Pre-treatment [¹⁸F]FDG PET/CT for assessing bone marrow involvement and prognosis in patients with newly diagnosed peripheral T-cell lymphoma

To explore the value of [18F]fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG)-positron emission tomography (PET)/computed tomography (CT) in assessing bone marrow involvement (BMI) and prognosis in newly diagnosed peripheral T-cell lymphomas (PTCLs) before treatment. This retrospective study included 201 eligible PTCLs who received pre-bone marrow biopsy (BMB) and PET/CT. The status of bone marrow (BM) by PET was assessed using a visual examination and a quantitative index (the maximal standardized uptake value [SUVmax] of BM divided by the SUVmax of the liver [M/L]). Totally 148 patients had no evidence of BMI by PET or BMB; BMI was detected by both methods in 16 patients. The sensitivity and specificity of PET/CT for patients with confirmed BMI by BMB were 43.2% and 90.2%, respectively (κ =  0.353). In addition, 25 patients assessed by PET/CT staging (having stage I to II disease) had no evidence of BMI detected by both PET/CT and BMB. Image-guided biopsy was also recommended when PET/CT showed a focal FDG uptake outside the iliac crest. Survival analysis revealed that BMB was significant for overall survival (OS) (P = 0.020) while M/L for both progression free survival (P = 0.002) and OS (P P = 0.027) was an independent prognostic factor for OS. There were no statistical differences at the genetic level about BMI confirmed by PET or BMB. PET/CT has a complementary role in assessing BMI and an ability to predict prognosis in PTCL patients.</p

Impact of miRNA Sequence on miRNA Expression and Correlation between miRNA Expression and Cell Cycle Regulation in Breast Cancer Cells

<div><p>The miRNAs regulate cell functions by inhibiting expression of proteins. Research on miRNAs had usually focused on identifying targets by base pairing between miRNAs and their targets. Instead of identifying targets, this paper proposed an innovative approach, namely impact significance analysis, to study the correlation between mature sequence, expression across patient samples or time and global function on cell cycle signaling of miRNAs. With three distinct types of data: The Cancer Genome Atlas miRNA expression data for 354 human breast cancer specimens, microarray of 266 miRNAs in mouse Embryonic Stem cells (ESCs), and Reverse Phase Protein Array (RPPA) transfected by 776 miRNAs in MDA-MB-231 cell line, we linked the expression and function of miRNAs by their mature sequence and discovered systematically that the similarity of miRNA expression enhances the similarity of miRNA function, which indicates the miRNA expression can be used as a supplementary factor to predict miRNA function. The results also show that both seed region and 3' portion are associated with miRNA expression levels across human breast cancer specimens and in ESCs; miRNAs with similar seed tend to have similar 3' portion. And we discussed that the impact of 3' portion, including nucleotides , is not significant for miRNA function. These results provide novel insights to understand the correlation between miRNA sequence, expression and function. They can be applied to improve the prediction algorithm and the impact significance analysis can also be implemented to similar analysis for other small RNAs such as siRNAs.</p></div

Correlation between miRNA expression and function.

<p>a. quantile curves of two groups for TCGA expression data. group 1: miRNA pairs of similar seed (seed alignment score) and similar expression (expression distance ), group 2: miRNA pairs of similar seed (seed alignment score) and dissimilar expression distance (expression distance ). KS test shows that group 1 tend to have more similar cell cycle regulation than group 2 (p value: ). b. quantile curves of two groups for expression data of ESCs. group 1: miRNA pairs of similar seed (seed alignment score) and similar expression (expression distance ), group 2: miRNA pairs of similar seed (seed alignment score) and dissimilar expression distance (expression distance ). KS test shows that group 1 tend to have more similar cell cycle regulation than group 2 (p value: ). c. expression levels across breast cancer specimens and mature sequences of two miRNA pairs. d. time-course expression levels of ESCs and mature sequences of two miRNA pairs.</p

Primer sequences of mouse genes examined by quantitative real-time PCR.

<p>AS, antisense; S, sense;</p

Dataset associated with “Substantial Soil Organic Carbon Loss Due to Plateau Pika Burrowing in Tibet Plateau”

This dataset is associated with Substantial Soil Organic Carbon Loss Due to Plateau Pika Burrowing in Tibet Plateau. All data are provided as GeoTIFF (.tif) files in a geographic coordinate system of WGS_1984.1. “pika_habitat_suitability_1km.tif” is the habitat suitability map for plateau pikas, estimated using the Bayesian additive regression trees, a species distribution model.2. “pika_haibitat_suitability_levels_1km.tif” is the categorized levels of the habitat suitability map. High: 0.6 - 1, Moderate: 0.4 - 0.6, Low: 0.2 - 0.4, and Unsuitable: 3. “pika_surface_entrance_density_1km.tif” is the surface entrance density map of plateau pikas, averaged from 100 simulations using our developed stochastic model based on pika habitat suitability.4. “pika_surface_entrance_density_sd_1km.tif” is the standard deviation of 100 simulations on pika surface entrance density.5. “pika_surface_entrance_area_1km.tif” is the surface entrance area (m2) created by plateau pikas, derived from the stochastic model.6. “pika_burrow_volume_soillayer_[0_30cm, 30_75cm, 0_75cm]_1km.tif” is the estimated pika burrow volume (m3) within a certain range of soil depth using the developed stochastic model.7. “pika_burrowing_SOC_cabon_loss_1km.tif” is the estimated soil organic carbon loss (tons) due to pika burrowing activities utilizing a fitted model from field survey data.</p

IS analysis for miRNA expression data.

<p>a. impact significance (IS) of nucleotides , , , , , and for TCGA miRNA expression across breast cancer specimens after excluding miRNA pairs with high alignment score () of the 3' portion. b. IS of the 3' portion for TCGA expression after excluding miRNA pairs with identical nucleotides or . Threshold of similar 3' portion is set to be respectively. c. quantile curves of 3'-alignment scores for 7 groups from the TCGA expression data: the 6 classes and the remaining pairs. Groups with quantile curves above tend to be more similar in the 3' portion than groups with quantile curves below. KS test shows that CL , and tend to have more similar 3' portion (p values: , and ) d. e. f. same analysis as a. b. c. for miRNA time-course expression in ESCs.</p

Immunohistochemical staining for TCR γδ, CCR6 and RORγ in skin.

<p>A, TCR γδ, CCR6 and RORγ immunohistochemical staining was examined in samples of differently treated mouse ear skin (N = 6). B, The mean number of TCR γδ-positive cells per high power field (N = 6). The differences between groups and between any two groups were significant (Kruskal-Wallis test/Wilcoxon Scores test, <i>P</i><0.05). C, CCR6 and RORγ expression was detected using western blotting. CCR6 expression was increased in IMQ-treated mice and was inhibited by both curcumin and clobetasol. The results shown are representative of 3 independent experiments. CUR, curcumin; CLO, clobetasol.</p

Curcumin inhibited IMQ-induced psoriasis-like inflammation (N = 6).

<p>A, The thickness of the right ear skin was measured on the days indicated (Mean±SD). B, Erythema, scaling and thickness of the right ear skin was scored on the indicated days with a scale from 0 to 4. The cumulative score is presented (Mean±SD). C, H&E staining of the mouse ear skin of different treatment groups (200×). Arrowheads denote the inside of the ear skin. CUR, curcumin; CLO, clobetasol.</p

Intersystem Crossing Rates of Isolated Fullerenes: Theoretical Calculations

Although the triplet states of fullerenes have prosperous applications, it remains unclear how the structural parameters of singlet and triplet states control the intersystem crossing (ISC) rates. Here, electronic structure calculations (reorganization energy, driving force, and spin–orbit coupling) and a rate theory (Marcus formula) are employed to quantitatively predict the ISC rates of isolated fullerenes C_<i>n</i> (<i>n</i> = 60–110). The results demonstrate that the driving force is not the only factor to predict the ISC rates. For instance, although C₈₀, C₈₂, and C₁₁₀ have the favorable driving force, the ISC rates are close to zero because of small spin obit couplings, whereas small ISC rates of C₉₆ and C₁₀₀ result from quite small reorganization energies. Meanwhile, in addition to well-known C₆₀ and C₇₀, C₉₂ possesses good ISC property with obviously large ISC rate. C₉₂ also has a higher triplet-state energy than singlet-state oxygen energy; it may thus have a good photoactive property

IS analysis for RPPA data.

<p>a. IS of nucleotides , , , , , and for miRNA cell cycle regulation in breast cancer cells after excluding miRNA pairs with high alignment score () of the 3' portion. b. IS of the 3' portion for miRNA cell cycle regulation in breast cancer cells after excluding miRNA pairs with identical nucleotides or . Threshold of similar 3' portion is set to be respectively. c. quantile curves of 3'-alignment scores for 7 groups from the breast cancer RPPA data: CL , , , , , and the remaining pairs. Groups with quantile curves above tend to be more similar in the 3' portion than groups with quantile curves below. KS test shows that CL , , and tend to have more similar 3' portion (p values: , , , ) d. IS values of the searched contiguous segments of the 3' portion for all 6 classes from the breast cancer RPPA data. represents 3 contiguous nucleotides, 4 contiguous nucleotides, and so forth. The x-axis represents the starting position of the segments.</p