[Research on Improving the Measurement Speed of THz-TDS Instruments].

The measurement speed is an important parameter of terahertz time-domain spectroscopy (THz-TDS) instruments. To improve the measurement speed of the spectrometer we need to increase the scanning speed of the delay line. In this paper, we study the influence of the scanning speed, the time constant of lock-in amplifier and the sampling rate on the signal quality. The results show that, when the time constant equal to 10 ms, increasing the scanning speed does not cause significant changes in the amplitude of the signal. But when the time constant equal to 30, 100 and 300 ms, with the increasing of the scanning speed the signal amplitude decreases rapidly. Therefore, the time constant should be set as small as possible to avoid deterioration of signal quality. On the other hand, higher the scanning speed is, fewer data points are collected with a same time-domain length. Therefore, when the scanning speed increase, not only the time constant should be reduced, but also the sampling rate should be increased to avoid the distortion of signal waveform caused by the number reduction of data points. The conclusions can provide a reference for improving the measurement speed of THz-TDS instrument.

Profiling of gene fusion involving targetable genes in Chinese gastric cancer.

BACKGROUND: Approximately half of all new cases of gastric cancer (GC) and related deaths occur in China. More than 80% of patients with GC are diagnosed at an advanced stage, which results in poor prognosis. Although HER2-directed therapy and immune checkpoint inhibitors have been somewhat successful, new drugs are still needed for the treatment of GC. Notably, several gene fusion-targeted drugs have been approved by the United States Food and Drug Administration for solid tumors, including GC, such as larotrectinib for NTRK fusion-positive cancers and zenocutuzumab for NRG1 fusion-positive cancers. However, gene fusions involving targetable genes have not been well characterized in Chinese patients with GC. AIM: To identify the profile of fusions involving targetable genes in Chinese patients with GC using clinical specimens and determine the distribution of patients with gene fusion variants among the molecular subtypes of GC. METHODS: We retrospectively analyzed gene fusion events in tumor tissue samples from 954 Chinese patients with GC. Clinicopathological characteristics were obtained from their medical records. Genetic alterations, such as single nucleotide variants, indels, amplifications, and gene fusions, were identified using a targeted sequencing panel containing 825 genes. Fusions were validated by fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) using break-apart probes. The microsatellite instability (MSI) status was evaluated using MSIsensor from the targeted sequencing panel data. Tumor mutational burden (TMB) was calculated using the total number of nonsynonymous mutations divided by the total genomic targeted region. Chi-square analysis was used to determine the enrichment of gene fusions associated with the molecular subtypes of GC. RESULTS: We found that 1.68% (16/954) of patients harbored 20 fusion events involving targetable genes. RARA fusions (n = 5) were the most common, followed by FGFR2, BRAF, MET, FGFR3, RET, ALK, EGFR, NTRK2, and NRG1 fusions. Two of the RARA fusions, EML4-ALK (E6:E20) and EGFR-SEPTIN14 (E7:E10), have been identified in other tumors but not in GC. Surprisingly, 18 gene fusion events were previously not reported in any cancer types. Twelve of the eighteen novel gene fusions included complete exons encoding functional domains of targetable genes, such as the tyrosine kinase domain of receptor tyrosine kinases and the DNA- and ligand-binding domains of RARA. Consistent with the results of detection using the targeted sequencing fusion panel, the results of FISH (fluorescence in situ hybridization) confirmed the rearrangement of FGFR2 and BRAF in tumors from patients 04 and 09, respectively. Genetic analysis indicated that the fusion genes were significantly enriched in patients with ERBB2 amplification (P = 0.02); however, there were no significant differences between fusion-positive and fusion-negative patients in age, sex, MSI status, and TMB. CONCLUSION: We characterized the landscape of fusions involving targetable genes in a Chinese GC cohort and found that 1.68% of patients with GC harbor potential targetable gene fusions, which were enriched in patients with ERBB2 amplification. Gene fusion detection may provide a potential treatment strategy for patients with GC with disease progression following standard therapy.

Polarization-independent and angle-insensitive electromagnetically induced transparent (EIT) metamaterial based on bi-air-hole dielectric resonators.

We numerically demonstrate that an electromagnetically induced transparent (EIT) all-dielectric metamaterial with properties of polarization-independence and incident angle insensitivity can be achieved in terahertz regimes. The metamaterial cell is composed of two bi-air-hole cubes (BCs) with different sizes. The two BCs function as superradiant and subradiant resonators, respectively. Based on Mie-type destructive interferences between dielectric resonators, the EIT effect is induced at around 8.25 THz with the transmission peak close to 0.95. Moreover, the "two-particle" model is introduced to describe the EIT effect and the influence of couplings between the two BCs on the transmission spectra. Analytical results are in good agreement with numerical simulation results. Owing to the symmetry and uniformity of the metamaterial structure, polarization-independent and angle-insensitive properties can be achieved. In addition, the slow light characteristic of the metamaterial is also verified. Such an EIT scheme may have potential applications in low-loss slow light devices and bandpass filters.