Visual deterioration outcomes following optic pathway glioma treatment: a 12-year single institution retrospective study.

OBJECTIVE: The surgical treatment of optic pathway gliomas (OPG) remains controversial, with visual outcomes often unpredictable. The present study explored surgical and clinical factors influencing visual acuity (VA) after OPG treatment and developed anatomical subtypes correlated with clinical symptoms. METHODS: Children with OPG who underwent initial partial tumor resection at Beijing Tiantan Hospital from January 2011 to December 2022 were retrospectively analyzed. Multivariate logistic regression and random forest analyses were performed to identify risk factors for post-treatment VA deterioration and a decision tree model was created based on significant factors. RESULTS: A total of 140 patients were enrolled. Multivariate logistic regression analysis identified surgical approach and initial VA as independent predictors of post-treatment VA deterioration (P < 0.05). Surgical approach, initial VA, and extent of tumor resection were the most significant factors for risk assessment and were included in the decision tree model, with surgical approach as the most important "root" node. The model demonstrated good predictive performance, with area under the curve values of 0.75 and 0.66 for the training and test datasets, respectively. A simple anatomical classification was developed, which revealed clinical characteristic differences among OPG types. Meanwhile, a correlation analysis of post-treatment visual deterioration was performed for each of the three anatomical types. CONCLUSION: This study offers a predictive model for visual outcomes following initial tumor-reduction surgery in OPG patients, which may help in visual outcomes risk stratification. Additionally, the anatomical classification effectively indicates OPG growth direction, offering potential insights into clinical symptoms.

Digital Counting of Breaks Labeling In Situ: A Fast and Absolute Quantification Method for Measurement of DNA Double-Strand Breaks Based on Digital Polymerase Chain Reaction.

DNA double-strand break (DSB) is the most dangerous type of DNA damage. In addition, DSBs are also common consequences of various therapeutic and genetic modifications. Therefore, quantification of DSB is of great importance in many fields including DNA damage repair, cancer therapy, gene editing, and radiation biology. Current methods are either low-throughput, laborious, or high cost. Here, we developed dc-BLIS (digital counting of breaks labeling in situ), a new method that can rapidly and precisely quantify the number of intracellular DSBs at a low cost by digital polymerase chain reaction. Using dc-BLIS, we quantified and compared the amount of DSBs induced by anti-cancer drugs, Cas9 variants, and different radiation doses, proving the capacity of dc-BLIS to quantify DSBs. We propose that dc-BLIS is suitable for various application scenes that require rapid and precise quantification of DSBs, including drug screening, gene-editing tool modification, and radiation effect assessment.

Golgi-associated microtubules are fast cargo tracks and required for persistent cell migration.

Microtubules derived from the Golgi (Golgi MTs) have been implicated to play critical roles in persistent cell migration, but the underlying mechanisms remain elusive, partially due to the lack of direct observation of Golgi MT-dependent vesicular trafficking. Here, using super-resolution stochastic optical reconstruction microscopy (STORM), we discovered that post-Golgi cargos are more enriched on Golgi MTs and also surprisingly move much faster than on non-Golgi MTs. We found that, compared to non-Golgi MTs, Golgi MTs are morphologically more polarized toward the cell leading edge with significantly fewer inter-MT intersections. In addition, Golgi MTs are more stable and contain fewer lattice repair sites than non-Golgi MTs. Our STORM/live-cell imaging demonstrates that cargos frequently pause at the sites of both MT intersections and MT defects. Furthermore, by optogenetic maneuvering of cell direction, we demonstrate that Golgi MTs are essential for persistent cell migration but not for cells to change direction. Together, our study unveils the role of Golgi MTs in serving as a group of "fast tracks" for anterograde trafficking of post-Golgi cargos.

SMART FRAP: a robust and quantitative FRAP analysis method for phase separation.

We propose SMART FRAP, a robust FRAP quantitative analysis method that is insensitive to either the shape or size of the bleached region. It can not only accurately and quantitatively determine the diffusion coefficient, but also provide other essential properties of phase separation that are unobtainable by other methods.

Electrically Responsive Shape Memory Composites Using Silver Plated Chopped Carbon Fiber.

High electrical and thermal conductivity are beneficial to the shape recovery performance of electroactive shape memory polymer composites. In this work, the chopped carbon fiber (CCF) was processed into silver plated chopped carbon fiber (Ag/CCF), and the Ag/CCF was filled into hydrogenated bisphenol A epoxy (H-EP) resin to fabricate the electro-induced shape memory polymer composites. The Ag/CCF/H-EP composites show good electrical and thermal conductivity compared to the CCF/H-EP composites. When the content of Ag/CCF reaches 1.8 wt%, the e Ag/CCF/H-EP composites reach the threshold of thermal conductivity, electrical conductivity and percolation. The thermal conductivity of H-EP composite with 5.4 wt% Ag/CCF is 2.33 W/(m·K), which is 2.6 times and 12 times of that of CCF/H-EP composite and H-EP matrix, respectively. When the content of Ag/CCF reaches 7.2 wt%, the volume resistivity of Ag/CCF/H-EP composites decrease from 1.69 × 1016 Ω·to 9.51 × 103 Ω cm, and surface resistivity from 6.91 × 1015 Ω to 6.19 × 102 Ω, respectively. And the Ag/CCF/H-EP composites show good mechanical properties and dynamic thermomechanical properties. When the content of Ag/CCF is more than 1.8 wt%, the Ag/CCF/H-EP composites exhibit excellent electroactive shape memory performance, and the shape recovery rate of the composites is more than 92%.

Review of Power Electronics Components at Cryogenic Temperatures.

In order to apply power electronics systems to applications such as superconducting systems under cryogenic temperatures, it is necessary to investigate the characteristics of different parts in the power electronics systems. This paper reviews the influence of cryogenic temperature on power semiconductor devices including Si and wide bandgap switches, integrated circuits, passive components, interconnection and dielectric materials, and some typical cryogenic converter systems. Also, the basic theories and principles are given to explain the trends for different aspects of cryogenically cooled converters. Based on the review, Si active power devices, bulk CMOS based integrated circuits, nanocrystalline and amorphous magnetic cores, NP0 ceramic and film capacitors, thin/metal film and wirewound resistors are the components suitable for cryogenic operation. Pb-rich PbSn solder or In solder, classic PCB material, most insulation papers and epoxy encapsulant are good interconnection and dielectric parts for cryogenic temperatures.