Current Status of Long Non-Coding RNAs in Human Cancer with Specific Focus on Colorectal Cancer

The latest investigations of long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) have revealed their important role in human cancers. LncRNAs are larger than 200 nucleotides in length and fulfill their cellular purpose without being translated into proteins. Though the molecular functions of some lncRNAs have been elucidated, there is still a high number of lncRNAs with unknown or controversial functions. In this review, we provide an overview of different lncRNAs and their role in human cancers. In particular, we emphasize their importance in tumorigenesis of colorectal cancer, the third most common cancer worldwide.     

Immune Aging and Immunotherapy in Cancer

Immune functions decline as we age, while the incidence of cancer rises. The advent of immune checkpoint blockade (ICB) has not only revolutionized cancer therapy, but also spawned great interest in identifying predictive biomarkers, since only one third of patients show treatment response. The aging process extensively affects the adaptive immune system and thus T cells, which are the main target of ICB. In this review, we address age-related changes regarding the adaptive immune system with a focus on T cells and their implication on carcinogenesis and ICB. Differences between senescence, exhaustion, and anergy are defined and current knowledge, treatment strategies, and studies exploring T cell aging as a biomarker for ICB are discussed. Finally, novel approaches to improve immunotherapies and to identify biomarkers of response to ICB are presented and their potential is assessed in a comparative analysis.     

Faces versus patterns: Exploring aesthetic reactions using facial EMG.

We used facial EMG to examine reactions to the attractiveness of natural (faces) and artificial (abstract patterns) stimuli under long and short presentation durations. Attractive stimuli produced strong activations of the M. zygomaticus major muscle, indicating positive affective reactions; and unattractive stimuli produced strong activations of the M. corrugator supercili muscle, indicating negative affective reactions. Fluency effects, indicated by stronger activations of the M. zygomaticus major under the longer presentation duration were, however, only found for the abstract patterns. Moreover, the abstract patterns also were associated with more consistent activations over time than the faces, suggesting differences in the processes underlying the evaluation of faces and patterns. We discuss these results in terms of differences in appraisal processes between the two classes of stimuli—the greater biological, social, and sociosexual significance of faces trigger more complex appraisals than the abstract patterns. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effect of Proton Irradiation on Interface State Density in Sc<Subscript>2</Subscript>O<Subscript>3</Subscript>/GaN and Sc<Subscript>2</Subscript>O<Subscript>3</Subscript>/MgO/GaN Diodes

Proton irradiation of Sc₂O₃/GaN and Sc₂O₃/MgO/GaN metal-oxide semiconductor diodes was performed at two energies, 10 MeV and 40 MeV, and total fluences of 5 × 10⁹ cm⁻², corresponding to 10 years in low-earth orbit. The proton damage causes a decrease in forward breakdown voltage and a flat-band voltage shift in the capacitance-voltage characteristics, indicating a change in fixed oxide charge and damage to the dielectric. The interface state densities after irradiation increased from 5.9 × 10¹¹ cm⁻² to 1.03 × 10¹² cm⁻² in Sc₂O₃/GaN diodes and from 2.33 × 10¹¹ to 5.3 × 10¹¹ cm⁻² in Sc₂O₃/MgO/GaN diodes. Postannealing at 400°C in forming gas recovered most of the original characteristics but did increase the interfacial roughness.     

Band Offsets in the Mg0.5Ca0.5O/GaN Heterostructure System

MgCaO offers promise as a gate dielectric for GaN-based metal-oxide-semiconductor (MOS) transistors, particularly in combination with environmentally stable capping layers such as Sc₂O₃. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) was used to measure the energy discontinuity in the valence band (ΔE _v ) of Mg_0.5Ca_0.5O/GaN heterostructures in which the MgCaO was grown by rf plasma-assisted molecular beam epitaxy on top of thick GaN templates on sapphire substrates. A value of ΔE _v = 0.65 eV ± 0.10 eV was obtained by using the Ga 3d energy level as a reference. Given the bandgap of 7.45 eV for the MgCaO, we infer a conduction band offset ΔE _C of 3.36 eV in the Mg_0.5Ca_0.5O system.