„Atawistyczne zamiłowanie do materii” – o malarstwie Bronisława Kierzkowskiego i problematyce konserwatorskiej jego dzieł

The paper presents the issues concerning paintings by Bronisław Kierzkowski, who was developing his interest in such aspects as matter, space and texture in his works. Bronisław Kierzkowski is one of the exponents of the trend of  matter painting , which was developing in the Polish art in the second half of the 20th century. Within this matter painting trend he created his own unique way of artistic expression. He executed a plasterworks series, the so-called Fakturowce – spatial compositions that became the prominent hallmark of his work. These relief-like paintings are works of art composed of two different kinds of matter – metal and plaster, which, by interpenetrating and interacting with each other, form spatial structures bordering between painting and sculpture. Various metal elements, such as perforated and unperforated stripes, production waste, wire meshes, wires, sometimes even pieces of glass or plastic had been embeded by Kierzkowski in wet plaster, which while drying out was perpetuating forms and shapes.  In addition to a brief characteristics of life and work of Bronisław Kierzkowski, the paper contains the analysis of Texture Composition nr. 532 from the  Fakturowce series. On the example of that painting an attempt was made to recreate consecutive stages of creating the work of art, as well as to understand its complex structure. Moreover, the paper discusses selected issues of conservation of works of art from the Fakturowce series. Different causes of damage are pre sented. These are for example: unstable structure of paintings, combining ungalvanised iron and plaster into one work of art leading to corrosion of metal elements, complex structures of paintings resulting in mechanical damage, gaps and dust accumulation. The article draws attention to the issues of defining artists’ intentions and their impact on developing the program of conservation works in the context of modern art

Softwood Lignin as a Sustainable Feedstock for Porous Carbons as Active Material for Supercapacitors Using an Ionic Liquid Electrolyte

We report on the facile synthesis of porous carbons based on a biopolymer lignin employing a two-step process which includes the activation by KOH in various amounts under an inert gas atmosphere. The resulting carbons are characterized with regard to their structural properties and their electrochemical performance as an active material in double-layer capacitors using for the first time an ionic liquid (EMIBF4) as the electrolyte for this type of carbon material to enhance storage ability. A capacitance of more than 200 F g-1 at 10 A g-1 is achieved for a carbon with a specific surface area of more than 1800 m2 g-1. One of the most crucial factors determining the electrochemical response of the active materials was found to be the strong surface functionalization by oxygen-containing groups. Furthermore, the sulfur content of the carbon precursor lignin does not result in a significant amount of sulfur-containing surface functionalities which might interact with the electrolyte.Fil: Klose, Markus. Leibniz Institute for Solid State and Materials Research; AlemaniaFil: Reinhold, Romy. Leibniz Institute for Solid State and Materials Research; Alemania. Technische Universität Dresden; AlemaniaFil: Logsch, Florian. Brandenburgische Technische Universität Cottbus Senftenberg; AlemaniaFil: Wolke, Florian. Leibniz Institute for Solid State and Materials Research; AlemaniaFil: Linnemann, Julia. Leibniz Institute for Solid State and Materials Research; Alemania. Technische Universität Dresden; AlemaniaFil: Stoeck, Ulrich. Leibniz Institute for Solid State and Materials Research; AlemaniaFil: Oswald, Steffen. Leibniz Institute for Solid State and Materials Research; AlemaniaFil: Uhlemann, Martin. Leibniz Institute for Solid State and Materials Research; AlemaniaFil: Balach, Juan Manuel. Leibniz Institute for Solid State and Materials Research; Alemania. Universidad Nacional de Rio Cuarto. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas Fisicoquímicas y Naturales. Departamento de Química y Física; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Córdoba; ArgentinaFil: Markowski, Jens. Brandenburgische Technische Universität Cottbus Senftenberg; AlemaniaFil: Ay, Peter. Technische Universitat Cottbus-Senftenberg; AlemaniaFil: Giebeler, Lars. Leibniz Institute for Solid State and Materials Research; Alemani

Assessing the gene regulatory landscape in 1,188 human tumors

Cancer is characterised by somatic genetic variation, but the effect of the majority of non-coding somatic variants and the interface with the germline genome are still unknown. We analysed the whole genome and RNA-seq data from 1,188 human cancer patients as provided by the Pan-cancer Analysis of Whole Genomes (PCAWG) project to map cis expression quantitative trait loci of somatic and germline variation and to uncover the causes of allele-specific expression patterns in human cancers. The availability of the first large-scale dataset with both whole genome and gene expression data enabled us to uncover the effects of the non-coding variation on cancer. In addition to confirming known regulatory effects, we identified novel associations between somatic variation and expression dysregulation, in particular in distal regulatory elements. Finally, we uncovered links between somatic mutational signatures and gene expression changes, including TERT and LMO2, and we explained the inherited risk factors in APOBEC-related mutational processes. This work represents the first large-scale assessment of the effects of both germline and somatic genetic variation on gene expression in cancer and creates a valuable resource cataloguing these effects

Extensive folding variability between homologous chromosomes in mammalian cells

Genetic variation and 3D chromatin structure have major roles in gene regulation. Due to challenges in mapping chromatin conformation with haplotype-specific resolution, the effects of genetic sequence variation on 3D genome structure and gene expression imbalance remain understudied. Here, we applied Genome Architecture Mapping (GAM) to a hybrid mouse embryonic stem cell (mESC) line with high density of single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs). GAM resolved haplotype-specific 3D genome structures with high sensitivity, revealing extensive allelic differences in chromatin compartments, topologically associating domains (TADs), long-range enhancer–promoter contacts, and CTCF loops. Architectural differences often coincide with allele-specific differences in gene expression, and with Polycomb occupancy. We show that histone genes are expressed with allelic imbalance in mESCs, and are involved in haplotype-specific chromatin contacts marked by H3K27me3. Conditional knockouts of Polycomb enzymatic subunits, Ezh2 or Ring1, show that one-third of ASE genes, including histone genes, is regulated through Polycomb repression. Our work reveals highly distinct 3D folding structures between homologous chromosomes, and highlights their intricate connections with allelic gene expression

Author Correction: Genomic basis for RNA alterations in cancer

Correction to: Nature Published online 5 February 2020 In the published version of this paper, the members of the Pan-Cancer Analysis of Whole Genomes (PCAWG) Consortium were listed in the Supplementary Information; however, these members should have been included in the main paper. The original Article has been corrected to include the members and affiliations of the PCAWG Consortium in the main paper; the corrections have been made to the HTML version of the Article but not the PDF version. Additional minor corrections to affiliations have been made to the PDF and HTML versions of the original Article for consistency of information between the PCAWG list and the main paper. An additional affiliation has been added for Aurélien Chateigner (BioForA, French National Institute for Agriculture, Food, and Environment (INRAE), ONF, Orléans, France)

Sex differences in oncogenic mutational processes.

Sex differences have been observed in multiple facets of cancer epidemiology, treatment and biology, and in most cancers outside the sex organs. Efforts to link these clinical differences to specific molecular features have focused on somatic mutations within the coding regions of the genome. Here we report a pan-cancer analysis of sex differences in whole genomes of 1983 tumours of 28 subtypes as part of the ICGC/TCGA Pan-Cancer Analysis of Whole Genomes (PCAWG) Consortium. We both confirm the results of exome studies, and also uncover previously undescribed sex differences. These include sex-biases in coding and non-coding cancer drivers, mutation prevalence and strikingly, in mutational signatures related to underlying mutational processes. These results underline the pervasiveness of molecular sex differences and strengthen the call for increased consideration of sex in molecular cancer research

Genomic basis for RNA alterations in cancer.

Transcript alterations often result from somatic changes in cancer genomes1. Various forms of RNA alterations have been described in cancer, including overexpression2, altered splicing3 and gene fusions4; however, it is difficult to attribute these to underlying genomic changes owing to heterogeneity among patients and tumour types, and the relatively small cohorts of patients for whom samples have been analysed by both transcriptome and whole-genome sequencing. Here we present, to our knowledge, the most comprehensive catalogue of cancer-associated gene alterations to date, obtained by characterizing tumour transcriptomes from 1,188 donors of the Pan-Cancer Analysis of Whole Genomes (PCAWG) Consortium of the International Cancer Genome Consortium (ICGC) and The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA)5. Using matched whole-genome sequencing data, we associated several categories of RNA alterations with germline and somatic DNA alterations, and identified probable genetic mechanisms. Somatic copy-number alterations were the major drivers of variations in total gene and allele-specific expression. We identified 649 associations of somatic single-nucleotide variants with gene expression in cis, of which 68.4% involved associations with flanking non-coding regions of the gene. We found 1,900 splicing alterations associated with somatic mutations, including the formation of exons within introns in proximity to Alu elements. In addition, 82% of gene fusions were associated with structural variants, including 75 of a new class, termed 'bridged' fusions, in which a third genomic location bridges two genes. We observed transcriptomic alteration signatures that differ between cancer types and have associations with variations in DNA mutational signatures. This compendium of RNA alterations in the genomic context provides a rich resource for identifying genes and mechanisms that are functionally implicated in cancer

Retrospective evaluation of whole exome and genome mutation calls in 746 cancer samples

Funder: NCI U24CA211006Abstract: The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) and International Cancer Genome Consortium (ICGC) curated consensus somatic mutation calls using whole exome sequencing (WES) and whole genome sequencing (WGS), respectively. Here, as part of the ICGC/TCGA Pan-Cancer Analysis of Whole Genomes (PCAWG) Consortium, which aggregated whole genome sequencing data from 2,658 cancers across 38 tumour types, we compare WES and WGS side-by-side from 746 TCGA samples, finding that ~80% of mutations overlap in covered exonic regions. We estimate that low variant allele fraction (VAF < 15%) and clonal heterogeneity contribute up to 68% of private WGS mutations and 71% of private WES mutations. We observe that ~30% of private WGS mutations trace to mutations identified by a single variant caller in WES consensus efforts. WGS captures both ~50% more variation in exonic regions and un-observed mutations in loci with variable GC-content. Together, our analysis highlights technological divergences between two reproducible somatic variant detection efforts