A novel immunogenic cell death signature for the prediction of prognosis and therapies in glioma.

Glioma is a primary cranial malignancy with high recurrence rate, poor prognosis and high mortality. However, the roles of immunogenic cell death (ICD) in glioma remain unclear. Twenty ICD genes were analyzed to be differentially expressed between glioma tissues and non-tumor tissues in 371 glioma patients from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA). Patients were classified into three subgroups via unsupervised clustering. Interestingly, the features of cell-infiltrating from three clusters were matched with three immune phenotypes. An applied scoring system was built depending on the expression of hub ICD-related genes. Notably, the ICD-related score was linked with immune checkpoints and the prognosis of glioma patients. In addition, the applied risk model could be used for the prediction of the effect of chemotherapy and immunotherapy for glioma patients. Furthermore, MYD88 was identified to play key roles in the risk model for glioma patients. MYD88 was specifically expressed in malignant cells and validated to correlate with cell proliferation and invasion. Ligand-receptor pairs are determined as novel communications indicating between immunocytes and malignant cells. Therefore, our research established an ICD-related score to investigate the potential effect to chemotherapy and immunotherapy for glioma patients and indicated that MYD88 was a key role in this risk model.

Analysis and Design of Robust H∞ Fault Estimation Observer With Finite-Frequency Specifications for Discrete-Time Fuzzy Systems.

This paper addresses the problem of fault estimation observer design with finite-frequency specifications for discrete-time Takagi-Sugeno (T-S) fuzzy systems. First, for such T-S fuzzy models, an H∞ fault estimation observer with pole-placement constraint is proposed to achieve fault estimation. Based on the generalized Kalman-Yakubovich-Popov lemma, the given finite-frequency observer possesses less conservatism compared with the design of the entire-frequency domain. Furthermore, the performance of the presented fault estimation observer is further enhanced by adding the degree of freedom. Finally, two examples are presented to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed strategy.

Value of T2-mapping and DWI in the diagnosis of early knee cartilage injury.

OBJECTIVE: To study the value of T2-mapping and diffusion weighted imaging (DWI) in the diagnosis of early injury of knee cartilage. METHODS: Seventy-two subjects, including healthy group (n=30) and early cartilage injury group (n=42), were tested on MR scans with T2-mapping and DWI. T2 and apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC) values of cartilage were measured after being processed at the workstation, and the differences were statistically analyzed between the two groups. RESULTS: The mean T2 and ADC values of cartilage in early injury group and health group were respectively 51.58±4.15 ms and 1.78±0.35 ×10(-3) mm(2)/s, 39.54±4.02 ms and 1.44±0.17 ×10(-3) mm(2)/s. There was significant difference between the values of T2 and ADC. CONCLUSION: T2 and ADC values in early cartilage injury have obviously increased. T2-mapping and DWI have high clinical value in the diagnosis of early articular cartilage injury.

MR imaging of the cisternal segment of the posterior group of cranial nerves: neurovascular relationships and abnormal changes.

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the detailed anatomic features, neurovascular relationships of the cisternal segment of the posterior group of cranial nerves (PGCN: IX, X, XI, XII); to evaluate the utility of magnetic resonance (MR) in demonstrating the PGCN with disorders caused by abnormal compression related to artery or tumor. METHODS: A total of 59 volunteers, 12 patients with abnormal symptom in the PGCN underwent three-dimensional (3D) Fourier transformation constructive interference in steady-state (CISS) MR imaging, and 22 of these volunteers and 12 patients also underwent MR angiography in which a time-of-flight (TOF) sequence was used to further distinguish the PGCN from the adjacent blood vessels. Anatomical features, neurovascular relationships of the PGCN in 59 volunteers and abnormal changes in 12 patients caused by neurovascular compression or tumor were observed from multi-planar reconstruction (MPR) images, cryomicrotome section and 3D-CISS MR imaging of cranial cadaver were used to testify the PGCN displayed in 59 volunteers. RESULTS: 3D-CISS MR imaging depicted the proximal cisternal segment of the cranial nerves complex (CN IX, X, XI) at the oblique axial, sagittal planes in 100% (118/118), 99% (117/118) of 118 sides; CNXII in the oblique axial, sagittal planes in 90% (106/118), 91% (107/118) of 118 sides. At the sagittal planes, the CN IX, X, XI were found parallel to each other in the cisternal segment in 45.2% (53/117) of 117 sides, gathering into a bundle of nerves complex before entering the jugular foramen (JF) in 54.7% (64/117) of 117 sides. VAs were blood vessels more often identified, they were found to be in contact with the PGCN in 28.0% (33/118) of 118 sides, and not in contact in 72.0% (85/118) of 118 sides. 3D-CISS MR imaging of volunteers revealed the similar result corresponding to cryomicrotome section and 3D-CISS MR imaging of cranial cadaver. Twelve patients with abnormal changes in the PGCN were all displayed well, among them 8 were pressed by arteries, 1 by arachnoid cyst, and 3 caused by tumors. CONCLUSION: Use of 3D-CISS sequence enables accurate identification of the cisternal segment of the PGCN, neurovascular relationships and abnormal changes caused by neurovascular compression or tumor.