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Oral cancer causes pain associated with cancer progression. We report here that the function of the Ca2+ channel ORAI1 is an important regulator of oral cancer pain. ORAI1 was highly expressed in tumor samples from patients with oral cancer, and ORAI1 activation caused sustained Ca2+ influx in human oral cancer cells. RNA-seq analysis showed that ORAI1 regulated many genes encoding oral cancer markers such as metalloproteases (MMPs) and pain modulators. Compared with control cells, oral cancer cells lacking ORAI1 formed smaller tumors that elicited decreased allodynia when inoculated into mouse paws. Exposure of trigeminal ganglia neurons to MMP1 evoked an increase in action potentials. These data demonstrate an important role of ORAI1 in oral cancer progression and pain, potentially by controlling MMP1 abundance. Editor's summary: Oral tumors greatly impair quality of life, in part because of the associated chronic pain that worsens as the disease progresses. Son et al. investigated the role of the Ca2+ channel ORAI1 in oral cancer cells. ORAI1 stimulated the migration of dysplastic oral keratinocytes and the proliferation of oral cancer cells. The enhanced pain sensitivity induced by allograft tumors of oral cancer cells was ablated by ORAI1 deficiency. Oral tumor pain is relayed by trigeminal ganglia, and conditioned medium from oral cancer cells increased the excitability of trigeminal ganglion neurons in an ORAI1-dependent manner. These results suggest that ORAI1 activity could be targeted to reduce oral tumor growth and pain. —Wei Wong [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The ability of food products to store and dissipate electromagnetic energy is determined by the material's dielectric properties. In relation to this phenomenon, a non-destructive technique is presented for food evaluation based on the shift in resonant frequency and reflection coefficient magnitude value of the proposed slot-loaded microstrip line-fed antenna-based sensor caused by the change in dielectric properties of the food material. In this work, a miniaturized antenna sensor of 10 × 10 mm2 size comprised of a dielectric substrate FR-4 with permittivity (εr) = 4.4 having ground plane at the bottom and a radiating element at the top is designed to operate at 13.3 GHz. Three samples of spices, i.e. red chilli powder, black pepper powder, and turmeric powder, are considered for quality monitoring whose relationship in terms of reflection coefficient, resonant frequency, and dielectric permittivity at 13.17, 12.61, and 13.09 GHz respectively is analyzed. Further, second-order polynomial model is derived to predict dielectric permittivity of the material under test with high accuracy. The experimental procedure of this proposed sensor is based upon the interaction of the sample food materials with the electromagnetic field owing to shift in resonant frequency as a function of dielectric permittivity of the samples. The proposed antenna sensor has a Q -factor of 409, showing significantly high sensitivity of 280 MHz with 98% accuracy and standard deviation less than the difference between unadulterated and adulterated values, giving resolution high enough to distinguish adulteration with an acceptable statistical accuracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Small molecules directly targeting the voltage-gated sodium channel (VGSC) NaV1.7 have not been clinically successful. We reported that preventing the addition of a small ubiquitin-like modifier onto the NaV1.7-interacting cytosolic collapsin response mediator protein 2 (CRMP2) blocked NaV1.7 function and was antinociceptive in rodent models of neuropathic pain. Here, we discovered a CRMP2 regulatory sequence (CRS) unique to NaV1.7 that is essential for this regulatory coupling. CRMP2 preferentially bound to the NaV1.7 CRS over other NaV isoforms. Substitution of the NaV1.7 CRS with the homologous domains from the other eight VGSC isoforms decreased NaV1.7 currents. A cell-penetrant decoy peptide corresponding to the NaV1.7-CRS reduced NaV1.7 currents and trafficking, decreased presynaptic NaV1.7 expression, reduced spinal CGRP release, and reversed nerve injury-induced mechanical allodynia. Importantly, the NaV1.7-CRS peptide did not produce motor impairment, nor did it alter physiological pain sensation, which is essential for survival. As a proof-of-concept for a NaV1.7 -targeted gene therapy, we packaged a plasmid encoding the NaV1.7-CRS in an AAV virus. Treatment with this virus reduced NaV1.7 function in both rodent and rhesus macaque sensory neurons. This gene therapy reversed and prevented mechanical allodynia in a model of nerve injury and reversed mechanical and cold allodynia in a model of chemotherapy-induced peripheral neuropathy. These findings support the conclusion that the CRS domain is a targetable region for the treatment of chronic neuropathic pain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary: This paper presents an efficient optimization strategy based on the Stoyan and Yaskov algorithm to maximize the tube density of randomly distributed mixed carbon nanotube bundles (RMCBs) for configuring optimum performance of on‐chip interconnects. Optimizing tube density has proposed eight different RMCB (RMCB1–RMCB8) structures of a varying number of carbon nanotubes (CNTs), where RMCB1 has the maximum CNTs. Moreover, the ABCD technique adequately analyzes the temperature‐dependent frequency and stability characteristics of a three‐line RMCB interconnect placed on smooth and rough substrates (SiC, BN, and SiO2). The smooth substrate material has the best 3‐dB bandwidth compared with rough SiC substrate, followed by BN and SiO2 for all RMCB structures, and among all structures, the RMCB8 has the best 3‐dB bandwidth. The relative stability of RMCB1 is improved by 134.2% and 22.7% w.r.t. RMCB8 placed on a smooth and rough SiC substrate, respectively. Whereas bandwidth of the RMCB1 is reduced by 26% and 88.5% w.r.t. RMCB8 placed on a smooth and rough substrate, respectively. Hence, there is a tradeoff between the bandwidth and the relative stability as the number of CNT increases. Therefore, RMCB3 placed on a smooth substrate and RMCB4 placed on a rough SiC substrate are considered the best‐optimized RMCB interconnects to maintain a balance between the two. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Energy efficiency and throughput are concerns for energy-harvesting cognitive radio networks. However, attaining the maximum level of both requires optimization of sensing duration, harvested energy, and transmission time. To obtain the optimal values of these multiple parameters and to maximize the average throughput and energy efficiency, a new hybrid technique for multi-objective optimization is proposed. This hybrid optimization algorithm incorporates a Shapley value and a game theoretic concept into metaheuristics. Here, particle swarm optimization grey wolf optimization (PSOGWO) is selected as the source for the advanced hybrid algorithm. The concept of the unbiased nature of wolves is also added to PSOGWO to make it more efficient. Multi-objective optimization is formulated by taking a deep look into combined spectrum sensing and energy harvesting in a cognitive radio network (CSSEH). The Pareto optimal solutions for the multi-objective optimization problem of energy efficiency and throughput can be obtained using PSOGWO by updating the velocity with the weights. In the proposed Shapley hybrid multi-objective optimization algorithm, we used Shapley values to set up the weights that, in turn, updated the velocities of the particles. This updated velocity increased the ability of particles to reach a global optimum rather than becoming trapped in local optima. The solution obtained with this hybrid algorithm is the Shapley–Pareto optimal solution. The proposed algorithm is also compared with state-of-the-art PSOGWO, unbiased PSOGWO, and GWO. The results show a significant level of improvement in terms of energy efficiency by 3.56% while reducing the sensing duration and increasing the average throughput by 21.83% in comparison with standard GWO. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]