Neuronal pentraxin II is highly upregulated in Parkinson’s disease and a novel component of Lewy bodies

Neuronal pentraxin II (NPTX2) is the most highly upregulated gene in the Parkinsonian substantia nigra based on our whole genome expression profiling results. We show here that it is a novel component of Lewy bodies and Lewy neurites in sporadic Parkinson’s disease (PD). NPTX2 is also known as the neuronal activity-regulated protein (Narp), which is secreted and involved in long-term neuronal plasticity. Narp further regulates AMPA receptors which have been found to mediate highly selective non-apoptotic cell death of dopaminergic neurons. NPTX2/Narp is found in close association with alpha-synuclein aggregates in both substantia nigra and cerebral cortex in PD but unlike alpha-synuclein gene expression, which is down-regulated in the Parkinsonian nigra, NPTX2 could represent a driver of the disease process. In view of its profound (>800%) upregulation and its established role in synaptic plasticity as well as dopaminergic nerve cell death, NPTX2 is a very interesting novel player which is likely to be involved in the pathway dysregulation which underlies PD

Optimization of extraordinary optical absorption in plasmonic and dielectric structures

Extraordinary optical absorption (EOA) can be obtained by plasmonic surface structuring. However, studies that compare the performance of these plasmonic devices with similar structured dielectric devices are rarely found in the literature. In this work we show different methods to enhance the EOA by optimizing the geometry of the surface structuring for both plasmonic and dielectric devices, and the optimized performances are compared. Two different problem types with periodic structures are considered. The first case shows that strips of silicon on a surface can increase the absorption in an underlying silicon layer for certain optical wavelengths compared to metal strips. It is then demonstrated that by topology optimization it is possible to generate nonintuitive surface designs that perform even better than the simple strip designs for both silicon and metals. These results indicate that in general it is important to compare the absorption performance of plasmonic devices with similarly structured dielectric devices in order to find the best possible solution