Publications by authors named "Soong B"

Tertiary lymphoid structures (TLS) are organized immune cell aggregates that arise in chronic inflammatory conditions. In cancer, TLS are associated with better prognosis and enhanced response to immunotherapy, making these structures attractive therapeutic targets. However, the mechanisms regulating TLS formation and maintenance in cancer are incompletely understood.

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Spinocerebellar ataxia type 22 (SCA22) caused by KCND3 mutations is an autosomal dominant disorder. We established a mouse model carrying the Kcnd3 F227del mutation to study the molecular pathogenesis. Four findings were pinpointed.

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  • Increased intracranial pressure (ICP) ≥15 mmHg can harm neurological health, but measuring it traditionally requires invasive methods; researchers developed a new AI-based biomarker (aICP) using non-invasive extracranial waveform data instead.
  • The aICP was validated using an independent dataset and showed good performance metrics with an area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUROC) of 0.80 and an accuracy of 73.8%.
  • Further analysis indicated that higher aICP predictions are linked to specific health conditions, such as brain tumors and intracerebral hemorrhages, suggesting its potential clinical relevance.
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  • Aging increases the risk of cancer by affecting how the immune system works, especially in lung tumors.
  • Older immune cells lead to the buildup of certain cells that produce IL-1⍺, which makes cancer grow faster.
  • By blocking IL-1R1 signaling early on, scientists found they could slow down cancer growth in the lungs, colon, and pancreas, and learned how aging is linked to worse cancer outcomes in humans.
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Monocyte-derived macrophages (mo-macs) drive immunosuppression in the tumor microenvironment (TME) and tumor-enhanced myelopoiesis in the bone marrow (BM) fuels these populations. Here, we performed paired transcriptome and chromatin analysis over the continuum of BM myeloid progenitors, circulating monocytes, and tumor-infiltrating mo-macs in mice and in patients with lung cancer to identify myeloid progenitor programs that fuel pro-tumorigenic mo-macs. Analyzing chromatin accessibility and histone mark changes, we show that lung tumors prime accessibility for Nfe2l2 (NRF2) in BM myeloid progenitors as a cytoprotective response to oxidative stress.

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Ebola virus (EBOV) is a high-consequence filovirus that gives rise to frequent epidemics with high case fatality rates and few therapeutic options. Here, we applied image-based screening of a genome-wide CRISPR library to systematically identify host cell regulators of Ebola virus infection in 39,085,093 million single cells. Measuring viral RNA and protein levels together with their localization in cells identified over 998 related host factors and provided detailed information about the role of each gene across the virus replication cycle.

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Background And Objectives: The differentiation of spinocerebellar ataxia type II (SCA 2) from idiopathic multiple systemic atrophy of the cerebellar type (MSA-C) is often difficult in patients with cerebellar ataxia when molecular testing is not available. Besides genetic testing, magnetic resonance imagining (MRI) and magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS) prove to be beneficial. Nevertheless, the characteristics observed through radiology change as the disease advances.

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  • Increased intracranial pressure (ICP) can lead to serious neurological problems, but requires invasive methods for monitoring, prompting the need for a non-invasive alternative.
  • The study focused on creating and validating an AI model that detects increased ICP using non-invasive physiological data from patients, rather than requiring direct ICP measurements.
  • Developed using data from an ICU database, the AI model demonstrated high accuracy and sensitivity in detecting elevated ICP, with promising results in external validation from a separate hospital dataset.
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Recent advances in embedded antenna and sensor technologies for 5G communications have galvanized a response toward the investigation of their electromagnetic performance for urban contexts and civil engineering applications. This article quantitatively investigates the effects of material loading on an evolved antecedent hexagonal complementary split-ring resonator (CSRR)-loaded antenna design through simulation and experimentation. Optimization of the narrowband antenna system was first performed in a simulation environment to achieve resonance at 3.

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is the most frequently mutated gene across many cancers and is associated with shorter survival in lung adenocarcinoma (LUAD). To define how mutations affect the LUAD tumor microenvironment (TME), we constructed a multi-omic cellular and spatial tumor atlas of 23 treatment-naïve human lung tumors. We found that -mutant ( ) malignant cells lose alveolar identity and upregulate highly proliferative and entropic gene expression programs consistently across resectable LUAD patient tumors, genetically engineered mouse models, and cell lines harboring a wide spectrum of mutations.

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Despite no apparent defects in T cell priming and recruitment to tumors, a large subset of T cell rich tumors fail to respond to immune checkpoint blockade (ICB). We leveraged a neoadjuvant anti-PD-1 trial in patients with hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), as well as additional samples collected from patients treated off-label, to explore correlates of response to ICB within T cell-rich tumors. We show that ICB response correlated with the clonal expansion of intratumoral CXCL13CH25HIL-21PD-1CD4 T helper cells ("CXCL13 T") and Granzyme K PD-1 effector-like CD8 T cells, whereas terminally exhausted CD39TOXPD-1CD8 T cells dominated in nonresponders.

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Epidermal homeostasis is governed by a balance between keratinocyte proliferation and differentiation with contributions from cell-cell interactions, but conserved or divergent mechanisms governing this equilibrium across species and how an imbalance contributes to skin disease are largely undefined. To address these questions, human skin single-cell RNA sequencing and spatial transcriptomics data were integrated and compared with mouse skin data. Human skin cell-type annotation was improved using matched spatial transcriptomics data, highlighting the importance of spatial context in cell-type identity, and spatial transcriptomics refined cellular communication inference.

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  • * A consortium of neurologists developed the "Scale for Ocular Motor Disorders in Ataxia" (SODA) to assess the extent of eye movement deficits, making it accessible for non-specialist healthcare providers.
  • * Validation studies showed SODA effectively measures specific eye movement abnormalities, yet its scores don't correlate with existing ataxia scales, suggesting that traditional measures may not adequately address ocular motor dysfunction.
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Background And Purpose: Multiple system atrophy (MSA) has no definitive genetic or environmental (G-E) risk factors, and the integrated effect of these factors on MSA etiology remains unknown. This study was undertaken to investigate the integrated effect of G-E factors associated with MSA and its subtypes, MSA-P and MSA-C.

Methods: A consecutive case-control study was conducted at two medical centers, and the interactions between genotypes of five previously reported susceptible single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs; SNCA_rs3857059, SNCA_rs11931074, COQ2_rs148156462, EDN1_rs16872704, MAPT_rs9303521) and graded exposure (never, ever, current) of four environmental factors (smoking, alcohol, drinking well water, pesticide exposure) were analyzed by a stepwise logistic regression model.

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Differentiation cerebellar multiple systemic atrophy (MSA-C) from spinocerebellar ataxia (SCA) is important. The "hot cross bun" sign (HCBS) at pons and magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS) are helpful. However, the prevalence of HCBS and the alteration of cerebellar MRS parameters are evolving with disease progression.

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Discovery of the genetic components underpinning fundamental and disease-related processes is being rapidly accelerated by combining efficient, programmable genetic engineering with phenotypic readouts of high spatial, temporal and/or molecular resolution. Microscopy is a fundamental tool for studying cell biology, but its lack of high-throughput sequence readouts hinders integration in large-scale genetic screens. Optical pooled screens using in situ sequencing provide massively scalable integration of barcoded lentiviral libraries (e.

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Background: Polyglutamine (polyQ) diseases are dominant neurodegenerative diseases caused by an expansion of the polyQ-encoding CAG repeats in the disease-causing gene. The length of the CAG repeats is the major determiner of the age at onset (AO) of polyQ diseases, including Huntington's disease (HD) and spinocerebellar ataxia type 3 (SCA3).

Objective: We set out to identify common genetic variant(s) that may affect the AO of polyQ diseases.

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Purpose: We present a case of retinal vasculopathy with cerebral leukodystrophy and review the usefulness of optical coherence tomography angiography (OCT-A) in the assessment of long-term outcomes.

Case Description: A 31-year-old woman developed sudden-onset scotoma in her right eye. Fundus examination and fluorescein angiography showed a patch of soft exudate and capillary nonperfusion in the posterior pole and outside the vascular arcades.

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Loss-of-function mutations in the K4.3 channel-encoding gene are linked to neurodegenerative cerebellar ataxia. Patients suffering from neurodegeneration associated with iron deposition may also present with cerebellar ataxia.

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The AFG3L2 gene encodes AFG3-like protein 2, which is a subunit of human mitochondrial ATPases associated with various cellular protease activities (m-AAA). The clinical spectrum of AFG3L2 mutations is broad. Dominant AFG3L2 mutations can cause autosomal dominant spinocerebellar ataxia type 28 (SCA28), whereas biallelic AFG3L2 mutations may lead to spastic ataxia 5 (SPAX5).

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encodes the voltage-gated potassium channel K4.3 that is highly expressed in the cerebellum, where it regulates dendritic excitability and calcium influx. Loss-of-function K4.

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Aim: To investigate the clinical and genetic features of hereditary spastic paraplegia (HSP) type 3A (SPG3A) in Taiwan.

Methods: Mutational analysis of the ATL1 gene was performed for 274 unrelated Taiwanese HSP patients. The diagnosis of SPG3A was ascertained by the presence of a heterozygous pathogenic mutation in ATL1.

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Intermediate-length CAG repeats in have been well recognized as a genetic risk factor for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). However, the role of similar trinucleotide repeat expansions in the TATA-box binding protein gene (), another disease-associated gene for inherited ataxia, in ALS remains elusive. To assess the association between trinucleotide repeat expansions and ALS, we investigated the repeat lengths in 325 unrelated ALS patients and 1500 controls in the Taiwanese population.

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