7,812 research outputs found
Monitoring cancer prognosis, diagnosis and treatment efficacy using metabolomics and lipidomics
Introduction:
Cellular metabolism is altered during cancer initiation and progression, which allows cancer cells to increase anabolic synthesis, avoid apoptosis and adapt to low nutrient and oxygen availability. The metabolic nature of cancer enables patient cancer status to be monitored by metabolomics and lipidomics. Additionally, monitoring metabolic status of patients or biological models can be used to greater understand the action of anticancer therapeutics.
Objectives:
Discuss how metabolomics and lipidomics can be used to (i) identify metabolic biomarkers of cancer and (ii) understand the mechanism-of-action of anticancer therapies. Discuss considerations that can maximize the clinical value of metabolic cancer biomarkers including case–control, prognostic and longitudinal study designs.
Methods:
A literature search of the current relevant primary research was performed.
Results:
Metabolomics and lipidomics can identify metabolic signatures that associate with cancer diagnosis, prognosis and disease progression. Discriminatory metabolites were most commonly linked to lipid or energy metabolism. Case–control studies outnumbered prognostic and longitudinal approaches. Prognostic studies were able to correlate metabolic features with future cancer risk, whereas longitudinal studies were most effective for studying cancer progression. Metabolomics and lipidomics can help to understand the mechanism-of-action of anticancer therapeutics and mechanisms of drug resistance.
Conclusion:
Metabolomics and lipidomics can be used to identify biomarkers associated with cancer and to better understand anticancer therapies
Migration of extrasolar planets to large orbital radii
Observations of structure in circumstellar debris discs provide
circumstantial evidence for the presence of massive planets at large (several
tens of au) orbital radii, where the timescale for planet formation via core
accretion is prohibitively long. Here, we investigate whether a population of
distant planets can be produced via outward migration subsequent to formation
in the inner disc. Two possibilities for significant outward migration are
identified. First, cores that form early at radii of around 10 au can be
carried to larger radii via gravitational interaction with the gaseous disc.
This process is efficient if there is strong mass loss from the disc - either
within a cluster or due to photoevaporation from a star more massive than the
Sun - but does not require the extremely destructive environment found, for
example, in the core of the Orion Nebula. We find that, depending upon the disc
model, gas disc migration can yield massive planets (several Jupiter masses) at
radii of around 20-50 au. Second, interactions within multiple planet systems
can drive the outer planet into a large, normally highly eccentric orbit. A
series of scattering experiments suggests that this process is most efficient
for lower mass planets within systems of unequal mass ratio. This mechanism is
a good candidate for explaining the origin of relatively low mass giant planets
in eccentric orbits at large radii.Comment: MNRAS, in pres
Massive planet migration: Theoretical predictions and comparison with observations
We quantify the utility of large radial velocity surveys for constraining
theoretical models of Type II migration and protoplanetary disk physics. We
describe a theoretical model for the expected radial distribution of extrasolar
planets that combines an analytic description of migration with an empirically
calibrated disk model. The disk model includes viscous evolution and mass loss
via photoevaporation. Comparing the predicted distribution to a uniformly
selected subsample of planets from the Lick / Keck / AAT planet search
programs, we find that a simple model in which planets form in the outer disk
at a uniform rate, migrate inward according to a standard Type II prescription,
and become stranded when the gas disk is dispersed, is consistent with the
radial distribution of planets for orbital radii 0.1 AU < a < 2.5 AU and planet
masses greater than 1.65 Jupiter masses. Some variant models are disfavored by
existing data, but the significance is limited (~95%) due to the small sample
of planets suitable for statistical analysis. We show that the favored model
predicts that the planetary mass function should be almost independent of
orbital radius at distances where migration dominates the massive planet
population. We also study how the radial distribution of planets depends upon
the adopted disk model. We find that the distribution can constrain not only
changes in the power-law index of the disk viscosity, but also sharp jumps in
the efficiency of angular momentum transport that might occur at small radii.Comment: ApJ, in press. References updated to match published versio
The classification and prediction of macroinvertebrate communities in British rivers
This article describes the progress of the River Communities Project which commenced in 1977. This project aimed to develop a sensitive and practical system for river site classification using macroinvertebrates as an objective means of appraising the status of British rivers. The relationship between physical and chemical features of sites and their biological communities were examined. Sampling was undertaken on 41 British rivers. Ordination techniques were used to analyze data and the sites were classified into 16 groups using multiple discrimination analysis. The potential for using the environmental data to predict to which group a site belonged and the fauna likely to be present was investigated
Thermal Expansion and Magnetostriction Studies of a Kondo Lattice Compound: Ceagsb2
We have investigated a single crystal of CeAgSb2 using low field
ac-susceptibility, thermal expansion and magnetostriction measurements in the
temperature range 1.5K to 90K. The ac-susceptibility exhibits a sharp peak at
9.7K for both B//c and B perp c due to the magnetic ordering of the Ce moment.
The thermal expansion coefficient alpha, exhibits highly anisotropic behaviour
between 3K and 80K : alpha is positive for dL/L perp c, but negative for dL/L
// c. Furthermore, alpha (for dL/L) perp c (i.e. in ab-plane) exhibits a sharp
peak at TN followed by a broad maximum at 20K, while a sharp negative peak at
TN followed by a minimum at 20K has been observed for (dL/L //) the c
direction. The observed maximum and minimum in alpha(T) at 20K have been
attributed to the crystalline field effect on the J=5/2 state of the Ce3+ ion.
The magnetostriction also exhibits anisotropic behaviour with a large
magnetostriction along the c-axis. The ab-plane magnetostriction exhibits a
peak at B=3.3T at 3K, which is consistent with the observed peak in the
magnetoresistance measurements.Comment: 4 Pages (B5), 3 figures, submitted to SCES200
An integrated charge amplifier for a pyroelectric sensor
This paper presents an integrated charge amplifier that measures a small charge. This charge is generated by a pyroelectric detector. The charge amplifier consists of a single-stage c-annon source configuration with a passive feedback network. The charge amplifier has a bandwidth of 700 kHz and an output noise voltage of 20 nV Hz 1/2 at 1 kHz. A 2×2 integrated pyroelectric sensor based on VDF/TrFE copolymer has been realized. The voltage response of this sensor-amplifier is reported
The stellar mass-accretion rate relation in T Tauri stars and brown dwarfs
Recent observations show a strong correlation between stellar mass and
accretion rate in young stellar and sub-stellar objects, with the scaling
holding over more than four orders of magnitude
in accretion rate. We explore the consequences of this correlation in the
context of disk evolution models. We note that such a correlation is not
expected to arise from variations in disk angular momentum transport efficiency
with stellar mass, and suggest that it may reflect a systematic trend in disk
initial conditions. In this case we find that brown dwarf disks initially have
rather larger radii than those around more massive objects. By considering disk
evolution, and invoking a simple parametrization for a shut-off in accretion at
the end of the disk lifetime, we show that such models predict that the scatter
in the stellar mass-accretion rate relationship should increase with increasing
stellar mass, in rough agreement with current observations.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures. Accepted for publication in ApJ Letter
The effects of tidally induced disc structure on white dwarf accretion in intermediate polars
We investigate the effects of tidally induced asymmetric disc structure on
accretion onto the white dwarf in intermediate polars. Using numerical
simulation, we show that it is possible for tidally induced spiral waves to
propagate sufficiently far into the disc of an intermediate polar that
accretion onto the central white dwarf could be modulated as a result. We
suggest that accretion from the resulting asymmetric inner disc may contribute
to the observed X-ray and optical periodicities in the light curves of these
systems. In contrast to the stream-fed accretion model for these periodicities,
the tidal picture predicts that modulation can exist even for systems with
weaker magnetic fields where the magnetospheric radius is smaller than the
radius of periastron of the mass transfer stream. We also predict that
additional periodic components should exist in the emission from low mass ratio
intermediate polars displaying superhumps.Comment: 9 pages, 5 figures, accepted for publication in MNRA
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