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Purpose: To evaluate the potential differences in characteristics of femoropopliteal in-stent restenosis (ISR) stratified by stent design with a focus on the swirling flow-inducing BioMimics 3D helical centerline stent. Methods: Patients with ISR of the superficial femoral and popliteal arteries undergoing reintervention were included in this study. The primary endpoint was the angiographic localization and extent of restenosis or reocclusion with the following five different stent systems: SMART Control stent, Supera peripheral stent, GORE® VIABAHN® endoprosthesis, BioMimics 3D stent, and Zilver® PTX® stent. Results: 414 ISR lesions were analyzed, affecting 236 Supera stents, 67 BioMimics 3D stents, 48 Zilver® PTX® stents, 38 SMART Control stents, and 25 VIABAHN® endoprostheses. The mean stent diameter and length were 5.7 ± 0.77 mm and 121.4 ± 94.8 mm, respectively. ISR included 310 (74.9%) lesions with 1 stent, 89 (21.5%) lesions with 2 stents, 14 (3.4%) lesions with 3 stents, and 1 lesion (0.2%) with 4 stents. Most lesions presented as reocclusions (67.4%) rather than focal (13.3%) or diffuse restenoses (19.3%). No significant differences in ISR lesion morphology were found. By trend, BioMimics 3D stent lesion extension was more focal (16.4% versus 12.7%, p = 0.258), with the highest proportion of lesions in which only the proximal stent third was affected (9.0% versus 5.8%, p = 0.230), as compared to the average of the other four devices. The occlusion rate was the second lowest for the BioMimics 3D stent (64.2 vs. 68.0%, p = 0.316). Risk factors for restenosis or occlusion were active smoking, pre-interventional occlusion, and popliteal intervention. Conclusion: Our results suggest that the helical centerline stent design of the BioMimics 3D stent, which results in a swirling flow with increased wall shear stress, may offer protective properties over straight stent designs, including DES and endoprosthesis, regarding localization and extension of restenosis. Prospective, randomized studies are warranted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: In addition to manual compression, various vascular closure devices (VCD) are available to seal the puncture site following arterial vascular procedures. Purpose: To evaluate the efficacy and safety of the extravascular MYNX CONTROL closure system for achieving primary hemostasis after femoral arterial access following peripheral arterial procedures, compared to the intravascular FemoSeal Aclosure system. Patients and Methods: A retrospective analysis of consecutive patients who underwent endovascular intervention between April and November 2022 was performed. The primary endpoint was the incidence of significant puncture site complication defined as a complication resulting in medical treatment. Secondary endpoints included peri-interventional incidence of hematoma, peri-interventional changes in hemoglobin, incidence of emergency diagnostics and predictors for closure system failure. Results: Five hundred and forty-eight patients were included in this analysis. False aneurysm occurred in 18/273 cases (6.6%) following the use of the MYNX closure system, compared to 6/275 cases after using the FemoSeal closure system (2.2%, p = 0.006). The incidence of post-interventional hematoma was not significantly different (28 (10.3%) in the MYNX group versus 32 (11.6%) in the FemoSeal group, p = 0.358). Peri-interventional hemoglobin drop did not differ between groups (p = 0.449). Emergency diagnostics were not significantly performed more often in the MYNX group (14 (5.1%) versus 8 (2.9%), p = 0.134). A post-interventional duplex sonography showed stenosis at the puncture site in one patient after use of the MYNX system. For the entire cohort, oral anticoagulation was the only predictor for the failure of the closure device (p = 0.036). Conclusions: Device failure was more common after using the extravascular MYNX CONTROL system than after using the intravascular FemoSeal system. However, the need for surgical or interventional therapy due to device failure was low. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Broad-line radio galaxies (BLRGs) are active galactic nuclei that produce powerful, large-scale radio jets, but appear as Seyfert 1 galaxies in their optical spectra. In the X-ray band, BLRGs also appear like Seyfert galaxies, but with flatter spectra and weaker reflection features. One explanation for these properties is that the X-ray continuum is diluted by emission from the jet. Here, we present two NuSTAR observations of the BLRG 3C 382 that show clear evidence that the continuum of this source is dominated by thermal Comptonization, as in Seyfert 1 galaxies. The two observations were separated by over a year and found 3C 382 in different states separated by a factor of 1.7 in flux. The lower flux spectrum has a photon-index of , while the photon-index of the higher flux spectrum is . Thermal and anisotropic Comptonization models provide an excellent fit to both spectra and show that the coronal plasma cooled from kTe = 330 ± 30 keV in the low flux data to keV in the high flux observation. This cooling behavior is typical of Comptonizing corona in Seyfert galaxies and is distinct from the variations observed in jet-dominated sources. In the high flux observation, simultaneous Swift data are leveraged to obtain a broadband spectral energy distribution and indicates that the corona intercepts ∼10% of the optical and ultraviolet emitting accretion disk. 3C 382 exhibits very weak reflection features, with no detectable relativistic Fe Kα line, that may be best explained by an outflowing corona combined with an ionized inner accretion disk. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

GA binding protein (GABP) is a ubiquitously expressed Ets family transcription factor that consists of two subunits, GABP and GABPβ. GABP binds to DNA, and GABPβ heterodimerizes with GABP and possesses the ability to transactivate target genes. Our previous studies using GABP-deficient mice revealed that GABP is required for the development of both T and B cells. Two splice variants of GABPβ are generated from the Gabpb1 locus and differ in their carboxy-terminal lengths and sequences. The longer isoform (GABPβ1L) can homodimerize and thus form 2β2 tetramers depending on the gene context, whereas the shorter isoform (GABPβ1S) cannot. In this study, we generated mice that are deficient in GABPβ1L but that retain the expression of GABPβ1S. Surprisingly, GABPβ1L-/- mice had normal T- and B-cell development, and mature T and B cells showed normal responses to various stimuli. In contrast, targeting both GABPβ1L and GABPβ1S resulted in early embryonic lethality. Because of its incapability of forming homodimers, GABPβ1S has been suspected to have a dominant negative role in regulating GABP target genes. Our findings argue against such a possibility and rather suggest that GABPβ1S has a critical role in maintaining the transcriptional activity of the GABP/β complex. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A decrease in the 13C/12C ratio of atmospheric CO2 has been documented by direct observations since 1978 and from ice core measurements since the industrial revolution. This decrease, known as the 13C-Suess effect, is driven primarily by the input of fossil fuelderived CO2 but is also sensitive to land and ocean carbon cycling and uptake. Using updated records, we show that no plausible combination of sources and sinks of CO2 from fossil fuel, land, and oceans can explain the observed 13C-Suess effect unless an increase has occurred in the 13C/12C isotopic discrimination of land photosynthesis. A trend toward greater discrimination under higher CO2 levels is broadly consistent with tree ring studies over the past century, with field and chamber experiments, and with geological records of C3 plants at times of altered atmospheric CO2, but increasing discrimination has not previously been included in studies of long-term atmospheric 13C/12C measurements. We further show that the inferred discrimination increase of 0.014 ± 0.007‰ ppm-1 is largely explained by photorespiratory and mesophyll effects. This result implies that, at the global scale, land plants have regulated their stomatal conductance so as to allow the CO2 partial pressure within stomatal cavities and their intrinsic water use efficiency to increase in nearly constant proportion to the rise in atmospheric CO2 concentration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights a study which cloned a cDNA and gene belonging to the Manduca sexta, which is the tobacco hornworm, associated with the vertebrate cellular retinoic acid binding proteins (CRABP). Definition of CRABP; Detection of Manduca sexta CRABP; Methodology used to conduct the study; Results of the study.

Purpose: According to the World Health Organization classification for tumors of the central nervous system, mutation status of the isocitrate dehydrogenase (IDH) genes has become a major diagnostic discriminator for gliomas. Therefore, imaging-based prediction of IDH mutation status is of high interest for individual patient management. We compared and evaluated the diagnostic value of radiomics derived from dual positron emission tomography (PET) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) data to predict the IDH mutation status non-invasively., Methods: Eighty-seven glioma patients at initial diagnosis who underwent PET targeting the translocator protein (TSPO) using [ 18 F]GE-180, dynamic amino acid PET using [ 18 F]FET, and T1-/T2-weighted MRI scans were examined. In addition to calculating tumor-to-background ratio (TBR) images for all modalities, parametric images quantifying dynamic [ 18 F]FET PET information were generated. Radiomic features were extracted from TBR and parametric images. The area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC) was employed to assess the performance of logistic regression (LR) classifiers. To report robust estimates, nested cross-validation with five folds and 50 repeats was applied., Results: TBR GE-180 features extracted from TSPO-positive volumes had the highest predictive power among TBR images (AUC 0.88, with age as co-factor 0.94). Dynamic [ 18 F]FET PET reached a similarly high performance (0.94, with age 0.96). The highest LR coefficients in multimodal analyses included TBR GE-180 features, parameters from kinetic and early static [ 18 F]FET PET images, age, and the features from TBR T2 images such as the kurtosis (0.97)., Conclusion: The findings suggest that incorporating TBR GE-180 features along with kinetic information from dynamic [ 18 F]FET PET, kurtosis from TBR T2 , and age can yield very high predictability of IDH mutation status, thus potentially improving early patient management., (© 2024. The Author(s).)

Introduction: Large datasets are required to ensure reliable non-invasive glioma assessment with radiomics-based machine learning methods. This can often only be achieved by pooling images from different centers. Moreover, trained models should perform with high accuracy when applied to data from different centers. In this study, the impact of reconstruction settings and segmentation methods on radiomic features derived from amino acid and TSPO PET images of glioma patients was examined. Additionally, the ability to model and thus reduce feature differences was investigated., Methods: [ 18 F]FET and [ 18 F]GE-180 PET data were acquired from 19 glioma patients. For each acquisition, 10 reconstruction settings and 9 segmentation methods were included to emulate multicentric data. Statistical robustness measures were calculated before and after ComBat harmonization. Differences between features due to setting variations were assessed using Friedman test, coefficient of variation (CV) and inter-rater reliability measures, including intraclass and Spearman's rank correlation coefficients and Fleiss' Kappa., Results: According to Friedman analyses, most features (>60%) showed significant differences. Yet, CV and inter-rater reliability measures indicated higher robustness. ComBat resulted in almost complete harmonization (>87%) according to Friedman test and little to no improvement according to CV and inter-rater reliability measures. [ 18 F]GE-180 features were more sensitive to reconstruction settings than [ 18 F]FET features., Conclusions: According to Friedman test, feature distributions could be successfully aligned using ComBat. However, depending on settings, changes in patient ranks were observed for some features and could not be eliminated by harmonization. Thus, for clinical utilization it is recommended to exclude affected features., Competing Interests: Declaration of Competing Interest The authors declare the following financial interests/personal relationships which may be considered as potential competing interests: N.L.A. is member of the EANM Neuroimaging Committee (NIC). M.B. received speaker honoraria from Roche, GE healthcare and Life Molecular Imaging and is an advisor of Life Molecular Imaging and a member of the EANM NIC. All other authors declare that they have no conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2023 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier GmbH.. All rights reserved.)

68 Ga-DOTATATE PET/CT enables detection of meningioma tissue based on somatostatin receptor 2 expression. Transosseous extension of intracranial meningiomas is known to be an important risk factor for tumor recurrence and patient mortality. We analyzed the diagnostic performance of 68 Ga-DOTATATE PET/CT and contrast-enhanced MRI (CE-MRI) for the detection of osseous infiltration using qualitative and quantitative imaging parameters. Methods: In this institutional review board-approved retrospective study, subjects were selected from 327 consecutive 68 Ga-DOTATATE PET/CT examinations for evaluation of confirmed or suspected meningioma. Inclusion criteria were CE-MRI within 30 d and pathology-confirmed meningioma diagnosis with inclusion or exclusion of transosseous extension as the standard of reference. Imaging was analyzed by two readers. Tracer uptake values and meningioma volumes were determined. χ 2 , Mann-Whitney U, Wilcoxon signed rank, and McNemar tests, as well as receiver-operating-characteristic analyses, were performed to compare variables and diagnostic performance. Results: Eighty-two patients fulfilled the inclusion criteria. Patients with transosseous extension of meningioma ( n = 67) showed significantly larger lesions (median, 12.8 vs. 3.3 mL; P < 0.001) and significantly higher tracer uptake values (median SUV max , 14.2 vs. 7.6; P = 0.011) than patients with extraosseous meningiomas ( n = 15). 68 Ga-DOTATATE PET/CT in comparison to CE-MRI performed at a higher sensitivity (98.5% vs. 53.7%) while maintaining high specificity (86.7% vs. 93.3%) in the detection of osseous involvement ( P < 0.001). In receiver-operating-characteristic analysis, PET/CT assessment performed better than CE-MRI (area under the curve, 0.932 vs. 0.773). PET/CT- and CE-MRI-based volume estimation yielded comparable results for extraosseous meningiomas ( P = 0.132) and the extraosseous part of transosseous meningiomas ( P = 0.636), whereas the volume of the intraosseous part was assessed as significantly larger by PET/CT ( P < 0.001). Conclusion: 68 Ga-DOTATATE PET/CT enables improved detection of the transosseous extension of intracranial meningiomas compared with CE-MRI., (© 2017 by the Society of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging.)