Almost 50% of NSCLC patients who initially show a successful response to tyrosine kinase inhibitors targeted therapy (TKI therapy) eventually develop acquired
T790M mutation. The T790M secondary ...mutation can cause resistance to the targeted therapy and disease relapse. Since this mutation can be present at very low frequencies in liquid biopsy samples, droplet digital PCR (ddPCR), due to its high sensitivity, has opened the possibility for minimally invasive monitoring of the disease during TKI targeted therapy.
For this study, a total of 45 plasma samples from NSCLC patients with previously detected
-activating mutations were analyzed. Extracted circulating free DNA was amplified and examined for the presence of T790M mutation using ddPCR technology. For the data analysis, QuantaSoft Software was used.
Of 45 tested plasma samples, a total of 14 samples were identified as positive for the T790M mutation. The same samples eventually showed the presence of T790M mutation in FFPE. Droplet digital PCR showed its great advantage in high sensitivity detection of rare allele variants. Our ddPCR assay detected T790M mutant allele in frequencies from 0.1%. The average number of droplets generated by ddPCR was 9571.
Monitoring of the T790M mutation has an important role in the examination of the effects of the prescribed TKI therapy. Since monitoring of potential changes during TKI therapy requires repeated sampling, our results showed that ddPCR technology has made it possible to use liquid biopsy as an adequate minimally invasive alternative for single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNP) detection.
Development of a functional refreshment beverage containing purple basil was main purpose of the study. While spontaneously fermented beverages were produced in two different times were named as ...Control I and Control II; beverages inoculated with Lactobacilus plantarum strains (LP31 and LP20) named as Starter I and Starter II, respectively. To the results, pH, brix° and total acidity values were changed between 3.15 - 3.37, 5.90 - 6.40 and 0.66 - 0.76%, respectively. Number all of the microorganisms decreased during the fermentation. However, LP20 was found more suitable as starter due to vegetable origin.
We present measurements of the reduction of light output by plastic scintillators irradiated in the CMS detector during the 8 TeV run of the Large Hadron Collider and show that they indicate a strong ...dose rate effect. The damage for a given dose is larger for lower dose rate exposures. The results agree with previous measurements of dose rate effects, but are stronger due to the very low dose rates probed. We show that the scaling with dose rate is consistent with that expected from diffusion effects.
Subsequent to the publication of this paper, one of the hybrid photodiodes used as the photode- tector was removed and highly localized damage on its photocathode was discovered. The study of the ...photodiode cathode was published in Review of Scientific Instruments 90, 02303 (2019).
EDITOR'S NOTE: This is 1 of 5 papers reporting on the results of a 4-year project to develop an environmental risk-based decision support tool, to assist the oil industry in establishing ...cost-effective measures for reducing risk to the marine environment from drilling discharges. Drilling discharges are complex mixtures of chemical components and particles which might lead to toxic and nontoxic stress in the environment. In order to be able to evaluate the potential environmental consequences of such discharges in the water column and in sediments, a numerical model was developed. The model includes water column stratification, ocean currents and turbulence, natural burial, bioturbation, and biodegradation of organic matter in the sediment. Accounting for these processes, the fate of the discharge is modeled for the water column, including near-field mixing and plume motion, far-field mixing, and transport. The fate of the discharge is also modeled for the sediment, including sea floor deposition, and mixing due to bioturbation. Formulas are provided for the calculation of suspended matter and chemical concentrations in the water column, and burial, change in grain size, oxygen depletion, and chemical concentrations in the sediment. The model is fully 3-dimensional and time dependent. It uses a Lagrangian approach for the water column based on moving particles that represent the properties of the release and an Eulerian approach for the sediment based on calculation of the properties of matter in a grid. The model will be used to calculate the environmental risk, both in the water column and in sediments, from drilling discharges. It can serve as a tool to define risk mitigating measures, and as such it provides guidance towards the “zero harm” goal.
A search for dark matter particles is performed by looking for events with large transverse momentum imbalance and a recoiling Higgs boson decaying to either a pair of photons or a pair of τ leptons. ...The search is based on proton-proton collision data at a center-of-mass energy of 13 TeV collected at the CERN LHC in 2016 and corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 35.9 fb$^{−1}$. No significant excess over the expected standard model background is observed. Upper limits at 95% confidence level are presented for the product of the production cross section and branching fraction in the context of two benchmark simplified models. For the Z$^{′}$-two-Higgs-doublet model (where Z$^{′}$ is a new massive boson mediator) with an intermediate heavy pseudoscalar particle of mass m$_{A}$ = 300 GeV and m$_{DM}$ = 100 GeV, the Z$^{′}$ masses from 550 GeV to 1265 GeV are excluded. For a baryonic Z$^{′}$ model, with m$_{DM}$ = 1 GeV, Z$^{′}$ masses up to 615 GeV are excluded. Results are also presented for the spin-independent cross section for the dark matter-nucleon interaction as a function of the mass of the dark matter particle. This is the first search for dark matter particles produced in association with a Higgs boson decaying to two τ leptons.
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