Proteomics Strategies to Develop Proteins of Post-translational Modifications in Plasma-Derived Extracellular Vesicles as Disease Markers

Blood tests, which are the most wide spread diagnosis procedure in clinical analysis, apply blood biomarkers to categorize patients and support treatment decisions. However, existing biomarkers often lack specificity and are far from comprehensive. Mass spectrometry-based proteomics allow users to characterize plasma protein in great depth and has become a powerful tool in the biomarker discovery area. However, because of the extremely high dynamic range of plasma, being able identify thousands of plasma proteins using methods such as Liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) remains a challenge. Furthermore, recent discoveries of extracellular vesicles (EVs) have proven that EVs have a high possibility for becoming the source for biomarker discovery and disease diagnosis. In addition to the protein in EVs, post-translation modification proteins (PTMs proteins) are also interesting targets because the PTMs proteins are involved with many cancer-related signaling transductions. This dissertation proposes proteomics strategies of using PTMs proteins in plasma-derived extracellular vesicles as breast cancer markers. Initially, Chapter One highlights the potential of using phosphoproteins in extracellular vesicles as markers for breast cancer. Chapter Two delves into the development of a pipeline proteomics strategy that utilizes glycoproteins in EVs as breast cancer markers. Finally, Chapter Three explores the details of different subtypes, which presents the possibility of leveraging three PTMs including phosphorylation, acetylation and glycosylation to distinguish three major breast cancer subtypes

The Development of Polysemous "One"-phrase in Mandarin Chinese

See the PDF

Landscape phage, phage display, stripped phage, biosensors, detection, affinity reagent, nanotechnology, Salmonella typhimurium, Bacillus anthracis

Filamentous phage, such as fd used in this study, are thread-shaped bacterial viruses. Their outer coat is a tube formed by thousands equal copies of the major coat protein pVIII. We constructed libraries of random peptides fused to all pVIII domains and selected phages that act as probes specific for a panel of test antigens and biological threat agents. Because the viral carrier is infective, phage borne bio-selective probes can be cloned individually and propagated indefinitely without needs of their chemical synthesis or reconstructing. We demonstrated the feasibility of using landscape phages and their stripped fusion proteins as new bioselective materials that combine unique characteristics of affinity reagents and self assembling membrane proteins. Biorecognition layers fabricated from phage-derived probes bind biological agents and generate detectable signals. The performance of phage-derived materials as biorecognition films was illustrated by detection of streptavidin-coated beads, Bacillus anthracis spores and Salmonella typhimurium cells. With further refinement, the phage-derived analytical platforms for detecting and monitoring of numerous threat agents may be developed, since the biodetector films may be obtained from landscape phages selected against any bacteria, virus or toxin. As elements of field-use detectors, they are superior to antibodies, since they are inexpensive, highly specific and strong binders, resistant to high temperatures and environmental stresses.Comment: Submitted on behalf of TIMA Editions (http://irevues.inist.fr/tima-editions

Exploring the Information Behavior of Primary Caregivers for Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder: An Information World Mapping Approach

This study aims to explore the information needs of primary caregivers of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) when caring for the autistic children, and to identify the relationships among people, items, and places in the information world, especially the information sharing behavior. Semistructured in-depth interviews were conducted with the information world mapping visual-elicitation method. Seventeen primary caregivers of children with autism between 6 and 12 years old were interviewed. The current study found that medical information needs, parenting information needs, education information needs, moral support information needs, and everyday-life information needs are the five major information needs of the primary caregivers of children with ASD. Caregivers tend to obtain information through referrals from and among different people, items and places according to different information needs. The typical relationships among people, items, and places include starting from consulting people, back-and-forth between physical and virtual locations, and multiple referrals. As to information sharing, caregivers would only have time to share information with others when having sufficient self-confidence and being in a stable state. And information sharing is more likely to occur somewhere caregivers stay for a long time or visit regularly. While caregivers share information with professionals and families for self-interest, they share information with other caregivers on social media for altruistic purposes. Based on the findings of the current study, practical suggestions for library and information institutions, medical institutions, education institutions, and social welfare institutions are provided

Mandarin Chinese modality exclusivity norms

Modality exclusivity norms have been developed in different languages for research on the relationship between perceptual and conceptual systems. This paper sets up the first modality exclusivity norms for Chinese, a Sino-Tibetan language with semantics as its orthographically relevant level. The norms are collected through two studies based on Chinese sensory words. The experimental designs take into consideration the morpho-lexical and orthographic structures of Chinese. Study 1 provides a set of norms for Mandarin Chinese single-morpheme words in mean ratings of the extent to which a word is experienced through the five sense modalities. The degrees of modality exclusivity are also provided. The collected norms are further analyzed to examine how sub-lexical orthographic representations of sense modalities in Chinese characters affect speakers’ interpretation of the sensory words. In particular, we found higher modality exclusivity rating for the sense modality explicitly represented by a semantic radical component, as well as higher auditory dominant modality rating for characters with transparent phonetic symbol components. Study 2 presents the mean ratings and modality exclusivity of coordinate disyllabic compounds involving multiple sense modalities. These studies open new perspectives in the study of modality exclusivity. First, links between modality exclusivity and writing systems have been established which has strengthened previous accounts of the influence of orthography in the processing of visual information in reading. Second, a new set of modality exclusivity norms of compounds is proposed to show the competition of influence on modality exclusivity from different linguistic factors and potentially allow such norms to be linked to studies on synesthesia and semantic transparency

How to Create Suitable Augmented Reality Application to Teach Social Skills for Children with ASD

Autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) are characterized by a reduced ability to appropriately express social greetings. Studies have indicated that individuals with ASD might not recognize the crucial nonverbal cues that usually aid social interaction. This study applied augmented reality (AR) with tabletop role-playing game (AR-RPG) to focus on the standard nonverbal social cues to teach children with ASD, how to appropriately reciprocate when they socially interact with others. The results showed that intervention system provides an AR combined with physical manipulatives and presents corresponding specific elements in an AR 3D animation with dialogue; thus, it can be used to help them increase their social interaction skills and drive their attention toward the meaning and social value of greeting behavior in specific social situations. We conclude that AR-RPG of social situations helped children with ASD recognize and better understand these situations and moderately effective in teaching the target greeting responses

Optical pumping effects on the Rydberg EIT spectrum

We provide a universal discussion of the interplay between Rydberg-state electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) and optical pumping (OP) in a thermal Rb87 medium. By pumping the population to one single Hyperfine/Zeeman state, we can enhance the interaction strength and, in principle, amplify the EIT peak. According to our measurements, the EIT peak height can be improved by a factor of two or reduced by one order of magnitude, and linewidth was slightly narrowed by the pumping effect. Similar behavior is also seen by increasing the optical density (OD) of the medium. The EIT feature is predicted quantitatively using a Doppler-free non-perturbation numerical calculation. With and without the optical pumping field, the EIT peak heights collapse onto the same theoretical curve, showing that OP and varying OD have the same effect. In both simulations and measurements, Rydberg EIT enhancement through OP is dependent on the intensity of the probe field and the OD. Our work clarifies the underlying mechanisms of optical pumping and advances Rydberg-atom research.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure