A pan-cancer analysis of the frequency of DNA alterations across cell cycle activity levels

Pan-cancer genomic analyses based on the magnitude of pathway activity are currently lacking. Focusing on the cell cycle, we examined the DNA mutations and chromosome arm-level aneuploidy within tumours with low, intermediate and high cell-cycle activity in 9515 pan-cancer patients with 32 different tumour types. Boxplots showed that cell-cycle activity varied broadly across and within all cancers. TP53 and PIK3CA mutations were common in all cell cycle score (CCS) tertiles but with increasing frequency as cell-cycle activity levels increased (P < 0.001). Mutations in BRAF and gains in 16p were less frequent in CCS High tumours (P < 0.001). In Kaplan–Meier analysis, patients whose tumours were CCS Low had a longer Progression Free Interval (PFI) relative to Intermediate or High (P < 0.001) and this significance remained in multivariable analysis (CCS Intermediate: HR = 1.37; 95% CI 1.17–1.60, CCS High: 1.54; 1.29–1.84, CCS Low = Ref). These results demonstrate that whilst similar DNA alterations can be found at all cell-cycle activity levels, some notable exceptions exist. Moreover, independent prognostic information can be derived on a pan-cancer level from a simple measure of cell-cycle activity

A New Upper Limit for the Tau-Neutrino Magnetic Moment

Using a prompt neutrino beam in which a nu_tau component was identified for the first time, the nu_tau magnetic moment was measured based on a search for an anomalous increase in the number of neutrino-electron interactions. One such event was observed when 2.3 were expected from background processes, giving an upper 90% confidence limit of 3.9x10^-7 Bohr magnetons.Comment: 9 pages; 1 figur

A Rigorous Geometric Derivation of the Chiral Anomaly in Curved Backgrounds

We discuss the chiral anomaly for a Weyl field in a curved background and show that a novel index theorem for the Lorentzian Dirac operator can be applied to describe the gravitational chiral anomaly. A formula for the total charge generated by the gravitational and gauge field background is derived directly in Lorentzian signature and in a mathematically rigorous manner. It contains a term identical to the integrand in the Atiyah–Singer index theorem and another term involving the η -invariant of the Cauchy hypersurfaces

Cichlid biogeography: comment and review

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/72313/1/j.1467-2979.2004.00148.x.pd

Association of polymorphisms in genes encoding hormone receptors ESR1, ESR2 and LHCGR with the risk and clinical features of testicular germ cell cancer.

Testicular germ cell cancer (TGCC) is the most common malignancy in young men. Genetic variants known to be associated with risk of TGCC only partially account for the observed familial risks. We aimed to identify additional polymorphisms associated with risk as well as histological and clinical features of TGCC in 367 patients and 214 controls. Polymorphisms in ESR2 (rs1256063; OR=0.53, 95% CI: 0.35-0.79) and LHCGR (rs4597581; OR=0.68, 95% CI: 0.51-0.89, and rs4953617; OR=1.88, 95% CI: 1.21-2.94) associated with risk of TGCC. Polymorphisms in ESR1 (rs9397080; OR=1.85, 95% CI: 1.18-2.91) and LHCGR (rs7371084; OR=2.37, 95% CI: 1.26-4.49) associated with risk of seminoma and metastasis, respectively. SNPs in ESR1 (rs9397080) and LHCGR (rs7371084) were predictors of higher LH levels and higher androgen sensitivity index in healthy subjects. The results suggest that polymorphisms in ESR1, ESR2 and LHCGR contribute to the risk of developing TGCC, histological subtype, and risk to metastasis

Search for direct production of charginos and neutralinos in events with three leptons and missing transverse momentum in √s = 7 TeV pp collisions with the ATLAS detector

A search for the direct production of charginos and neutralinos in final states with three electrons or muons and missing transverse momentum is presented. The analysis is based on 4.7 fb−1 of proton–proton collision data delivered by the Large Hadron Collider and recorded with the ATLAS detector. Observations are consistent with Standard Model expectations in three signal regions that are either depleted or enriched in Z-boson decays. Upper limits at 95% confidence level are set in R-parity conserving phenomenological minimal supersymmetric models and in simplified models, significantly extending previous results

Jet size dependence of single jet suppression in lead-lead collisions at sqrt(s(NN)) = 2.76 TeV with the ATLAS detector at the LHC

Measurements of inclusive jet suppression in heavy ion collisions at the LHC provide direct sensitivity to the physics of jet quenching. In a sample of lead-lead collisions at sqrt(s) = 2.76 TeV corresponding to an integrated luminosity of approximately 7 inverse microbarns, ATLAS has measured jets with a calorimeter over the pseudorapidity interval |eta| < 2.1 and over the transverse momentum range 38 < pT < 210 GeV. Jets were reconstructed using the anti-kt algorithm with values for the distance parameter that determines the nominal jet radius of R = 0.2, 0.3, 0.4 and 0.5. The centrality dependence of the jet yield is characterized by the jet "central-to-peripheral ratio," Rcp. Jet production is found to be suppressed by approximately a factor of two in the 10% most central collisions relative to peripheral collisions. Rcp varies smoothly with centrality as characterized by the number of participating nucleons. The observed suppression is only weakly dependent on jet radius and transverse momentum. These results provide the first direct measurement of inclusive jet suppression in heavy ion collisions and complement previous measurements of dijet transverse energy imbalance at the LHC.Comment: 15 pages plus author list (30 pages total), 8 figures, 2 tables, submitted to Physics Letters B. All figures including auxiliary figures are available at http://atlas.web.cern.ch/Atlas/GROUPS/PHYSICS/PAPERS/HION-2011-02

Observation of Tau Neutrino Interactions

The DONUT experiment has analyzed 203 neutrino interactions recorded in nuclear emulsion targets. A decay search has found evidence of four tau neutrino interactions with an estimated background of 0.34 events. This number is consistent with the Standard Model expectation.Comment: 12 pages, 3 figures, PD