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Reference assemblies of great ape sex chromosomes show that Y chromosomes are more variable in size and sequence than X chromosomes and provide a resource for studies on human evolution and conservation genetics of non-human apes.

Evan Eichler and colleagues use single-molecule molecular-inversion probes to sequence the coding and splicing regions of 208 candidate genes in more than 11,730 individuals with neurodevelopmental disorders. They report 91 genes with an excess of de novo or private disruptive mutations, identify 25 genes showing a bias for autism versus intellectual disability, and highlight a network associated with high-functioning autism.

The authors show that the deletion of ultraconserved TAD boundaries affects gene expression and phenotype, highlighting TAD evolution’s function. Human-specific TAD boundaries reveal a role in brain development and disease.

Structural variants (SVs) in human genomes contribute diversity and diseases. Here, the authors use a multi-platform strategy to generate haplotype-resolved SVs for three human parent–child trios.

A comparison of two complete sets of human centromeres reveals that the centromeres show at least a 4.1-fold increase in single-nucleotide variation compared with their unique flanks, and up to 3-fold variation in size, resulting from an accelerated mutation rate.

Seven leading geneticists express their views about where the unidentified components of the heritability for complex human diseases might lie and how this could affect the underlying genetic architecture, as well as offering suggestions of how genomic research could be targeted to address this key issue.

Evan Eichler and colleagues identify a recurrent microdeletion on 16p12.1 associated with developmental, cognitive and neuropsychiatric phenotypes. They also show that more severe phenotypes are frequently correlated with the presence of a second large genomic rearrangement, supporting a complex model of pathogenesis that may underlie the variable expressivity typical of many microdeletion syndromes.

Evan Eichler and colleagues report an expanded copy number variation (CNV) morbidity map of developmental delay, with additional resequencing of candidate genes in regions implicated by large CNVs. They identify several new disease-associated CNVs and show how their combined approach facilitates discovery of new developmental syndromes and disease genes.

Evan Eichler and colleagues identify a large, complex structural polymorphism at 16p12.1 in a region previously associated with neurocognitive disease. They further show that the region has experienced dynamic structural evolution in primates and that disease-associated microdeletions arise on the more common human haplotype.

Evan Eichler and colleagues present a sequence assembly of the inverted H2 haplotype of human chromosome 17q21.31 and show that the inversion is polymorphic in other great ape species. Their analyses suggest that the H2 configuration represents the ancestral state in great apes and that inversions have occurred independently in the human and chimpanzee lineages.

Evan Eichler and colleagues have developed an algorithm called mrFAST to map short, next-generation sequence reads across the genome that allows for the accurate prediction of copy-number variation.

Evan Eichler and colleagues explore the structural diversity and ancestral origins of the 17q21.31 inversion region. They find that complex duplication architectures have arisen independently on both inversion haplotypes and have recently reached high frequencies among Europeans, either through extraordinary genetic drift or selective sweeps.

Evan Eichler and colleagues analyze the relative impact of de novo and rare, inherited variants on autism risk. They show a statistically independent role for rare, inherited mutations and implicate several new candidate genes likely contributing to autism risk.

Evan Eichler and colleagues present a detailed characterization of the chromosome 15q13.3 microdeletion region. They identify complex structural polymorphisms and find that the rearrangement breakpoints cluster in palindromic GOLGA8 core duplicons, providing evidence that this repeat and its palindromic architecture underlie the evolutionary and disease-related instability of this region.

Evan Eichler and colleagues analyze copy number variation in 15,767 children with intellectual disability, developmental delay, congenital birth defects and/or other related phenotypes. They identify 59 likely pathogenic CNV regions, including 14 new candidate regions, and estimate that ~14% of disorders in this sample collection are caused by large CNVs.

Single-molecule, real-time DNA sequencing is used to analyse a haploid human genome (CHM1), thus closing or extending more than half of the remaining 164 euchromatic gaps in the human genome; the complete sequences of euchromatic structural variants (including inversions, complex insertions and tandem repeats) are resolved at the base-pair level, suggesting that a greater complexity of the human genome can now be accessed.

Evan Eichler and colleagues assess copy number variation of the C57BL/6J duplicated regions in 15 mouse strains used for genetic association studies. They report that mice show comparable copy number polymorphism when compared to humans, but that it is more locally restricted, specifically to regions containing gene families associated with spermatogenesis, pregnancy, viviparity, pheromone signaling and the immune response.

Evan Eichler and colleagues present an analysis of how well current commercial SNP platforms accurately capture copy number variants (CNVs). Although they were able accurately predict from Illumina Human 1M genotype data many sites identified in their recent study assessing CNVs in nine human individuals with a fosmid paired-end sequence approach, they find that commonly used platforms offer limited coverage for a large fraction of CNVs.

Evan Eichler, Jay Shendure and colleagues sequenced the exomes of 20 sporadic cases of autism spectrum disorder and their unaffected parents. They identified potentially causative de novo mutations in four cases, including a frameshift in FOXP1, a splice-site mutation in GRIN2B and missense variants in SCN1A and LAMC3.

Recurrent sporadic mutations are important risk factors for autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) but have been primarily investigated in European cohorts. Here, Eichler, Xia and colleagues analyse risk genes in a large Chinese ASD cohort and find novel recurrences of potential pathogenic significance.

Reconstruction of the evolutionary history of the chromosome 16p11.2 locus and identification of bolA family member 2 (BOLA2) as a gene duplicated exclusively in Homo sapiens.

Which combination of current genome sequencing and assembly approaches results in high-quality, complete diploid genome assemblies is determined.

Evan Eichler and colleagues report an estimate of the mutation rate in humans that is based on the whole-genome sequences of five parent-offspring trios from a Hutterite population and genotyping data from an extended pedigree. They use a new approach for estimating the mutation rate over multiple generations that takes into account the extensive autozygosity in this founder population.

We present the complete 62,460,029-base-pair sequence of a human Y chromosome from the HG002 genome (T2T-Y) that corrects multiple errors in GRCh38-Y and adds over 30 million base pairs of sequence to the reference.

For many neurodevelopmental disorder (NDD) risk genes, the significance for mutational burden is unestablished. Here, the authors sequence 125 candidate NDD genes in over 16,000 NDD cases; case-control mutational burden analysis identifies 48 genes with a significant burden of severe ultra-rare mutations.

An initial draft of the human pangenome is presented and made publicly available by the Human Pangenome Reference Consortium; the draft contains 94 de novo haplotype assemblies from 47 ancestrally diverse individuals.

A study describes the release of clinical-grade whole-genome sequence data for 245,388 diverse participants by the All of Us Research Program and characterizes the properties of the dataset.

This report from the 1000 Genomes Project describes the genomes of 1,092 individuals from 14 human populations, providing a resource for common and low-frequency variant analysis in individuals from diverse populations; hundreds of rare non-coding variants at conserved sites, such as motif-disrupting changes in transcription-factor-binding sites, can be found in each individual.

Comparative genomic analysis of human and primate relatives can reveal important biological and evolutionary insights. Here, the authors present a long-read assembly of the Chinese rhesus macaque genome and identify ape-specific structural variants.

De novo assemblies of 43 Y chromosomes spanning 182,900 years of human evolution reveal considerable diversity in the size and structure of the human Y chromosome.

A study comparing the pattern of single-nucleotide variation between unique and duplicated regions of the human genome shows that mutation rate and interlocus gene conversion are elevated in duplicated regions.

An integrated analysis of de novo and inherited coding variants in 42,607 individuals with autism spectrum disorder identifies 60 risk genes of which five have not previously been associated with neurodevelopmental disorders.

The Structural Variation Analysis Group of The 1000 Genomes Project reports an integrated structural variation map based on discovery and genotyping of eight major structural variation classes in 2,504 unrelated individuals from across 26 populations; structural variation is compared within and between populations and its functional impact is quantified.

Results for the final phase of the 1000 Genomes Project are presented including whole-genome sequencing, targeted exome sequencing, and genotyping on high-density SNP arrays for 2,504 individuals across 26 populations, providing a global reference data set to support biomedical genetics.

Structural variation in the genome can influence disease, complex traits and evolution, but comprehensive characterization of variants is challenging. This Review compares current methods — particularly microarray platforms and sequencing-based computational analysis — and considers future research strategies.

Common polygenic variation at chromosome 16p and rare recurrent deletions of 16p11.2 influencing autism risk are associated with reduced expression of genes throughout the 16p region, suggesting functional convergence of rare and common variant effects.

An analysis of human chromosome 15 — which is altered in Prader-Willi and Angelman syndromes — reveals that it resembles a hall of mirrors, as it contains a number of sequence duplications throughout its length. The evolutionary events that may have led to the high number of duplications was also reconstructed.