1,315 research outputs found
Telomerase reverse transcriptase promoter mutation and its clinical implication in thyroid cancer
Considering the long-term survival in most patients with thyroid cancer, it is very important to distinguish patients who need aggressive treatment from those who do not. Clinicopathological prognostic factors have been used to predict their prognoses, but they could not completely predict the final outcome of each patient. Recently, molecular marker-based risk stratification of thyroid cancer has been proposed to better estimate the risk. BRAF mutation has drawn much attention based on its high prevalence. However, its association with recurrence/mortality is not clear, and it is debatable. Telomerase reverse transcriptase (TERT) promoter mutation has been identified in over 50 human cancers including thyroid cancer after its first discovery in melanoma. It increases telomerase activity, which allows cancer cells to immortalize. It was found in approximately 10% of papillary thyroid carcinoma, 17% of follicular thyroid carcinoma, and 40% of poorly differentiated or anaplastic thyroid carcinoma. It is highly prevalent in old age, large tumors, aggressive histology, advanced stages, and distant metastasis. It is associated with increased recurrence and mortality. Concomitant TERT and BRAF mutations diminished the survival rate. Inclusion of TERT promoter mutation analysis with conventional clinicopathological evaluation could lead to better prognostication and management for individual patients
Evolutionary Conserved Motif Finder (ECMFinder) for genome-wide identification of clustered YY1- and CTCF-binding sites
We have developed a new bioinformatics approach called ECMFinder (Evolutionary Conserved Motif Finder). This program searches for a given DNA motif within the entire genome of one species and uses the gene association information of a potential transcription factor-binding site (TFBS) to screen the homologous regions of a second and third species. If multiple species have this potential TFBS in homologous positions, this program recognizes the identified TFBS as an evolutionary conserved motif (ECM). This program outputs a list of ECMs, which can be uploaded as a Custom Track in the UCSC genome browser and can be visualized along with other available data. The feasibility of this approach was tested by searching the genomes of three mammals (human, mouse and cow) with the DNA-binding motifs of YY1 and CTCF. This program successfully identified many clustered YY1- and CTCF-binding sites that are conserved among these species but were previously undetected. In particular, this program identified CTCF-binding sites that are located close to the Dlk1, Magel2 and Cdkn1c imprinted genes. Individual ChIP experiments confirmed the in vivo binding of the YY1 and CTCF proteins to most of these newly discovered binding sites, demonstrating the feasibility and usefulness of ECMFinder
Competing states for the fractional quantum Hall effect in the 1/3-filled second Landau level
In this work, we investigate the nature of the fractional quantum Hall state
in the 1/3-filled second Landau level (SLL) at filling factor (and
8/3 in the presence of the particle-hole symmetry) via exact diagonalization in
both torus and spherical geometries. Specifically, we compute the overlap
between the exact 7/3 ground state and various competing states including (i)
the Laughlin state, (ii) the fermionic Haffnian state, (iii) the
antisymmetrized product state of two composite fermion seas at 1/6 filling, and
(iv) the particle-hole (PH) conjugate of the parafermion state. All these
trial states are constructed according to a guiding principle called the
bilayer mapping approach, where a trial state is obtained as the
antisymmetrized projection of a bilayer quantum Hall state with interlayer
distance as a variational parameter. Under the proper understanding of the
ground-state degeneracy in the torus geometry, the parafermion state can
be obtained as the antisymmetrized projection of the Halperin (330) state.
Similarly, it is proved in this work that the fermionic Haffnian state can be
obtained as the antisymmetrized projection of the Halperin (551) state. It is
shown that, while extremely accurate at sufficiently large positive Haldane
pseudopotential variation , the Laughlin state loses its
overlap with the exact 7/3 ground state significantly at . At slightly negative , it is shown that the
PH-conjugated parafermion state has a substantial overlap with the exact
7/3 ground state, which is the highest among the above four trial states.Comment: 22 pages, 5 figure
Realization of giant magnetoelectricity in helimagnets
We show that low field magnetoelectric (ME) properties of helimagnets
Ba0.5Sr1.5Zn2(Fe1-xAlx)12O22 can be efficiently tailored by Al-substitution
level. As x increases, the critical magnetic field for switching electric
polarization is systematically reduced from ~1 T down to ~1 mT, and the ME
susceptibility is greatly enhanced to reach a giant value of 2.0 x 10^4 ps/m at
an optimum x = 0.08. We find that control of nontrivial orbital moment in the
octahedral Fe sites through the Al-substitution is crucial for fine tuning of
magnetic anisotropy and obtaining the conspicuously improved ME
characteristics
Allele-specific deposition of macroH2A1 in imprinting control regions
In the current study, we analyzed the deposition patterns of macroH2A1 at a number of different genomic loci located in X chromosome and autosomes. MacroH2A1 is preferentially deposited at methylated CpG-rich regions located close to promoters. The macroH2A1 deposition patterns at the methylated CpG islands of several imprinted domains, including the imprinting control regions (ICRs) of Xist, Peg3, H19/Igf2, Gtl2/Dlk1 and Gnas domains, show consistent allele-specificity towards inactive, methylated alleles. The macroH2A1 deposition levels at the ICRs and other differentially methylated regions of these domains are also either higher or comparable to those observed at the inactive X chromosome of female mammals. Overall, our results indicate that besides DNA methylation macroH2A1 is another epigenetic component in the chromatin of ICRs displaying differential association with two parental alleles. © The Author 2006. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved
Electric polarization enhancement in multiferroic CoCr2O4 crystals with Cr-site mixing
Single crystals of multiferroic cobalt chromite Co (Cr2-x Cox) O4 have been grown via several methods to have different Co3+ doping levels (x=0.0, 0.14, and 0.18). Under magnetic fields, all the crystals display electric polarization reversal below their spiral spin ordering temperatures. We find that both saturated electric polarization and magnetization under magnetic fields increase significantly with the increase in x. This result can be qualitatively explained by a broken balance between at least two electric polarization contributions existing in CoCr2 O4 and is expected to be useful in tailoring electric polarization in similar kinds of multiferroics. © 2009 American Institute of Physics.open222
Electric field control of nonvolatile four-state magnetization at room temperature
We find the realization of large converse magnetoelectric (ME) effects at
room temperature in a multiferroic hexaferrite
BaSrCoFeO single crystal, in which rapid
change of electric polarization in low magnetic fields (about 5 mT) is coined
to a large ME susceptibility of 3200 ps/m. The modulation of magnetization then
reaches up to 0.62 /f.u. in an electric field of 1.14 MV/m. We find
further that four ME states induced by different ME poling exhibit unique,
nonvolatile magnetization versus electric field curves, which can be
approximately described by an effective free energy with a distinct set of ME
coefficients
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