Total Syntheses of Tumor-Related Antigens N3: Probing the Feasibility Limits of the Glycal Assembly Method

The total syntheses of two octasaccharide antigens isolated from human milk, 1 and 2, and their corresponding allyl glycosides, 3 and 4, have been achieved by utilizing the glycal method. Convergent assembly of the core hexasaccharides and concurrent introduction of two α-l-fucosyl moieties at the late stage of the syntheses provided these complex carbohydrates in a concise manner. With synthetic material obtained, biological evaluations of these antigens as potential gastrointestinal cancer immunotherapeutic agents have been initiated

Combined radiomics-clinical model to predict platinum-sensitivity in advanced high-grade serous ovarian carcinoma using multimodal MRI

IntroductionWe aimed to predict platinum sensitivity using routine baseline multimodal magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and established clinical data in a radiomics framework.MethodsWe evaluated 96 patients with ovarian cancer who underwent multimodal MRI and routine laboratory tests between January 2016 and December 2020. The patients underwent diffusion-weighted, contrast-enhanced T1-weighted, and T2-weighted MRI. Subsequently, 293 radiomic features were extracted by manually identifying tumor regions of interest. The features were subjected to the least absolute shrinkage and selection operators, leaving only a few selected features. We built the first prediction model with a tree-based classifier using selected radiomics features. A second prediction model was built by combining the selected radiomic features with four established clinical factors: age, disease stage, initial tumor marker level, and treatment course. Both models were built and tested using a five-fold cross-validation.ResultsOur radiomics model predicted platinum sensitivity with an AUC of 0.65 using a few radiomics features related to heterogeneity. The second combined model had an AUC of 0.77, confirming the incremental benefits of the radiomics model in addition to models using established clinical factors.ConclusionOur combined radiomics-clinical data model was effective in predicting platinum sensitivity in patients with advanced ovarian cancer

Metallicity-PAH Relation of MIR-selected Star-forming Galaxies in AKARI North Ecliptic Pole-wide Survey

We investigate the variation in the mid-infrared spectral energy distributions of 373 low-redshift ($z<0.4$) star-forming galaxies, which reflects a variety of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) emission features. The relative strength of PAH emission is parameterized as $q_\mathrm{PAH}$, which is defined as the mass fraction of PAH particles in the total dust mass. With the aid of continuous mid-infrared photometric data points covering 7-24$\mu$m and far-infrared flux densities, $q_\mathrm{PAH}$ values are derived through spectral energy distribution fitting. The correlation between $q_\mathrm{PAH}$ and other physical properties of galaxies, i.e., gas-phase metallicity ($12+\mathrm{log(O/H)}$), stellar mass, and specific star-formation rate (sSFR) are explored. As in previous studies, $q_\mathrm{PAH}$ values of galaxies with high metallicity are found to be higher than those with low metallicity. The strength of PAH emission is also positively correlated with the stellar mass and negatively correlated with the sSFR. The correlation between $q_\mathrm{PAH}$ and each parameter still exists even after the other two parameters are fixed. In addition to the PAH strength, the application of metallicity-dependent gas-to-dust mass ratio appears to work well to estimate gas mass that matches the observed relationship between molecular gas and physical parameters. The result obtained will be used to calibrate the observed PAH luminosity-total infrared luminosity relation, based on the variation of MIR-FIR SED, which is used in the estimation of hidden star formation.Comment: 19 pages, 9 figures, AJ, in pres

The SAMI Galaxy Survey: kinematic alignments of early-type galaxies in A119 and A168

We investigate the kinematic alignments of luminous early-type galaxies (M r ≤ −19.5 mag) in A119 and A168 using the kinematic position angles (${{\rm{PA}}}_{{\rm{kin}}}$) from the Sydney-AAO Multi-object Integral-field spectrograph (SAMI) survey data, motivated by the implication of the galaxy spin alignment in a cosmological context. To increase the size of our sample for statistical significance, we also use the photometric position angles (${{\rm{PA}}}_{{\rm{phot}}}$) for galaxies that have not been observed by SAMI, if their ellipticities are higher than 0.15. Our luminous early-type galaxies tend to prefer the specific position angles in both clusters, confirming the results of Kim et al., who recently found the kinematic alignment of early-type galaxies in the Virgo cluster based on the ATLAS 3D integral-field spectroscopic data. This alignment signal is more prominent for galaxies in the projected phase-space regions dominated by infalling populations. Furthermore, the alignment angles are closely related to the directions of the filamentary structures around clusters. The results lead us to conclude that many cluster early-type galaxies are likely to be accreted along filaments while maintaining their spin axes, which are predetermined before cluster infall

NEPSC2, the North Ecliptic Pole SCUBA-2 survey: 850-<i>μ</i>m map and catalogue of 850-<i>μ</i>m selected sources over 2 deg²

Abstract We present an 850-μm mosaic map and extracted catalogue of submillimetre sources in the extended North Ecliptic Pole (NEP) region over about 2 deg2. The 850-μm map is constructed using newly obtained observations by SCUBA-2 at the East Asian Observatory’s James Clerk Maxwell Telescope, carried out using the observatory’s large programme opportunities. The recent 850-μm survey has extended the submillimetre data coverage by almost a factor of 4 compared to previous surveys, with a depth of σrms = 1.0–2.3 mJy beam−1. The catalogue contains 549 sources selected above a significance level of 4σ, where the false-detection rate is 10 per cent; a higher threshold of 4.5σ is required in order to achieve a false-detection rate below 3 per cent, which results in 342 sources being selected. Despite the large spatial variation of the noise, the deboosted flux density of sources is comparable to results from the SCUBA-2 Cosmology Legacy Survey (S2CLS), which covered the central 0.6 deg2 of our survey area with better sensitivity. We construct the source counts at 850 μm, finding results in agreement with other 850-μm surveys in cosmological blank fields over S850 = 4–15 mJy. We find a slight excess of bright galaxies (S850 > 15 mJy), which can be considered to be at ɀphot = 2–4. The 850-μm data adds valuable long-wavelength information to mid-infrared-selected sources from the AKARI NEP-deep and NEP-wide surveys, which will be helpful in preparing for future near-infrared to millimetre wavelength observations in the NEP region. Our 850-μm mosaic map and source catalogue will be made publicly available

Genome structure and diversity among Cynanchum wilfordii accessions

Abstract Background Cynanchum wilfordii (Cw) and Cynanchum auriculatum (Ca) have long been used in traditional medicine and as functional food in Korea and China, respectively. They have diverse medicinal functions, and many studies have been conducted, including pharmaceutical efficiency and metabolites. Especially, Cw is regarded as the most famous medicinal herb in Korea due to its menopausal symptoms relieving effect. Despite the high demand for Cw in the market, both species are cultivated using wild resources with rare genomic information. Results We collected 160 Cw germplasm from local areas of Korea and analyzed their morphological diversity. Five Cw and one Ca of them, which were morphologically diverse, were sequenced, and nuclear ribosomal DNA (nrDNA) and complete plastid genome (plastome) sequences were assembled and annotated. We investigated the genomic characteristics of Cw as well as the genetic diversity of plastomes and nrDNA of Cw and Ca. The Cw haploid nuclear genome was approximately 178 Mbp. Karyotyping revealed the juxtaposition of 45S and 5S nrDNA on one of 11 chromosomes. Plastome sequences revealed 1226 interspecies polymorphisms and 11 Cw intraspecies polymorphisms. The 160 Cw accessions were grouped into 21 haplotypes based on seven plastome markers and into 108 haplotypes based on seven nuclear markers. Nuclear genotypes did not coincide with plastome haplotypes that reflect the frequent natural outcrossing events. Conclusions Cw germplasm had a huge morphological diversity, and their wide range of genetic diversity was revealed through the investigation with 14 molecular markers. The morphological and genomic diversity, chromosome structure, and genome size provide fundamental genomic information for breeding of undomesticated Cw plants

The demographics of galactic bulges in the SDSS database

We present a new database of our two-dimensional bulge–disk decompositions for 14,233 galaxies drawn from Sloan Digital Sky Survey DR12 in order to examine the properties of bulges residing in the local universe (0.005 < z < 0.05). We performed decompositions in the g and r bands by utilizing the galfit software. The bulge colors and bulge-to-total ratios are found to be sensitive to the details in the decomposition technique, and hence we hereby provide full details of our method. The g − r colors of bulges derived are almost constantly red regardless of bulge size, except for the bulges in the low bulge-to-total ratio galaxies (B/T r lesssim 0.3). Bulges exhibit similar scaling relations to those followed by elliptical galaxies, but the bulges in galaxies with lower bulge-to-total ratios clearly show a gradually larger departure in slope from the elliptical galaxy sequence. The scatters around the scaling relations are also larger for the bulges in galaxies with lower bulge-to-total ratios. Both the departure in slopes and larger scatters likely originate from the presence of young stars. The bulges in galaxies with low bulge-to-total ratios show signs of a frosting of young stars so substantial that their luminosity-weighted Balmer-line ages are as small as 1 Gyr in some cases. While bulges seem largely similar in optical properties to elliptical galaxies, they do show clear and systematic departures as a function of bulge-to-total ratio. The stellar properties and perhaps associated formation processes of bulges seem much more diverse than those of elliptical galaxies