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Reposted by Kerstin Ludwig

$leofrach.bsky.social$

Leonard Frach @leofrach.bsky.social · Jul 24

Very exciting preprint by @axel-schmidt.bsky.social, @kuludwig.bsky.social and team!
Check out Kerstin's thread for overview

Kerstin Ludwig @kuludwig.bsky.social · Jul 22

🔔Paper alert! Extremely excited to share a preprint from our lab! Spearheaded by @axel-schmidt.bsky.social, a super talented medical & computational geneticist, we studied latent Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) infection at population-scale.

Interested in how this works & what we found? Read along! 👇

medRxivpreprint @medrxivpreprint.bsky.social · Jul 21

Host control of latent Epstein-Barr virus infection https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.07.19.25331823v1

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Kerstin Ludwig @kuludwig.bsky.social · Jul 22

Thanks for reading till the end, and looking forward to hear your thoughts!

@unibonn.bsky.social, @immunosens.bsky.social, @juhumgen.bsky.social, #EBV, #autoimmunity, #immune

Kerstin Ludwig @kuludwig.bsky.social · Jul 22

This project was a tremendous team effort - thanks to our collaborators who are on BlueSky @madhusankhat.bsky.social, @leofrach.bsky.social, @davifri.bsky.social, @boztugk.bsky.social, @evabeins.bsky.social, and those who are not.

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Kerstin Ludwig @kuludwig.bsky.social · Jul 22

We would like to highlight a parallel preprint from @caleblareau.bsky.social lab. Despite a different focus, and way of defining EBVread+, the results of the analyses that are shared (e.g. GWAS) are highly consistent.

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Population-scale sequencing resolves correlates and determinants of latent Epstein-Barr Virus infection

Epstein-Barr Virus (EBV) is an endemic herpesvirus implicated in autoimmunity, cancer, and neurological disorders. Though primary infection typically resolves with subclinical symptoms, long-term comp...

www.biorxiv.org

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Kerstin Ludwig @kuludwig.bsky.social · Jul 22

There is much more to explore in the paper - just give it a read! Our systematic exploration of host-EBV interaction during latency will help to better understand EBV-associated diseases, identify molecular drug targets and fuel the identification of novel IEIs.

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Kerstin Ludwig @kuludwig.bsky.social · Jul 22

Additional associations were found with Type 1 Diabetes (T1D), Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD) and hypothyroidism, some of which (RA & T1D) even got further support from Mendelian Randomization.

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Kerstin Ludwig @kuludwig.bsky.social · Jul 22

Aggregating the common variants into risk scores, we found that a genetically-predicted EBVread+ based on MHC-I HLA alleles was associated with higher risk of Multiple Sclerosis (driven by HLA-A*02:01), while that of MHC-II HLA alleles was associated with Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA).

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Kerstin Ludwig @kuludwig.bsky.social · Jul 22

Reassuringly, common variants were enriched in known genes underlying inborn errors of immunity (IEI).

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Kerstin Ludwig @kuludwig.bsky.social · Jul 22

Turning to genetics, a GWAS for EBVread+ in UKB identified striking associations at the MHC region, plus 27 loci outside of MHC, most of which were replicated in AoU. Genes at associated loci include ERAP2, CTLA4, CD70.

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Kerstin Ludwig @kuludwig.bsky.social · Jul 22

Exploring which non-genetic factors determine EBVread+, we found strong associations with HIV infection & immunosuppression. When affected individuals were excluded, additional contributors were current (but not former) smoking, male sex, age, GS yield and, interestingly, seasonal time of sampling.

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Kerstin Ludwig @kuludwig.bsky.social · Jul 22

We show, by simulations and additional analyses, that the individuals we capture as EBVread+ are those harboring large amounts of EBV-DNA, indicating insufficient EBV control

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Kerstin Ludwig @kuludwig.bsky.social · Jul 22

We detected EBVreads in 16.2% of 486,315 UKB participants, and this measure (=EBVread+) showed a high specificity when compared to serology data that is available of a subset of individuals. Similar read distributions were obtained in the analysis of 336,123 blood-based GS in All of Us (AoU).

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Kerstin Ludwig @kuludwig.bsky.social · Jul 22

EBV persists lifelong in B cells - allowing it to be captured as part of genome sequencing (GS) of human blood. Such reads are usually discarded, but we extracted them for all individuals of UK Biobank (UKB). During extensive QC, we identified and removed ca. 50 library plates contaminated with EBV

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Kerstin Ludwig @kuludwig.bsky.social · Jul 22

EBV is a DNA-virus of major relevance to human health - it is associated with several autoimmune diseases and cancers. Ca. 95% of the adult population has been infected with EBV, mostly without any symptoms, which makes it hard to be studied by serology.

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Kerstin Ludwig @kuludwig.bsky.social · Jul 22

🔔Paper alert! Extremely excited to share a preprint from our lab! Spearheaded by @axel-schmidt.bsky.social, a super talented medical & computational geneticist, we studied latent Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) infection at population-scale.

Interested in how this works & what we found? Read along! 👇

medRxivpreprint @medrxivpreprint.bsky.social · Jul 21

Host control of latent Epstein-Barr virus infection https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.07.19.25331823v1

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Reposted by Kerstin Ludwig

Sriram Pendyala @treependyala.bsky.social · Jul 7

🚨 Most variant screens measure growth or abundance. What do they miss? That variants impact a spectrum of protein and cellular phenotypes. Variant in situ sequencing (VIS-seq) finds what’s missing: image cells 🔬 first, decode later, revealing multi-scale phenotypes for thousands of variants.👇

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Reposted by Kerstin Ludwig

mspielmann.bsky.social @mspielmann.bsky.social · Jul 7

🚀 Thrilled to share our new review on how structural variants reshape 3D genome architecture and cause disease! 🧬🔀
Out now in Nature Reviews Genetics: www.nature.com/articles/s41...
#3D-Genome #StructuralVariants #uksh

Structural variants in the 3D genome as drivers of disease - Nature Reviews Genetics

Disruption of the 3D genome caused by structural variation contributes to developmental disorders and cancer. The authors review the causes and molecular and clinical consequences of position effects ...

www.nature.com

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Kerstin Ludwig @kuludwig.bsky.social · Jun 18

So exciting - congratulations!!! 💐🎊👍

Mass Lab @masslab.bsky.social · Jun 18

We are SO EXCITED to share our story @nature.com:
🧵1/
Maternal obesity reprograms fetal liver macrophages, triggering adult fatty liver disease in the offspring.
This study uncovers how Kupffer cells act as intergenerational messengers in metabolic disease.
👉 Read here: rdcu.be/erD3b

Kupffer cell programming by maternal obesity triggers fatty liver disease

Nature - In a mouse model, maternal obesity during pregnancy can lead to fatty liver disease in the offspring, driven by aberrant developmental programming of Kuppfer cells.

rdcu.be

Kerstin Ludwig @kuludwig.bsky.social · May 27

Congratulations, this sounds awesome! Looking forward to get this data presented live when you visit us in Bonn forward our Summer School 🎊🤣 @immunosens.bsky.social

Daniel Ibrahim @danielibrahim.bsky.social · May 27

How to find Evolutionary Conserved Enhancers in 2025? 🐣-🐭
Check out our paper - fresh off the press!!!
We find widespread functional conservation of enhancers in absence of sequence homology
Including: a bioinformatic tool to map sequence-diverged enhancers!
rdcu.be/enVDN
github.com/tobiaszehnde...

Conservation of regulatory elements with highly diverged sequences across large evolutionary distances

Nature Genetics - Combining functional genomic data from mouse and chicken with a synteny-based strategy identifies positionally conserved cis-regulatory elements in the absence of direct sequence...

rdcu.be

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Reposted by Kerstin Ludwig

Annique Claringbould @anniquec.bsky.social · May 27

Justified standing ovation for Nobel laureate Katalin Karikó at #ESHG2025
She shared her adventurous scientific life and life lessons like "If you want to do something, you find a way. If not, you find excuses", and reminded us scientists to thank our near and dear because "they suffer a little bit"

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Kerstin Ludwig @kuludwig.bsky.social · May 24

Yes, I know someone from the Bonn group (not on Bluesky, though)! Can you Email me, so that I can forward it?

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Kerstin Ludwig @kuludwig.bsky.social · May 23

Congratulations to everyone involved! 🎊💐

Universität Bonn @unibonn.bsky.social · May 22

We are excellent! What a day - between hugs, applause and a lot of pride. Our rector? Jumping for joy. Our team? Overjoyed. Thank you to everyone who made this historic moment possible! @dependencybonn.de @immunosens.bsky.social @econtribute.bsky.social
© V. Lannert/G. Hübl/Uni Bonn

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Reposted by Kerstin Ludwig

Cluster of Excellence ImmunoSensation @immunosens.bsky.social · May 22

Hurray! ImmunoSensation will go on! 🥳
The @dfg.de just announced that ImmunoSensation3, focussing on Immune Diversity will be funded!
Let us #celebrate 7 more years of #immunology in #Bonn 🎉

www.immunosensation.de/news/immunos...

Excellence Strategy Funds Bonn Cluster for Immune Research

The Bonn Cluster of Excellence ImmunoSensation will be funded for a further seven years as part of the Excellence Strategy of the German federal and state…

www.immunosensation.de

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Reposted by Kerstin Ludwig

The German Human Genome-Phenome Archive @ghga.bsky.social · May 21

🧬 Today! Prof. Rami Abou Jamra (Uni Leipzig) speaks on "Genome sequencing for rare disease diagnostics" at the GHGA lecture series Advances in Data-Driven Biomedicine. Don’t miss it!

📅 May 21 | ⏰ 4PM
🔗 Register: dkfz-de.zoom.us/meeting/regi...
#Genomics #RareDiseases #GHGA

Image is a digitally created announcement card in the GHGA colours, light green and orange. The text reads ""Genome sequencing for rare disease diagnostics: uncovering hidden causal variants 21.05. 2025, 16:00 CEST" below is a photo of the speaker and his name, Rami Abou Jamra.

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Reposted by Kerstin Ludwig

Isabelle Zane @isabellease.bsky.social · May 21

@nickywhiffin.bsky.social at #VariantEffect25

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