612 research outputs found
The Role of miR-526b in COX-2 Mediated Human Breast Cancer Progression and Induction of Stem-Like Phenotype Via EP4 Receptor Signaling
Our laboratory previously established that aberrant expression of cyclo-oxygenase (COX)-2 promotes breast cancer progression and metastasis via multiple mechanisms, including stem-like cell (SLC) induction, owing to activation of the prostaglandin E2 receptor EP4. COX-2 expression was linked to up-regulation of miRNA-526b. We hypothesized that miR-526b is regulated by EP4 activity, and that miR-526b supports breast cancer progression and induction of SLCs. Using stably miR-526b transfected MCF-7 and SKBR-3 cells in functional assays, including tumorsphere formation in vitro and lung colony formation in vivo, we observed enhanced migration, invasion, proliferation, tumorsphere formation, and in vivo tumorigenecity compared to controls. EP4 receptor activation and inhibition resulted in respective increases or decreases in miR-526b expression in PKA and PI3K-AKT dependent manners. We conclude that miR-526b promotes breast cancer progression and SLC induction, is up-regulated by EP4, and holds promise as a biomarker for monitoring and personalizing breast cancer treatment
Bosonic molecules in rotating traps
We present a variational many-body wave function for repelling bosons in
rotating traps, focusing on rotational frequencies that do not lead to
restriction to the lowest Landau level. This wave function incorporates
correlations beyond the Gross-Pitaevskii (GP) mean field approximation, and it
describes rotating boson molecules (RBMs) made of localized bosons that form
polygonal-ring-like crystalline patterns in their intrinsic frame of reference.
The RBMs exhibit characteristic periodic dependencies of the ground-state
angular momenta on the number of bosons in the polygonal rings. For small
numbers of neutral bosons, the RBM ground-state energies are found to be always
lower than those of the corresponding GP solutions, in particular in the regime
of GP vortex formation.Comment: To appear in Phys. Rev. Lett. LATEX, 5 pages with 5 figures. For
related papers, see http://www.prism.gatech.edu/~ph274cy
Nonuniversal transmission phase lapses through a quantum dot: An exact-diagonalization of the many-body transport problem
Systematic trends of nonuniversal behavior of electron transmission phases
through a quantum dot, with no phase lapse for the transition N=1 -> N=2 and a
lapse of pi for the N=2 -> N=3 transition, are predicted, in agreement with
experiments, from many-body transport calculations involving exact
diagonalization of the dot Hamiltonian. The results favor shape anisotropy of
the dot and strong e-e repulsion with consequent electron localization, showing
dependence on spin configurations and the participation of excited doorway
transmission channels.Comment: Published version. REVTEX4. 4 pages with 3 color figures. For related
papers, see http://www.prism.gatech.edu/~ph274cy
Phase-Controlled Force and Magnetization Oscillations in Superconducting Ballistic Nanowires
The emergence of superconductivity-induced phase-controlled forces in the
(0.01-0.1) nN range, and of magnetization oscillations, in nanowire junctions,
is discussed. A giant magnetic response to applied weak magnetic fields, is
predicted in the ballistic Josephson junction formed by a superconducting tip
and a surface, bridged by a normal metal nanowire where Andreev states form.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figure
Premelting of Thin Wires
Recent work has raised considerable interest on the nature of thin metallic
wires. We have investigated the melting behavior of thin cylindrical Pb wires
with the axis along a (110) direction, using molecular dynamics and a
well-tested many-body potential. We find that---in analogy with cluster
melting---the melting temperature of a wire with radius is lower
than that of a bulk solid, , by . Surface melting
effects, with formation of a thin skin of highly diffusive atoms at the wire
surface, is observed. The diffusivity is lower where the wire surface has a
flat, local (111) orientation, and higher at (110) and (100) rounded areas. The
possible relevance to recent results on non-rupturing thin necks between an STM
tip and a warm surface is addressed.Comment: 10 pages, 4 postscript figures are appended, RevTeX, SISSA Ref.
131/94/CM/S
Estimation of Fiber Orientations Using Neighborhood Information
Data from diffusion magnetic resonance imaging (dMRI) can be used to
reconstruct fiber tracts, for example, in muscle and white matter. Estimation
of fiber orientations (FOs) is a crucial step in the reconstruction process and
these estimates can be corrupted by noise. In this paper, a new method called
Fiber Orientation Reconstruction using Neighborhood Information (FORNI) is
described and shown to reduce the effects of noise and improve FO estimation
performance by incorporating spatial consistency. FORNI uses a fixed tensor
basis to model the diffusion weighted signals, which has the advantage of
providing an explicit relationship between the basis vectors and the FOs. FO
spatial coherence is encouraged using weighted l1-norm regularization terms,
which contain the interaction of directional information between neighbor
voxels. Data fidelity is encouraged using a squared error between the observed
and reconstructed diffusion weighted signals. After appropriate weighting of
these competing objectives, the resulting objective function is minimized using
a block coordinate descent algorithm, and a straightforward parallelization
strategy is used to speed up processing. Experiments were performed on a
digital crossing phantom, ex vivo tongue dMRI data, and in vivo brain dMRI data
for both qualitative and quantitative evaluation. The results demonstrate that
FORNI improves the quality of FO estimation over other state of the art
algorithms.Comment: Journal paper accepted in Medical Image Analysis. 35 pages and 16
figure
Energetics, forces, and quantized conductance in jellium modeled metallic nanowires
Energetics and quantized conductance in jellium modeled nanowires are
investigated using the local density functional based shell correction method,
extending our previous study of uniform in shape wires [C. Yannouleas and U.
Landman, J. Phys. Chem. B 101, 5780 (1997)] to wires containing a variable
shaped constricted region. The energetics of the wire (sodium) as a function of
the length of the volume conserving, adiabatically shaped constriction leads to
formation of self selecting magic wire configurations. The variations in the
energy result in oscillations in the force required to elongate the wire and
are directly correlated with the stepwise variations of the conductance of the
nanowire in units of 2e^2/h. The oscillatory patterns in the energetics and
forces, and the correlated stepwise variation in the conductance are shown,
numerically and through a semiclassical analysis, to be dominated by the
quantized spectrum of the transverse states at the narrowmost part of the
constriction in the wire.Comment: Latex/Revtex, 11 pages with 5 Postscript figure
Dislocation Emission around Nanoindentations on a (001) fcc Metal Surface Studied by STM and Atomistic Simulations
We present a combined study by Scanning Tunneling Microscopy and atomistic
simulations of the emission of dissociated dislocation loops by nanoindentation
on a (001) fcc surface. The latter consist of two stacking-fault ribbons
bounded by Shockley partials and a stair-rod dislocation. These dissociated
loops, which intersect the surface, are shown to originate from loops of
interstitial character emitted along the directions and are usually
located at hundreds of angstroms away from the indentation point. Simulations
reproduce the nucleation and glide of these dislocation loops.Comment: 10 pages, 4 figure
Origin of anomalously long interatomic distances in suspended gold chains
The discovery of long bonds in gold atom chains has represented a challenge
for physical interpretation. In fact, interatomic distances frequently attain
3.0-3.6 A values and, distances as large as 5.0 A may be seldom observed. Here,
we studied gold chains by transmission electron microscopy and performed
theoretical calculations using cluster ab initio density functional formalism.
We show that the insertion of two carbon atoms is required to account for the
longest bonds, while distances above 3 A may be due to a mixture of clean and
one C atom contaminated bonds.Comment: 4 pages, 4 Postscript figures, to be published in Physical Review
Letter
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