Evaluation of cell-free DNA approaches for multi-cancer early detection.

In the Circulating Cell-free Genome Atlas (NCT02889978) substudy 1, we evaluate several approaches for a circulating cell-free DNA (cfDNA)-based multi-cancer early detection (MCED) test by defining clinical limit of detection (LOD) based on circulating tumor allele fraction (cTAF), enabling performance comparisons. Among 10 machine-learning classifiers trained on the same samples and independently validated, when evaluated at 98% specificity, those using whole-genome (WG) methylation, single nucleotide variants with paired white blood cell background removal, and combined scores from classifiers evaluated in this study show the highest cancer signal detection sensitivities. Compared with clinical stage and tumor type, cTAF is a more significant predictor of classifier performance and may more closely reflect tumor biology.

Private Weakly-Random Sequences from Human Heart Rate for Quantum Amplification.

We investigate whether the heart rate can be treated as a semi-random source with the aim of amplification by quantum devices. We use a semi-random source model called ε-Santha-Vazirani source, which can be amplified via quantum protocols to obtain a fully private random sequence. We analyze time intervals between consecutive heartbeats obtained from Holter electrocardiogram (ECG) recordings of people of different sex and age.

Relationship between intrarenal renin-angiotensin activity and re-hospitalization in patients with heart failure with reduced ejection fraction.

Objective: Heart failure (HF) is a clinical syndrome resulting from structural or functional damages. Although clinical trials have shown that the plasma renin-angiotensin system (RAS) activation decreases HF functional status and increases hospitalization for HF patients, the effect of intrarenal RAS activity is still unknown. In this study, we investigated the relationship between the New York Heart Association (NYHA) class, duration, and number of hospitalizations in the previous year and urinary angiotensinogen (UAGT) in patients with HF with reduced ejection fraction (HFrEF).

Detection of Prokaryotic Genes in the Amphimedon queenslandica Genome.

Horizontal gene transfer (HGT) is common between prokaryotes and phagotrophic eukaryotes. In metazoans, the scale and significance of HGT remains largely unexplored but is usually linked to a close association with parasites and endosymbionts. Marine sponges (Porifera), which host many microorganisms in their tissues and lack an isolated germ line, are potential carriers of genes transferred from prokaryotes.

Detection of ubiquitous and heterogeneous mutations in cell-free DNA from patients with early-stage non-small-cell lung cancer.

Background: The aim of this pilot study was to assess whether both ubiquitous and heterogeneous somatic mutations could be detected in cell-free DNA (cfDNA) from patients with early-stage non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC).

Patients And Methods: Three stage I and one stage II primary NSCLC tumors were subjected to multiregion whole-exome sequencing (WES) and validated with AmpliSeq. A subset of ubiquitous and heterogeneous single-nucleotide variants (SNVs) were chosen.