Triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) is a highly aggressive breast cancer subtype characterised by the absence of targetable hormone receptors and increased metastatic rates. As nuclear softening strongly contributes to TNBC's enhanced metastatic capacity, increasing the nuclear stiffness of TNBC cells may present a promising therapeutic avenue. Previous evidence has demonstrated the ability of Sirtuin 2 (SIRT2) inhibition to induce cytoskeletal reorganisation, a key factor in regulating nuclear mechanics.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFComput Med Imaging Graph
November 2024
Full-thickness macular holes are a relatively common and visually disabling condition with a prevalence of approximately 0.5% in the over-40-year-old age group. If left untreated, the hole typically enlarges, reducing visual acuity (VA) below the definition of blindness in the eye affected.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIEEE J Biomed Health Inform
November 2024
In radiology, particularly in lung cancer diagnosis, diagnostic errors and cognitive biases pose substantial challenges. These issues, including perceptual errors, interpretive mistakes, and cognitive biases such as anchoring and premature closure, are often unnoticed by experienced radiologists. To address these challenges, we propose the Multi-Eyes principle approach, which utilises multiple deep learning models to reduce bias and potentially improve diagnostic accuracy.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFEukaryotic cells tether the nucleoskeleton to the cytoskeleton via a conserved molecular bridge, called the LINC complex. The core of the LINC complex comprises SUN-domain and KASH-domain proteins that directly associate within the nuclear envelope lumen. Intra- and inter-chain disulphide bonds, along with KASH-domain protein interactions, both contribute to the tertiary and quaternary structure of vertebrate SUN-domain proteins.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFEarly detection is crucial for lung cancer to prolong the patient's survival. Existing model architectures used in such systems have shown promising results. However, they lack reliability and robustness in their predictions and the models are typically evaluated on a single dataset, making them overconfident when a new class is present.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjective: Advanced laryngeal cancers are clinically complex; there is a paucity of modern decision-making models to guide tumour-specific management. This pilot study aims to identify computed tomography-based radiomic features that may predict survival and enhance prognostication.
Methods: Pre-biopsy, contrast-enhanced computed tomography scans were assembled from a retrospective cohort ( = 72) with advanced laryngeal cancers (T3 and T4).
In ophthalmology, optical coherence tomography (OCT) is a widely used imaging modality, allowing visualisation of the structures of the eye with objective and quantitative cross-sectional three-dimensional (3D) volumetric scans. Due to the quantity of data generated from OCT scans and the time taken for an ophthalmologist to inspect for various disease pathology features, automated image analysis in the form of deep neural networks has seen success for the classification and segmentation of OCT layers and quantification of features. However, existing high-performance deep learning approaches rely on huge training datasets with high-quality annotations, which are challenging to obtain in many clinical applications.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPurpose: To study the behaviour of expansile intravitreal gases and air used in treating rhegmatogenous retinal detachment.
Methods: A validated mathematical model of gas expansion and absorption in human eyes was used to simulate the effect of varying volumes of pure air, SF6, C2F6 and C3F8 injected into the vitreous cavity. Variation in axial length was accounted for by using three different vitreous cavity volumes to represent hypermetropic, emmetropic and myopic eyes.
The COVID-19 epidemic has changed the world dramatically since societies are changing their behaviour according to the new normal, which comes along with numerous challenges and uncertainties. These uncertainties have led to instabilities in several facets of society, most notably health, economy and public order. Measures to contain the pandemic by governments have occasionally met with increasing discontent from societies and have triggered social unrest, imposing serious threats to human security.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIn this article, we present a new benchmark for the segmentation of the retinal external limiting membrane (ELM) using an image dataset of spectral domain optical coherence tomography (OCT) scans in a patient population with idiopathic full-thickness macular holes. Specifically, the dataset used contains OCT images from one eye of 107 patients with an idiopathic full-thickness macular hole. In total, the dataset contains 5243 individual 2-dimensional (2-D) OCT image slices, with each patient contributing 49 individual spectral-domain OCT tagged image slices.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThis paper proposes an efficient segmentation of the preretinal area between the inner limiting membrane (ILM) and posterior cortical vitreous (PCV) of the human eye in an image obtained with the use of optical coherence tomography (OCT). The research was carried out using a database of three-dimensional OCT imaging scans obtained with the Optovue RTVue XR Avanti device. Various types of neural networks (UNet, Attention UNet, ReLayNet, LFUNet) were tested for semantic segmentation, their effectiveness was assessed using the Dice coefficient and compared to the graph theory techniques.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjectives: Radiomics is the conversion of medical images into quantitative high-dimensional data. Laryngeal cancer, one of the most common head and neck cancers, has risen globally by 58.7%.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAutism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a group of neurological and developmental disabilities characterised by clinical and genetic heterogeneity. The current study aimed to expand ASD genotyping by investigating potential associations with mutations. Specifically, the disease-causing variants of in 410 trios manifesting neurodevelopmental disorders using whole-exome sequencing were explored.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFOrgan and tissue development are highly coordinated processes; lens growth and functional integration into the eye (emmetropia) is a robust example. An epithelial monolayer covers the anterior hemisphere of the lens, and its organization is the key to lens formation and its optical properties throughout all life stages. To better understand how the epithelium supports lens function, we have developed a novel whole tissue imaging system using conventional confocal light microscopy and a specialized analysis software to produce three-dimensional maps for the epithelium of intact mouse lenses.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjective: Full-thickness macular holes (MH) are classified principally by size, which is one of the strongest predictors of anatomical and visual success. Using a three-dimensional (3D) automated image processing algorithm, we analysed optical coherence tomography (OCT) images of 104 MH of patients, comparing MH dimensions and morphology with clinician-acquired two-dimensional measurements.
Methods And Analysis: All patients underwent a high-density central horizontal scanning OCT protocol.
Quantification and modelling of curvilinear structures in 2D and 3D images is a common challenge in a wide range of biomedical applications. Image enhancement is a crucial pre-processing step for curvilinear structure quantification. Many of the existing state-of-the-art enhancement approaches still suffer from contrast variations and noise.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIEEE Trans Med Imaging
February 2018
Macular holes are blinding conditions, where a hole develops in the central part of retina, resulting in reduced central vision. The prognosis and treatment options are related to a number of variables, including the macular hole size and shape. High-resolution spectral domain optical coherence tomography allows precise imaging of the macular hole geometry in three dimensions, but the measurement of these by human observers is time-consuming and prone to high inter- and intra-observer variability, being characteristically measured in 2-D rather than 3-D.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFA characteristic feature of the skin blistering disease epidermolysis bullosa simplex is keratin filament (KF) network collapse caused by aggregation of the basal epidermal keratin type II (KtyII) K5 and its type I partner keratin 14 (K14). Here, we examine the role of keratin phosphorylation in KF network rearrangement and cellular functions. We detect phosphorylation of the K5 head domain residue T150 in cytoplasmic epidermolysis bullosa simplex granules containing R125C K14 mutants.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIEEE Trans Pattern Anal Mach Intell
September 2017
Helical objects occur in medicine, biology, cosmetics, nanotechnology, and engineering. Extracting a 3D parametric curve from a 2D image of a helical object has many practical applications, in particular being able to extract metrics such as tortuosity, frequency, and pitch. We present a method that is able to straighten the image object and derive a robust 3D helical curve from peaks in the object boundary.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBlobs and curves occur everywhere in plant bioimaging: from signals of fluorescence-labelled proteins, through cytoskeletal structures, nuclei staining and cell extensions such as root hairs. Here we look at the problem of colocalisation of blobs with blobs (protein-protein colocalisation) and blobs with curves (organelle-cytoskeleton colocalisation). This article demonstrates a clear quantitative alternative to pixel-based colocalisation methods and, using object-based methods, can quantify not only the level of colocalisation but also the distance between objects.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFCell polarization and fusion are crucial developmental processes that occur in response to intracellular and extracellular signals. Asexual spores (conidia) of the mold Neurospora crassa differentiate two types of polarized cell protrusions, germ tubes and conidial anastomosis tubes (CATs), which exhibit negative and positive chemotropism, respectively. We provide the first evidence that shared and separate functions of the Rho-type GTPases CDC-42 and RAC-1 regulate these opposite chemotropisms.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFHuman placental syncytiotrophoblasts lack expression of most types of human leukocyte antigen (HLA) class I and class II molecules; this is thought to contribute to a successful pregnancy. However, the HLA class Ib antigens HLA-G, -E, and -F and the HLA class Ia antigen HLA-C are selectively expressed on extravillous trophoblast cells, and they are thought to play a major role in controlling feto-maternal tolerance. We have hypothesized that selective expression, coupled with the preferential physical association of pairs of HLA molecules, contribute to the function of HLA at the feto-maternal interface and the maternal recognition of the fetus.
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