Biomedical subjects

Qiang Sun

Publications and source records attributed to Qiang Sun.

3 recordsLinked to original sources

PubMed2026

Genetic Variation and Evolutionary Characteristics of Coxsackievirus B1: F3 Subtype Associated With Hand, Foot and Mouth Disease in China.

Coxsackievirus B1 (CV-B1) is primarily associated with meningitis but can also cause localized outbreaks of hand, foot, and mouth disease (HFMD). This study analyzed the genetic diversity of the VP1 gene in 39 strains of the CVB1 virus isolated from HFMD children across 15 provinces in China between 2010 and 2024, as well as 179 strains from 17 countries. Based on the average nucleotide difference of VP1 gene, we classified CVB1 virus into six genotypes A to F, Notably, genotype F is newly classified. Since 2010, genotype F guadually replaced genotype E as the dominant genotype in China and has further subdivided into three subtypes: F1, F2, and F3, with F3 being the most prevalent subtype in China currently. We specifically study the mild and severe cases within the F3 subtype. Temperature-sensitivity experiments revealed no differences between mild and severe cases of the F3 subtype, and they all belong to temperature-sensitive strains. Interestingly, we found that mild cases of the F3 subtype did not involve recombination, whereas all severe cases of the F3 subtype showed recombination with Coxsackievirus B4 (CVB4). CVB4 has consistently been the primary pathogen responsible for severe neonatal illnesses, suggesting that recombination between the F3 subtype and CVB4 may be associated with the development of severe HFMD. These findings provide fundamental scientific data for further investigation into the epidemiology and genetic characteristics of variants of Coxsackievirus B1 in China.

Humans↗

PubMed2025

A complete and near-perfect rhesus macaque reference genome: lessons from subtelomeric repeats and sequencing bias.

A truly complete, telomere-to-telomere (T2T), and error-free reference genome remains a foundational resource-and long-standing goal-for unbiased comparative and functional genomics. While recent T2T assemblies of humans and other primates have made substantial progress, most still contain thousands of base-level errors, particularly within highly repetitive regions. Here, we present T2T-MMU8v2.0, a near-perfect T2T assembly of the rhesus macaque (Macaca mulatta), representing the highest base-level accuracy reported in a primate genome to date. By employing an optimized ONT-only assembly strategy, we identify subtelomeric satellite-rich regions as the principal bottleneck to improving assembly quality, owing to technological biases in long-read platforms and limitations in current hybrid assembly frameworks. We discover 268 previously unannotated repeat families and resolve ~8 Mbp of SATR satellite arrays, with over 99-fold enrichment in historically misassembled subtelomeric regions. These satellites form four distinct genomic architectures, each with unique SATR satellite composition, segmental duplication organization, and epigenetic signatures, distinct from the subtelomeric architectures observed in hominid genomes. Notably, in contrast to the largely gene-poor subtelomeric regions in African hominids, the SATR architectures in macaques harbor 58 actively transcribed genes, supported by open chromatin and expression data, suggesting gene innovation within these repetitive regions. Functionally, T2T-MMU8v2.0 improves read mappability and accuracy across sequencing platforms, and results in a 19% improvement of transcription start site enrichment scores and 5,821 additional chromatin accessibility peaks on average, thereby enhancing variant detection, regulatory annotation, and transcriptomic resolution in population genetics or single-nucleus studies. Together, this work establishes a new benchmark for genomics, offers a roadmap for resolving complex repetitive regions, and reveals previously unrecognized features of subtelomeric genome structure and evolution.

Journal Article↗

PubMed2025

Comprehensive discovery and functional characterization of the noncanonical proteome.

The systematic identification and functional characterization of noncanonical translation products, such as novel peptides, will facilitate the understanding of the human genome and provide new insights into cell biology. Here, we constructed a high-coverage peptide sequencing reference library with 11,668,944 open reading frames and employed an ultrafiltration tandem mass spectrometry assay to identify novel peptides. Through these methods, we discovered 8945 previously unannotated peptides from normal gastric tissues, gastric cancer tissues and cell lines, nearly half of which were derived from noncoding RNAs. Moreover, our CRISPR screening revealed that 1161 peptides are involved in tumor cell proliferation. The presence and physiological function of a subset of these peptides, selected based on screening scores, amino acid length, and various indicators, were verified through Flag-knockin and multiple other methods. To further characterize the potential regulatory mechanisms involved, we constructed a framework based on artificial intelligence structure prediction and peptide‒protein interaction network analysis for the top 100 candidates and revealed that these cancer-related peptides have diverse subcellular locations and participate in organelle-specific processes. Further investigation verified the interacting partners of pep1-nc-OLMALINC, pep5-nc-TRHDE-AS1, pep-nc-ZNF436-AS1 and pep2-nc-AC027045.3, and the functions of these peptides in mitochondrial complex assembly, energy metabolism, and cholesterol metabolism, respectively. We showed that pep5-nc-TRHDE-AS1 and pep2-nc-AC027045.3 had substantial impacts on tumor growth in xenograft models. Furthermore, the dysregulation of these four peptides is closely correlated with clinical prognosis. Taken together, our study provides a comprehensive characterization of the noncanonical proteome, and highlights critical roles of these previously unannotated peptides in cancer biology.

Humans↗