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The phantom array effect is one of the temporal light artefacts that can decrease performance and increase fatigue. The phantom array effect visibility shows large individual differences; however, the dominant factors that can explain these individual differences remain unclear. We investigated the relationship between saccadic eye movement speed and phantom array visibility at two different angles and four different directions of saccadic eye movement. The peak speed of saccadic eye movement and the phantom array effect visibility were measured at different modulation frequencies of the light source. Our results show that phantom array visibility increased as eye movement speed increased; the phantom array visibility was higher at a wide viewing angle with fast eye movement speed than at a narrow viewing angle. Moreover, when clustered into subgroups according to individual eye movement speed, the mean speed of the saccadic eye movement of each subgroup is related to the variations in the visibility of the phantom array effect of the subgroup. Therefore, saccadic eye movement speed is related to variations in phantom array effect visibility.

Bronchiectasis show various ventilatory disorders in pulmonary function. The characteristics and severity of patients with bronchiectasis according to these pulmonary dysfunctions are still very limited. This study aimed to evaluate the clinical, radiologic feature and the disease severity of patients with bronchiectasis according to spirometric patterns. We retrospectively evaluated 506 patients with bronchiectasis who underwent pulmonary lung function test (PFT) at a referral hospital between 2014 to 2021. The results showed that cylindrical type was the most common (70.8%) type of bronchiectasis on chest Computed tomography (CT), and 70% of patients had bilateral lung involvement. On the other hand, obstructive ventilatory disorder was the most common (51.6%), followed by normal ventilation (30%) and restrictive ventilatory disorder (18.4%). The modified Medical Research Council (mMRC) was highest in patients with obstructive ventilatory disorders, Modified Reiff score [median (interquartile range)] [6 (3–10), P < 0.001], FACED (FEV 1 , Age, Chronic colonization, Extension, and Dyspnea) score [3 (1–4), P < 0.001], and Bronchiectasis Severity (BSI) score [8 (5–11), P < 0.001] showed significantly highest values of obstructive ventilatory disorder rather than restrictive ventilatory disorder and normal ventilation. More than half of patients with bronchiectasis had obstructive ventilatory disorder. Bronchiectasis with obstructive ventilatory disorders has more dyspnea symptom, more disease severity and more radiologic severity. There was no significant association between spirometric pattern and radiologic type, but the more severe the radiologic severity, the more severe the lung function impairment.

The assembly of actin monomers into filaments and networks plays vital roles throughout eukaryotic biology, including intracellular transport, cell motility, cell division, determining cellular shape, and providing cells with mechanical strength. The regulation of actin assembly and modulation of filament mechanical properties are critical for proper actin function. It is well established that physiological salt concentrations promote actin assembly and alter the overall bending mechanics of assembled filaments and networks. However, the molecular origins of these salt-dependent effects, particularly if they involve nonspecific ionic strength effects or specific ion-binding interactions, are unknown. Here, we demonstrate that specific cation binding at two discrete sites situated between adjacent subunits along the long-pitch helix drive actin polymerization and determine the filament bending rigidity. We classify the two sites as “polymerization” and “stiffness” sites based on the effects that mutations at the sites have on salt-dependent filament assembly and bending mechanics, respectively. These results establish the existence and location of the cation-binding sites that confer salt dependence to the assembly and mechanics of actin filaments.

Cytoskeletal polymers play a fundamental role in the responses of cells to both external and internal stresses. Quantitative knowledge of the mechanical properties of those polymers is essential for developing predictive models of cell mechanics and mechano-sensing. Linear cytoskeletal polymers, such as actin filaments and microtubules, can grow to cellular length scales at which they behave as semiflexible polymers that undergo thermally-driven shape deformations. Bending deformations are often modeled using the wormlike chain model. A quantitative metric of a polymer's resistance to bending is the persistence length, the fundamental parameter of that model. A polymer's bending persistence length is extracted from its shape as visualized using various imaging techniques. However, the analysis methodologies required for determining the persistence length are often not readily within reach of most biological researchers or educators. Motivated by that limitation, we developed user-friendly, multi-platform compatible software to determine the bending persistence length from images of surface-adsorbed or freely fluctuating polymers. Three different types of analysis are available (cosine correlation, end-to-end and bending-mode analyses), allowing for rigorous cross-checking of analysis results. The software is freely available and we provide sample data of adsorbed and fluctuating filaments and expected analysis results for educational and tutorial purposes.

Scoring systems developed for predicting survival after allogeneic hematopoietic cell transplantation (HCT) show suboptimal prediction power, and various factors affect posttransplantation outcomes. A prediction model using a machine learning-based algorithm can be an alternative for concurrently applying multiple variables and can reduce potential biases. In this regard, the aim of this study is to establish and validate a machine learning-based predictive model for survival after allogeneic HCT in patients with hematologic malignancies. Data from 1470 patients with hematologic malignancies who underwent allogeneic HCT between December 1993 and June 2020 at Asan Medical Center, Seoul, South Korea, were retrospectively analyzed. Using the gradient boosting machine algorithm, we evaluated a model predicting the 5-year posttransplantation survival through 10-fold cross-validation. The prediction model showed good performance with a mean area under the receiver operating characteristic curve of 0.788 (SD 0.03). Furthermore, we developed a risk score predicting probabilities of posttransplantation survival in 294 randomly selected patients, and an agreement between the estimated predicted and observed risks of overall death, nonrelapse mortality, and relapse incidence was observed according to the risk score. Additionally, the calculated score demonstrated the possibility of predicting survival according to the different transplantation-related factors, with the visualization of the importance of each variable. We developed a machine learning-based model for predicting long-term survival after allogeneic HCT in patients with hematologic malignancies. Our model provides a method for making decisions regarding patient and donor candidates or selecting transplantation-related resources, such as conditioning regimens.

Actin polymerization drives cell movement and provides cells with structural integrity. Intracellular environments contain high concentrations of solutes, including organic compounds, macromolecules, and proteins. Macromolecular crowding has been shown to affect actin filament stability and bulk polymerization kinetics. However, the molecular mechanisms behind how crowding influences individual actin filament assembly are not well understood. In this study, we investigated how crowding modulates filament assembly kinetics using total internal reflection fluorescence (TIRF) microscopy imaging and pyrene fluorescence assays. The elongation rates of individual actin filaments analyzed from TIRF imaging depended on the type of crowding agent (polyethylene glycol, bovine serum albumin, and sucrose) as well as their concentrations. Further, we utilized all-atom molecular dynamics (MD) simulations to evaluate the effects of crowding molecules on the diffusion of actin monomers during filament assembly. Taken together, our data suggest that solution crowding can regulate actin assembly kinetics at the molecular level.

Abstract In human society, successful social interactions often hinge upon the ability to accurately estimate other’s perspectives, a skill that necessitates integrating contextual cues. This study investigates the neural mechanism involved in this capacity through a preference estimation task. In this task, participants were presented with the target’s face and asked to predict their preference for a given item. Preference estimation accuracy was assessed by calculating the percentage of correct guesses, where participants’ responses matched the target’s preferences on a 4-point Likert scale. Our research demonstrates that, based on inter-subject representational similarity analysis (IS-RSA), the multi-voxel patterns in the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) and the anterior insula (AI) predict individual differences in preference estimation accuracy. Specifically, the varying behavioural tendencies among participants in inferring others’ preferences were mirrored in the multivariate neural representations within these regions, both of which are known for their involvement in individual differences in interoception and context-dependent interpretation of ambiguous facial emotion. These findings suggest that mPFC and AI play pivotal roles in accurately estimating others’ preferences based on minimal information and provide insights that transcend the limitations of traditional univariate approaches by employing multivariate pattern analysis.

Clinical effect of donor-derived natural killer cell infusion (DNKI) after HLA-haploidentical hematopoietic cell transplantation (HCT) was evaluated in high-risk myeloid malignancy in phase 2, randomized trial. Seventy-six evaluable patients (aged 21–70 years) were randomized to receive DNKI (N = 40) or not (N = 36) after haploidentical HCT. For the HCT conditioning, busulfan, fludarabine, and anti-thymocyte globulin were administered. DNKI was given twice 13 and 20 days after HCT. Four patients in the DNKI group failed to receive DNKI. In the remaining 36 patients, median DNKI doses were 1.0 × 108/kg and 1.4 × 108/kg on days 13 and 20, respectively. Intention-to-treat analysis showed a lower disease progression for the DNKI group (30-month cumulative incidence, 35% vs 61%, P = 0.040; subdistribution hazard ratio, 0.50). Furthermore, at 3 months after HCT, the DNKI patients showed a 1.8- and 2.6-fold higher median absolute blood count of NK and T cells, respectively. scRNA-sequencing analysis in seven study patients showed that there was a marked increase in memory-like NK cells in DNKI patients which, in turn, expanded the CD8+ effector-memory T cells. In high-risk myeloid malignancy, DNKI after haploidentical HCT reduced disease progression. This enhanced graft-vs-leukemia effect may be related to the DNKI-induced, post-HCT expansion of NK and T cells. Clinical trial number: NCT02477787.

Actin plays critical roles in various cellular functions, including cell morphogenesis, differentiation, and movement. The assembly of actin monomers into double-helical filaments is regulated in surrounding microenvironments. Graphene is an attractive nanomaterial that has been used in various biomaterial applications, such as drug delivery cargo and scaffold for cells, due to its unique physical and chemical properties. Although several studies have shown the potential effects of graphene on actin at the cellular level, the direct influence of graphene on actin filament dynamics has not been studied. Here, we investigate the effects of graphene on actin assembly kinetics using spectroscopy and total internal reflection fluorescence microscopy. We demonstrate that graphene enhances the rates of actin filament growth in a concentration-dependent manner. Furthermore, cell morphology and spreading are modulated in mouse embryo fibroblast NIH-3T3 cultured on a graphene surface without significantly affecting cell viability. Taken together, these results suggest that graphene may have a direct impact on actin cytoskeleton remodeling.