Steven Reilly, PhD
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Research Summary
Our lab is broadly interested in how variation in human genomes leads to the diverse array of phenotypes observed across evolution, diseases, and traits.
We’re a multi-disciplinary team with a variety of backgrounds including genomics, math, biochemistry, machine-learning, and population genetics. We make and apply new technologies to answer a fundamental question remaining in biology: “how do genetic changes lead to functional changes at the molecular, cellular, and phenotypic level?”
We’re especially interested in understanding the role of non-coding regulatory elements in the genome, with a special focus on variation within them. We start with genomic signals of positive selection or disease and use a variety of systems to functionally characterize genetic variants underlying those signals.
Extensive Research Description
The Reilly Lab has multiple broad research areas:
Tools to interpret regulatory variation
We build and apply high-throughput tools to study the functions of cis-regulatory elements (CREs) in the genome. We aim to answer three main questions: 1) which CREs are actually functional in a cell? 2) which gene(s) do they regulate? and 3) how does variation in CREs impact their function? We’ve built tools like HCR-FlowFISH, a CRISPR perturbation strategy to directly characterize CREs, along with CASA, a Bayesian CRISPR analysis strategy. We’ve also applied the Massively Parallel Reporter Assay (MPRA) to understand how variants impact the function of CREs, and worked to expand this approach to other types of non-coding elements, including variation in 3’ UTRs.
Functional characterization Center
We work with the Sabeti and Tewhey labs in their efforts as an ENCODE Functional Characterization Center to directly characterize, rather than map, CREs in the genome. Steve co-leads the CRISPR working group, which is focused on developing best practices and meta-analyses of CRISPR non-coding screens. More broadly, we’ve used our CRE characterization tools to identify functional, causal variants in a wide variety of traits such as lipid metabolism and infectious disease.
Investigating positive human selection
We’re interested advancing a deep molecular understanding of how positive evolutionary selection has impacted our genomes, specifically how ancient selection impacts health and traits in modern global populations. We’ve built novel computational tools to better model human demographic histories from the 1000 Genomes dataset. We’ve also introduced DeepSweep, a machine learning algorithm to identify and detect positive selection in the human genome with vastly improved accuracy. As most of these selected variants are in non-coding regions of the genome, we applied our CRE characterization tools to link variants to function.
Learning Regulatory Grammar
Beyond new functional characterization tools for regulatory variants, more accurate models of regulatory grammar - the code and rulesets underlying the complex logic of cis-regulatory elements - would greatly accelerate our interpretation of the genome. Our lab intends to build new datasets of comprehensively characterized trait-associated regulatory elements, and then use these high-dimensional data to improve our models of CREs.
Characterizing species-specific variation
Our lab is also interested human-specific sequence changes that may be important for human evolution. As the vast majority of these changes are non-coding, our tools are well positioned to understand the functions of genomic changes between species. We’ve applied the MPRA to characterize all small human Conserved Deletions (hCONDELs) - likely functional sequences conserved in mammals that are deleted only in the human lineage. Understanding the phenotypic consequences of these changes is a major goal of the lab.
Coauthors
Selected Publications
- Transmission from vaccinated individuals in a large SARS-CoV-2 Delta variant outbreakSiddle K, Krasilnikova L, Moreno G, Schaffner S, Vostok J, Fitzgerald N, Lemieux J, Barkas N, Loreth C, Specht I, Tomkins-Tinch C, Paull J, Schaeffer B, Taylor B, Loftness B, Johnson H, Schubert P, Shephard H, Doucette M, Fink T, Lang A, Baez S, Beauchamp J, Hennigan S, Buzby E, Ash S, Brown J, Clancy S, Cofsky S, Gagne L, Hall J, Harrington R, Gionet G, DeRuff K, Vodzak M, Adams G, Dobbins S, Slack S, Reilly S, Anderson L, Cipicchio M, DeFelice M, Grimsby J, Anderson S, Blumenstiel B, Meldrim J, Rooke H, Vicente G, Smith N, Messer K, Reagan F, Mandese Z, Lee M, Ray M, Fisher M, Ulcena M, Nolet C, English S, Larkin K, Vernest K, Chaluvadi S, Arvidson D, Melchiono M, Covell T, Harik V, Brock-Fisher T, Dunn M, Kearns A, Hanage W, Bernard C, Philippakis A, Lennon N, Gabriel S, Gallagher G, Smole S, Madoff L, Brown C, Park D, MacInnis B, Sabeti P. Transmission from vaccinated individuals in a large SARS-CoV-2 Delta variant outbreak. Cell 2021, 185: 485-492.e10. PMID: 35051367, PMCID: PMC8695126, DOI: 10.1016/j.cell.2021.12.027.
- Synthetic DNA spike-ins (SDSIs) enable sample tracking and detection of inter-sample contamination in SARS-CoV-2 sequencing workflowsLagerborg KA, Normandin E, Bauer MR, Adams G, Figueroa K, Loreth C, Gladden-Young A, Shaw BM, Pearlman LR, Berenzy D, Dewey HB, Kales S, Dobbins ST, Shenoy ES, Hooper D, Pierce VM, Zachary KC, Park DJ, MacInnis BL, Tewhey R, Lemieux JE, Sabeti PC, Reilly SK, Siddle KJ. Synthetic DNA spike-ins (SDSIs) enable sample tracking and detection of inter-sample contamination in SARS-CoV-2 sequencing workflows. Nature Microbiology 2021, 7: 108-119. PMID: 34907347, PMCID: PMC8923058, DOI: 10.1038/s41564-021-01019-2.
- Detection of Neanderthal Adaptively Introgressed Genetic Variants that Modulate Reporter Gene Expression in Human Immune CellsJagoda E, Xue JR, Reilly SK, Dannemann M, Racimo F, Huerta-Sanchez E, Sankararaman S, Kelso J, Pagani L, Sabeti PC, Capellini TD. Detection of Neanderthal Adaptively Introgressed Genetic Variants that Modulate Reporter Gene Expression in Human Immune Cells. Molecular Biology And Evolution 2021, 39: msab304-. PMID: 34662402, PMCID: PMC8760939, DOI: 10.1093/molbev/msab304.
- Genome-wide functional screen of 3′UTR variants uncovers causal variants for human disease and evolutionGriesemer D, Xue JR, Reilly SK, Ulirsch JC, Kukreja K, Davis JR, Kanai M, Yang DK, Butts JC, Guney MH, Luban J, Montgomery SB, Finucane HK, Novina CD, Tewhey R, Sabeti PC. Genome-wide functional screen of 3′UTR variants uncovers causal variants for human disease and evolution. Cell 2021, 184: 5247-5260.e19. PMID: 34534445, PMCID: PMC8487971, DOI: 10.1016/j.cell.2021.08.025.
- Functional characterization of T2D-associated SNP effects on baseline and ER stress-responsive β cell transcriptional activationKhetan S, Kales S, Kursawe R, Jillette A, Ulirsch JC, Reilly SK, Ucar D, Tewhey R, Stitzel ML. Functional characterization of T2D-associated SNP effects on baseline and ER stress-responsive β cell transcriptional activation. Nature Communications 2021, 12: 5242. PMID: 34475398, PMCID: PMC8413311, DOI: 10.1038/s41467-021-25514-6.
- Direct characterization of cis-regulatory elements and functional dissection of complex genetic associations using HCR–FlowFISHReilly SK, Gosai SJ, Gutierrez A, Mackay-Smith A, Ulirsch JC, Kanai M, Mouri K, Berenzy D, Kales S, Butler GM, Gladden-Young A, Bhuiyan RM, Stitzel ML, Finucane HK, Sabeti PC, Tewhey R. Direct characterization of cis-regulatory elements and functional dissection of complex genetic associations using HCR–FlowFISH. Nature Genetics 2021, 53: 1166-1176. PMID: 34326544, PMCID: PMC8925018, DOI: 10.1038/s41588-021-00900-4.
- Massively parallel discovery of human-specific substitutions that alter enhancer activityUebbing S, Gockley J, Reilly SK, Kocher AA, Geller E, Gandotra N, Scharfe C, Cotney J, Noonan JP. Massively parallel discovery of human-specific substitutions that alter enhancer activity. Proceedings Of The National Academy Of Sciences Of The United States Of America 2020, 118: e2007049118. PMID: 33372131, PMCID: PMC7812811, DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2007049118.
- Prioritizing disease and trait causal variants at the TNFAIP3 locus using functional and genomic featuresRay JP, de Boer CG, Fulco CP, Lareau CA, Kanai M, Ulirsch JC, Tewhey R, Ludwig LS, Reilly SK, Bergman DT, Engreitz JM, Issner R, Finucane HK, Lander ES, Regev A, Hacohen N. Prioritizing disease and trait causal variants at the TNFAIP3 locus using functional and genomic features. Nature Communications 2020, 11: 1237. PMID: 32144282, PMCID: PMC7060350, DOI: 10.1038/s41467-020-15022-4.
- Direct Identification of Hundreds of Expression-Modulating Variants using a Multiplexed Reporter AssayTewhey R, Kotliar D, Park D, Liu B, Winnicki S, Reilly S, Andersen K, Mikkelsen T, Lander E, Schaffner S, Sabeti P. Direct Identification of Hundreds of Expression-Modulating Variants using a Multiplexed Reporter Assay. Cell 2018, 172: 1132-1134. PMID: 29474912, DOI: 10.1016/j.cell.2018.02.021.
- Direct Identification of Hundreds of Expression-Modulating Variants using a Multiplexed Reporter AssayTewhey R, Kotliar D, Park DS, Liu B, Winnicki S, Reilly SK, Andersen KG, Mikkelsen TS, Lander ES, Schaffner SF, Sabeti PC. Direct Identification of Hundreds of Expression-Modulating Variants using a Multiplexed Reporter Assay. Cell 2016, 165: 1519-1529. PMID: 27259153, PMCID: PMC4957403, DOI: 10.1016/j.cell.2016.04.027.
- Evolution of Gene Regulation in Humans.Reilly SK, Noonan JP. Evolution of Gene Regulation in Humans. Annual Review Of Genomics And Human Genetics 2016, 17: 45-67. PMID: 27147089, DOI: 10.1146/annurev-genom-090314-045935.
- Evolutionary changes in promoter and enhancer activity during human corticogenesisReilly SK, Yin J, Ayoub AE, Emera D, Leng J, Cotney J, Sarro R, Rakic P, Noonan JP. Evolutionary changes in promoter and enhancer activity during human corticogenesis. Science 2015, 347: 1155-1159. PMID: 25745175, PMCID: PMC4426903, DOI: 10.1126/science.1260943.
- Evolution of Gene Regulation in HumansReilly S, Noonan J. Evolution of Gene Regulation in Humans. Annual Review Of Genomics And Human Genetics 2014, 17: 1-23. DOI: 10.1146/annurev-genom-090314-045935.