Label-free cell detection of acute leukemia using ghost cytometry.

Early diagnosis and prompt initiation of appropriate treatment are critical for improving the prognosis of acute leukemia. Acute leukemia is diagnosed by microscopic morphological examination of bone marrow smears and flow cytometric immunophenotyping of bone marrow cells stained with fluorophore-conjugated antibodies. However, these diagnostic processes require trained professionals and are time and resource-intensive. Here, we present a novel diagnostic approach using ghost cytometry, a recently developed high-content flow cytometric approach, which enables machine vision-based, stain-free, high-speed analysis of cells, leveraging their detailed morphological information. We demonstrate that ghost cytometry can detect leukemic cells from the bone marrow cells of patients diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia and acute myeloid leukemia without relying on biological staining. The approach presented here holds promise as a precise, simple, swift, and cost-effective diagnostic method for acute leukemia in clinical practice.

Simplification of the Gram Matrix Eigenvalue Problem for Quadrature Amplitude Modulation Signals.

In quantum information science, it is very important to solve the eigenvalue problem of the Gram matrix for quantum signals. This allows various quantities to be calculated, such as the error probability, mutual information, channel capacity, and the upper and lower bounds of the reliability function. Solving the eigenvalue problem also provides a matrix representation of quantum signals, which is useful for simulating quantum systems. In the case of symmetric signals, analytic solutions to the eigenvalue problem of the Gram matrix have been obtained, and efficient computations are possible. However, for asymmetric signals, there is no analytic solution and universal numerical algorithms that must be used, rendering the computations inefficient. Recently, we have shown that, for asymmetric signals such as amplitude-shift keying coherent-state signals, the Gram matrix eigenvalue problem can be simplified by exploiting its partial symmetry. In this paper, we clarify a method for simplifying the eigenvalue problem of the Gram matrix for quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM) signals, which are extremely important for applications in quantum communication and quantum ciphers. The results presented in this paper are applicable to ordinary QAM signals as well as modified QAM signals, which enhance the security of quantum cryptography.

[Selective elimination of the transformed hepatic stem cells using hybrid liposomes].

To realize regenerative medicine, it is very important to eliminate the transformed stem cells selectively included in iPS cells, ES cells and adult stem cells derived from organs, because the transformed stem cells have a risk of tumorigenesis after the cell transplantation. Ueoka et al., have developed hybrid liposomes (HL) which selectively accumulated to membranes of tumor cells and have high inhibitory effects on the growth of tumor cells along with the induction of apoptosis. Therefore, we have investigated the application of HL23 (DMPC/10 mol%C(12)(EO)(23)) to the selective elimination of transformed stem cells using hepatoblast, which we could induce from human fetal hepatocytes by the treatment of 1 mM sodium butyrate for 8 days. During the induction process, the transformed cells appeared and produced abnormal prothrombin (PIVKA-II), which is a clinical marker for hepatoma, and also formed colonies in soft agar plate, which is a criteria for neoplastic cell transformation. On the other hand, by the treatment with 0.33 mM HL23 for 96 h during the induction process, PIVKA-II production rate of the cells and colonies formed in the soft agar plate also remarkably decreased less than those of the normal cells. Furthermore, the population of hepatoblasts in the remaining cells increased about four times. These results suggest that the transformed hepatic stem cells could be selectively eliminated by the treatment of HL23, and HL treatment of the stem cells would be a useful culture method for quality control of the stem cells to reduce a risk of tumorigenesis after the cell transplantation.