

Hyalella azteca is a cryptic species complex of epibenthic amphipods of interest to ecotoxicology and evolutionary biology. It is the primary crustacean used in North America for sediment toxicity testing and an emerging model for molecular ecotoxicology. To provide molecular resources for sediment quality assessments and evolutionary studies, we s...

Around 150 million years ago, eusocial termites evolved from within the cockroaches, 50 million years before eusocial Hymenoptera, such as bees and ants, appeared. Here, we report the 2-Gb genome of the German cockroach, Blattella germanica, and the 1.3-Gb genome of the drywood termite Cryptotermes secundus. We show evolutionary signatures of termi...

The semi-aquatic bugs conquered water surfaces worldwide and occupy ponds, streams, lakes, mangroves, and even open oceans. As such, they inspired a range of scientific studies from ecology and evolution to developmental genetics and hydrodynamics of fluid locomotion. However, the lack of a representative water strider genome hinders thorough inves...

Around 150 million years ago, eusocial termites evolved from within the cockroaches, 50 million years before eusocial Hymenoptera, such as bees and ants, appeared. Here, we report the first, 2GB genome of a cockroach, Blattella germanica , and the 1.3GB genome of the drywood termite, Cryptotermes secundus . We show evolutionary signatures of termit...

Background The Hemiptera (aphids, cicadas, and true bugs) are a key insect order, with high diversity for feeding ecology and excellent experimental tractability for molecular genetics. Building upon recent sequencing of hemipteran pests such as phloem-feeding aphids and blood-feeding bed bugs, we present the genome sequence and comparative analyse...

Background: The duplication of genes can occur through various mechanisms and is thought to make a major contribution to the evolutionary diversification of organisms. There is increasing evidence for a large-scale duplication of genes in some chelicerate lineages including two rounds of whole genome duplication (WGD) in horseshoe crabs. To investi...