3972ba54c468ace338d4a5578de1d20bf6c1f9ec
lrnassar
  Mon Apr 20 15:39:26 2026 -0700
Adding Rule 4 (long-exon rule, Lindeboom 2016) to NMD Escape tracks and releasing on Apr. 22, 2026. refs #33737

Script: added a fourth rule to genePredNmdEsc. Coding exons longer than
400 bp (excluding the last coding exon, which is already covered by the
50 bp rule) are flagged as NMD-escape regions. Rebuilt the Gencode and
NCBI RefSeq bigBed files.

trackDb:
- nmd.ra: appended "/400nt" to the nmdEsc longLabels, set nmdEscGencode
default visibility to dense so the track is visible in cart-reset
views, changed all four NMDetective subtracks from "visibility full"
to "visibility hide", updated pennantIcon to the Apr. 22, 2026
release date and anchor.
- nmd.html: mention long internal exons in the overview description,
update the rule count from three to four.
- nmdEscTranscripts.html: add the long-exon rule to the rule list and
color legend (gold, #FFD700), expand the Background section with
mechanisms for the intronless, start-proximal, and long-exon rules,
correct the 50 bp rule description to include the entire last coding
exon, fix Lindeboom 2016 author initials (RG -> RGH).

News:
- newsarch.html: add the 2026-04-22 NMD Escape news entry covering all
four rules, with acknowledgements to Guido Neidhardt and Andreas
Lahner for suggesting the track and the Decipher Genome Browser team
for inspiring the visualization.
- indexNews.html: add the front-page news link.

makedoc:
- nmd.txt: dated note for the Rule 4 rebuild.

diff --git src/hg/htdocs/goldenPath/newsarch.html src/hg/htdocs/goldenPath/newsarch.html
index 6ff2fdbe1bf..b3e19653e23 100755
--- src/hg/htdocs/goldenPath/newsarch.html
+++ src/hg/htdocs/goldenPath/newsarch.html
@@ -52,30 +52,65 @@
 <p>You can sign-up to get these announcements via our 
 <a target=_blank href="https://groups.google.com/a/soe.ucsc.edu/g/genome-announce?hl=en">Genome-announce</a>
 email list. We send around one short announcement email every two weeks.</p>
 
 <p>Smaller software changes are not announced here.  A summary of the three-weekly release changes can be 
 found <a target=_blank href="https://genecats.gi.ucsc.edu/builds/versions.html">here</a>. 
 For the full list of our daily code changes head to our <a
 href="https://github.com/ucscGenomeBrowser/kent/commits/master"
 target=_blank>GitHub page</a>. Lastly, see our <a href="credits.html" target="_blank">
 credits page</a> for acknowledgments of the data we host.</p>
 
 <!-- ============= 2026 archived news ============= -->
 
 <a name="2026"></a>
 
+<a name="042226"></a>
+<h2>Apr. 22, 2026 &nbsp;&nbsp; New NMD Escape tracks on hg38</h2>
+<p>
+We are pleased to announce a new
+<a href="/cgi-bin/hgTrackUi?db=hg38&g=nmd" target="_blank"><b>NMD Escape</b></a>
+track on the human genome assembly (GRCh38/hg38). This track collection displays
+regions where premature termination codons (PTCs) are predicted to escape
+nonsense-mediated mRNA decay (NMD), a cellular quality control mechanism that normally
+degrades transcripts with premature stop codons. Identifying NMD escape regions is
+important for interpreting the clinical significance of truncating variants under the
+ACMG/AMP PVS1 criterion.
+</p>
+<p>
+The container track includes:
+</p>
+<ul>
+  <li><b>NMD escape ruleset</b> tracks for
+  <a href="/cgi-bin/hgTrackUi?db=hg38&g=nmdEscGencode" target="_blank">GENCODE V49</a> and
+  <a href="/cgi-bin/hgTrackUi?db=hg38&g=nmdEscNcbiRefSeq" target="_blank">NCBI RefSeq</a>
+  transcripts, applying four rules derived from Nagy &amp; Maquat 1998 and Lindeboom
+  et al. 2016: the 50&nbsp;bp last-junction rule, the intronless transcript rule, the
+  start-proximal 100&nbsp;bp rule, and the long-exon rule (PTCs in coding exons
+  longer than 400&nbsp;bp, which show reduced NMD efficiency due to the large
+  distance between the stalled ribosome and the downstream EJC).</li>
+  <li><b>NMDetective</b> machine-learning prediction tracks from
+  <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27618451" target="_blank">Lindeboom et al. 2016</a>,
+  providing continuous NMD efficiency scores for every possible PTC position.</li>
+</ul>
+<p>
+We would like to thank Guido Neidhardt and Andreas Lahner for suggesting this track
+and providing feedback throughout its development, and the Decipher
+Genome Browser team for inspiring this type of visualization. We also would like to thank Max 
+Haeussler and Lou Nassar for the creation and release of the UCSC Genome Browser tracks. 
+</p>
+
 <a name="041026"></a>
 <h2>Apr. 10, 2026 &nbsp;&nbsp; New Short Tandem Repeat (STR) tracks on hg38</h2>
 <p>
 We are pleased to announce several new Short Tandem Repeat (STR) tracks on the
 human genome assembly (GRCh38/hg38).
 </p>
 <p>
 A new <a href="/cgi-bin/hgTrackUi?db=hg38&g=strVar" target="_blank"><b>Tandem Repeat
 Variation</b></a> track collection brings together population-level tandem repeat variation
 data from multiple sources:
 </p>
 <ul>
   <li><a href="/cgi-bin/hgTrackUi?db=hg38&g=webstr" target="_blank"><b>WebSTR</b></a> &ndash;
   1,710,833 STR loci from the
   <a href="https://github.com/gymrek-lab/EnsembleTR" target="_blank">EnsembleTR</a> panel with