A ferroptosis-related LncRNAs signature for predicting prognoses and screening potential therapeutic drugs in patients with lung adenocarcinoma: A retrospective study.

BACKGROUND: Lung adenocarcinoma (LUAD) has a high mortality rate. Ferroptosis is linked to tumor initiation and progression. AIMS: This study aims to develop prognostic models of ferroptosis-related lncRNAs, evaluate the correlation between differentially expressed genes and tumor microenvironment, and identify prospective drugs for managing LUAD. METHODS AND RESULTS: In this study, transcriptomic and clinical data were downloaded from the TCGA database, and ferroptosis-related genes were obtained from the FerrDb database. Through correlation analysis, Cox analysis, and the LASSO algorithm for constructing a prognostic model, we found that ferroptosis-related lncRNA-based gene signatures (FLncSig) had a strong prognostic predicting ability in the LUAD patients. Gene Ontology (GO) and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) enrichments reconfirmed that ferroptosis is related to receptor-ligand activity, enzyme inhibitor activity, and the IL-17 signaling pathway. Next, tumor mutation burden (TMB), tumor immune dysfunction and exclusion (TIDE) algorithms, and pRRophetic were used to predict immunotherapy response and chemotherapy sensitivity. The IMvigor210 cohort was also used to validate the prognostic model. In the tumor microenvironment, Type_II_IFN_Response and HLA were found to be a group of low-risk pathways, while MHC_class_I was a group of high-risk pathways. Patients in the high-risk subgroup had lower TIDE scores. Exclusion, MDSC, CAF, and TAMM2 were significantly and positively correlated with risk scores. In addition, we found 15 potential therapeutic drugs for LUAD. Finally, differential analysis of stemness index based on mRNA expression (mRNAsi) indicated that mRNAsi was correlated with gender, primary tumor (T), distant metastasis (M), and the tumor, node, and metastasis (TNM) stage in LUAD patients. CONCLUSIONS: In conclusion, the prognostic model based on FLncSig can alleviate the difficulty in predicting the prognosis and immunotherapy of LUAD patients. The identified FLncSig and the screened drugs exhibit potential for clinical application and provide references for the treatment of LUAD.

Ultrafast beam steering using gradient Au-Ge2Sb2Te5-Au plasmonic resonators.

Beam steering devices have gained extensive interests in the fields of optical interconnects, communications, displays and data storages. However, the challenge lies in obtaining an ultrafast beam steering structure in the optical regime. Here, we propose phase-array-like plasmonic resonators based on metal/phase-change materials (PCMs)/metal trilayers for all-optical ultrafast beam steering in the mid-infrared (MIR) region. We numerically demonstrate an angle beam steering of 11° for transmitted wave (front lobe) and 22° for reflected wave (back lobe) by switching between the amorphous and crystalline states of the PCM (Ge2Sb2Te5). A photothermal model is used to study the temporal variation of the temperature of the Ge2Sb2Te5 film to show potential for switching the phase of Ge2Sb2Te5 by optical heating. Generation of the beam steering in this structure exhibits a fast beam steering time of 3.6 ns under a low pump light intensity of 2.6 µW/µm2. Our design possesses a simple geometry which can be fabricated using standard photolithography patterning and is essential for exploiting the ultrafast beam steering in various applications in the MIR regime.