Retromer and Its Role in Regulating Signaling at Endosomes.

The retromer complex is a key element of the endosomal protein sorting machinery being involved in trafficking of proteins from endosomes to the Golgi and also endosomes to the cell surface. There is now accumulating evidence that retromer also has a prominent role in regulating the activity of many diverse signaling proteins that traffic through endosomes and this activity has profound implications for the functioning of many different cell and tissue types from neuronal cells to cells of the immune system to specialized polarized epithelial cells of the retina. In this review, the protein composition of the retromer complex will be described along with many of the accessory factors that facilitate retromer-mediated endosomal protein sorting to detail how retromer activity contributes to the regulation of several distinct signaling pathways

Current treatment options for recurrent nasopharyngeal cancer

Loco-regional control rate of nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) has improved significantly in the past decade. However, local recurrence still represents a major cause of mortality and morbidity in advanced stages, and management of local failure remains a challenging issue in NPC. The best salvage treatment for local recurrent NPC remains to be determined. The options include brachytherapy, external radiotherapy, stereotactic radiosurgery, and nasopharyngectomy, either alone or in different combinations. In this article we will discuss the different options for salvage of locally recurrent NPC. Retreatment of locally recurrent NPC using radiotherapy, alone or in combination with other treatment modalities, as well as surgery, can result in long-term local control and survival in a substantial proportion of patients. For small-volume recurrent tumors (T1–T2) treated with external radiotherapy, brachytherapy or stereotactic radiosurgery, comparable results to those obtained with surgery have been reported. In contrast, treatment results of advanced-stage locally recurrent NPC are generally more satisfactory with surgery (with or without postoperative radiotherapy) than with reirradiation

Polarization Control by Using Anisotropic 3-D Chiral Structures

Due to the mirror symmetry breaking, chiral structures show fantastic electromagnetic (EM) properties involving negative refraction, giant optical activity, and asymmetric transmission. Aligned electric and magnetic dipoles excited in chiral structures contribute to extraordinary properties. However, the chiral structures that exhibit n-fold rotational symmetry show limited tuning capability. In this paper, we proposed a compact, light, and highly tunable anisotropic chiral structure to overcome this limitation and realize a linear-to-circular polarization conversion. The anisotropy is due to simultaneous excitations of two different pairs of aligned electric and magnetic dipoles. The 3D omega-like structure, etched on two sides of one PCB board and connected by metallic vias, achieves 60% of linearto- circular conversion (transmission) efficiency at the operating frequency of 9.2 GHz. The desired 90-degree phase shift between the two orthogonal linear polarization components is not only from the finite-thickness dielectric substrate but also from the anisotropic chiral response slightly off the resonance. The work enables elegant and practical polarization control of EM waves.Comment: 7 pages, 10 figure