141 research outputs found

    Ultraviolet Imager Application for a Cube Satellite

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    This document serves as the final design review (FDR) report for the 2018 Cal Poly CubeSat Ultraviolet Imager senior project, sponsored by UC Berkeley Space Sciences Laboratories (SSL). SSL wants to monitor the ionosphere above Earth to gain a better understanding of its properties and particle interactions. Far Ultraviolet (FUV) imaging is a good way to obtain high quality images of the ionosphere and the Earth\u27s auroras, and advancement in optic technologies have made cube satellites (CubeSats) an ideal vessel for a FUV imager, as they are relatively low-cost, lightweight, and can be repeatedly deployed. These CubeSat FUV imagers could be utilized to image the entirety of Earth\u27s auroras simultaneously from different vantage points and could even be deployed further away from Earth to study the exosphere. Cal Poly has been tasked with designing, building, testing, and validating the front optics assembly of this FUV CubeSat imager. The front optics assembly design includes the lenses, baffle, aperture, and camera detector interface, all of which affect parameters such as light refraction, image focus, and field of view. Imaging ground support equipment (GSE) will be designed and built, upon which the camera\u27s ability to obtain an image within specifications will be tested. One critical requirement of the project is the need to develop the mounting system for the optics assembly that enables high precision and fixed alignment, both before and after thermal and vibration testing. The design validation tests will be conducted with a functional visible camera to confirm the mounting configuration satisfies the requirements defined by SSL. These experimental results will be verified against theoretical results obtained by software analytical tools, such as FEA or MATLAB. During the second quarter of the project, cantilever beams were tested with different composite material stack-ups with damping materials applied between layers. Analysis was utilized to determine the optimum damping stack-ups that can be applied to the surface between the optics 9 datum and the structure of the CubeSat. Detailed design was then applied to the CubeSat structure and optics to ensure that specifications will be met upon design verification post-manufacturing and assembly. Designs were also generated for a 1-U P-POD structure that will resemble boundary conditions experienced during launch conditions. Finally, ground support equipment (GSE) was designed to achieve a variety of specified optical tests. Lists of stock parts and components that need to be procured have been generated, as well as initial cost estimates of total stock and component pricing and CNC manufacturing costs. Fabrication may commence once the budget and design are reviewed and approved by UCB during the manufacturing readiness review. Components will ideally be manufactured later in spring quarter into the summer and will be ready for assembly beginning in September. During the third quarter of the project, the Cal Poly team received anodized parts for the CubeSat, machined parts for the P-POD, lenses, and a variety of tools, parts, and optical measurement components from UCB. The optics inside the instrument were assembled by bonding the lenses to the Keeper and Lens Mount. The optics subassembly was then assembled with the rest of the instrument’s structure, utilizing strips of Viton rubber as the medium in-between for damping. The GSE was constructed, and the optical alignment of the instrument on the GSE with the laser, GSE components, and the CCD was iterated until the instrument was in focus and output quality images. Preliminary image tests for Boresight Alignment, Spot Size, Field of View (FOV) and Stray Light Rejection were performed, and these results met the specifications as outlined by UCB. The first two of these tests were then performed between environmental tests, as the instrument was placed in a Thermal Vacuum Chamber for thermal loading, and was tested with a series of vibration tests on the shake table in all three axes. Finally, all four tests were conducted after environmental testing, and all specifications were met, except one. Stray light rejection fell just outside acceptable ranges due to a thin ring of missing anodize on the iris. The stray light rejection of the instrument should meet the design requirements if the iris is properly anodized per the manufacturing drawing

    Recombinant adeno-associated virus integration sites in murine liver after ornithine transcarbamylase gene correction

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    Recombinant adeno-associated viruses (rAAVs) have been tested in humans and other large mammals without adverse events. However, one study of mucopolysaccharidosis VII correction in mice showed repeated integration of rAAV in cells from hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) in the Dlk1-Dio3 locus, suggesting possible insertional mutagenesis. In contrast, another study found no association of rAAV integration with HCC, raising questions about the generality of associations between liver transformation and integration at Dlk1-Dio3. Here we report that in rAAV-treated ornithine transcarbamylase (Otc)-deficient mice, four examples of integration sites in Dlk1-Dio3 could be detected in specimens from liver nodule/tumors, confirming previous studies of rAAV integration in the Dlk1-Dio3 locus in the setting of another murine model of metabolic disease. In one case, the integrated vector was verified to be present at about one copy per cell, consistent with clonal expansion. Another verified integration site in liver nodule/tumor tissue near the Tax1bp1 gene was also detected at about one copy per cell. The Dlk1-Dio3 region has also been implicated in human HCC and so warrants careful monitoring in ongoing human clinical trials with rAAV vectors

    A method to sequence and quantify DNA integration for monitoring outcome in gene therapy

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    Human genetic diseases have been successfully corrected by integration of functional copies of the defective genes into human cells, but in some cases integration of therapeutic vectors has activated proto-oncogenes and contributed to leukemia. For this reason, extensive efforts have focused on analyzing integration site populations from patient samples, but the most commonly used methods for recovering newly integrated DNA suffer from severe recovery biases. Here, we show that a new method based on phage Mu transposition in vitro allows convenient and consistent recovery of integration site sequences in a form that can be analyzed directly using DNA barcoding and pyrosequencing. The method also allows simple estimation of the relative abundance of gene-modified cells from human gene therapy subjects, which has previously been lacking but is crucial for detecting expansion of cell clones that may be a prelude to adverse events

    Pan-cancer Alterations of the MYC Oncogene and Its Proximal Network across the Cancer Genome Atlas

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    Although theMYConcogene has been implicated incancer, a systematic assessment of alterations ofMYC, related transcription factors, and co-regulatoryproteins, forming the proximal MYC network (PMN),across human cancers is lacking. Using computa-tional approaches, we define genomic and proteo-mic features associated with MYC and the PMNacross the 33 cancers of The Cancer Genome Atlas.Pan-cancer, 28% of all samples had at least one ofthe MYC paralogs amplified. In contrast, the MYCantagonists MGA and MNT were the most frequentlymutated or deleted members, proposing a roleas tumor suppressors.MYCalterations were mutu-ally exclusive withPIK3CA,PTEN,APC,orBRAFalterations, suggesting that MYC is a distinct onco-genic driver. Expression analysis revealed MYC-associated pathways in tumor subtypes, such asimmune response and growth factor signaling; chro-matin, translation, and DNA replication/repair wereconserved pan-cancer. This analysis reveals insightsinto MYC biology and is a reference for biomarkersand therapeutics for cancers with alterations ofMYC or the PMN

    Pan-Cancer Analysis of lncRNA Regulation Supports Their Targeting of Cancer Genes in Each Tumor Context

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    Long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) are commonly dys-regulated in tumors, but only a handful are known toplay pathophysiological roles in cancer. We inferredlncRNAs that dysregulate cancer pathways, onco-genes, and tumor suppressors (cancer genes) bymodeling their effects on the activity of transcriptionfactors, RNA-binding proteins, and microRNAs in5,185 TCGA tumors and 1,019 ENCODE assays.Our predictions included hundreds of candidateonco- and tumor-suppressor lncRNAs (cancerlncRNAs) whose somatic alterations account for thedysregulation of dozens of cancer genes and path-ways in each of 14 tumor contexts. To demonstrateproof of concept, we showed that perturbations tar-geting OIP5-AS1 (an inferred tumor suppressor) andTUG1 and WT1-AS (inferred onco-lncRNAs) dysre-gulated cancer genes and altered proliferation ofbreast and gynecologic cancer cells. Our analysis in-dicates that, although most lncRNAs are dysregu-lated in a tumor-specific manner, some, includingOIP5-AS1, TUG1, NEAT1, MEG3, and TSIX, synergis-tically dysregulate cancer pathways in multiple tumorcontexts

    Genomic, Pathway Network, and Immunologic Features Distinguishing Squamous Carcinomas

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    This integrated, multiplatform PanCancer Atlas study co-mapped and identified distinguishing molecular features of squamous cell carcinomas (SCCs) from five sites associated with smokin

    Spatial Organization and Molecular Correlation of Tumor-Infiltrating Lymphocytes Using Deep Learning on Pathology Images

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    Beyond sample curation and basic pathologic characterization, the digitized H&E-stained images of TCGA samples remain underutilized. To highlight this resource, we present mappings of tumorinfiltrating lymphocytes (TILs) based on H&E images from 13 TCGA tumor types. These TIL maps are derived through computational staining using a convolutional neural network trained to classify patches of images. Affinity propagation revealed local spatial structure in TIL patterns and correlation with overall survival. TIL map structural patterns were grouped using standard histopathological parameters. These patterns are enriched in particular T cell subpopulations derived from molecular measures. TIL densities and spatial structure were differentially enriched among tumor types, immune subtypes, and tumor molecular subtypes, implying that spatial infiltrate state could reflect particular tumor cell aberration states. Obtaining spatial lymphocytic patterns linked to the rich genomic characterization of TCGA samples demonstrates one use for the TCGA image archives with insights into the tumor-immune microenvironment

    The Confidence Database

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    Understanding how people rate their confidence is critical for the characterization of a wide range of perceptual, memory, motor and cognitive processes. To enable the continued exploration of these processes, we created a large database of confidence studies spanning a broad set of paradigms, participant populations and fields of study. The data from each study are structured in a common, easy-to-use format that can be easily imported and analysed using multiple software packages. Each dataset is accompanied by an explanation regarding the nature of the collected data. At the time of publication, the Confidence Database (which is available at https://osf.io/s46pr/) contained 145 datasets with data from more than 8,700 participants and almost 4 million trials. The database will remain open for new submissions indefinitely and is expected to continue to grow. Here we show the usefulness of this large collection of datasets in four different analyses that provide precise estimations of several foundational confidence-related effects

    HIV Integration Targeting: A Pathway Involving Transportin-3 and the Nuclear Pore Protein RanBP2

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    Genome-wide siRNA screens have identified host cell factors important for efficient HIV infection, among which are nuclear pore proteins such as RanBP2/Nup358 and the karyopherin Transportin-3/TNPO3. Analysis of the roles of these proteins in the HIV replication cycle suggested that correct trafficking through the pore may facilitate the subsequent integration step. Here we present data for coupling between these steps by demonstrating that depletion of Transportin-3 or RanBP2 altered the terminal step in early HIV replication, the selection of chromosomal sites for integration. We found that depletion of Transportin-3 and RanBP2 altered integration targeting for HIV. These knockdowns reduced HIV integration frequency in gene-dense regions and near gene-associated features, a pattern that differed from that reported for depletion of the HIV integrase binding cofactor Psip1/Ledgf/p75. MLV integration was not affected by the Transportin-3 knockdown. Using siRNA knockdowns and integration targeting analysis, we also implicated several additional nuclear proteins in proper target site selection. To map viral determinants of integration targeting, we analyzed a chimeric HIV derivative containing MLV gag, and found that the gag replacement phenocopied the Transportin-3 and RanBP2 knockdowns. Thus, our data support a model in which Gag-dependent engagement of the proper transport and nuclear pore machinery mediate trafficking of HIV complexes to sites of integration
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