Publications by authors named "Thomas Burger"

Study Design: N/A.

Objective: This study investigated the different ways of orbital floor reconstruction with special focus on reconstruction materials, imaging modalities (intra-/ post-operative), 3D printing and navigation.

Methods: The heads of all governmental-run or associated cranio-maxillofacial surgery units in Switzerland, Austria and Germany were asked in person or received an email link for an online survey with 12 questions.

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  • Phosphorylation, a key post-translation modification, is regulated by kinases and phosphatases and plays a crucial role in cellular pathways, including how cells respond to viral infections like hepatitis B virus (HBV).
  • Research focused on how HBV infection affects cellular phosphorylation in primary human hepatocytes revealed significant changes in the phosphorylation of host proteins, particularly those tied to DNA repair and RNA metabolism, following infection.
  • Up-phosphorylated proteins linked to DNA damage signaling and cell communication were identified, indicating that HBV infection triggers a DNA damage response which could influence viral replication and the virus's life cycle.
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Background: Metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease (MASLD) is estimated to affect 30% of the world's population, and its prevalence is increasing in line with obesity. Liver fibrosis is closely related to mortality, making it the most important clinical parameter for MASLD. It is currently assessed by liver biopsy - an invasive procedure that has some limitations.

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  • Replication of the human sense of touch in robots and prosthetics can enhance their interaction with the environment, and the article discusses a soft artificial fingertip with 144 tactile sensors for this purpose.
  • The sensors, wrapped in 1D strips around the fingertip, are highly sensitive, measuring touch and vibrations with a resolution of 1 sensor/mm, significantly outperforming human tactile sensitivity when integrated with specialized electronics.
  • The technology undergoes rigorous testing for durability and functionality, demonstrating its ability to detect touch, vibrations, and contact forces through both static and dynamic sensing capabilities.
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  • Thoracic outlet syndrome (TOS) is a rare problem mainly affecting younger people and diagnosing it can take a long time, which is not good for patient health.
  • Digital subtraction angiography (DSA) is usually used to diagnose TOS, but it uses radiation which can be harmful to younger patients.
  • The study found that ultrasound (US) is a better option because it doesn't use radiation, is easy to access, and works well for diagnosing arterial TOS (aTOS).
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Selecting omic biomarkers using both their effect size and their differential status significance (, selecting the “volcano-plot outer spray”) has long been equally biologically relevant and statistically troublesome. However, recent proposals are paving the way to resolving this dilemma.

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Cullin-RING finger ligases represent the largest family of ubiquitin ligases. They are responsible for the ubiquitination of ∼20% of cellular proteins degraded through the proteasome, by catalyzing the transfer of E2-loaded ubiquitin to a substrate. Seven cullins are described in vertebrates.

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In discovery proteomics, as well as many other "omic" approaches, the possibility to test for the differential abundance of hundreds (or of thousands) of features simultaneously is appealing, despite requiring specific statistical safeguards, among which controlling for the false discovery rate (FDR) has become standard. Moreover, when more than two biological conditions or group treatments are considered, it has become customary to rely on the one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) framework, where a first global differential abundance landscape provided by an omnibus test can be subsequently refined using various post-hoc tests (PHTs). However, the interactions between the FDR control procedures and the PHTs are complex, because both correspond to different types of multiple test corrections (MTCs).

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Prostar is a software tool dedicated to the processing of quantitative data resulting from mass spectrometry-based label-free proteomics. Practically, once biological samples have been analyzed by bottom-up proteomics, the raw mass spectrometer outputs are processed by bioinformatics tools, so as to identify peptides and quantify them, notably by means of precursor ion chromatogram integration. From that point, the classical workflows aggregate these pieces of peptide-level information to infer protein-level identities and amounts.

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In the proteomics field, the production and publication of reliable mass spectrometry (MS)-based label-free quantitative results is a major concern. Due to the intrinsic complexity of bottom-up proteomics experiments (requiring aggregation of data relating to both precursor and fragment peptide ions into protein information, and matching this data across samples), inaccuracies and errors can occur throughout the data-processing pipeline. In a classical label-free quantification workflow, the validation of identification results is critical since errors made at this first stage of the workflow may have an impact on the following steps and therefore on the final result.

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In proteomic differential analysis, FDR control is often performed through a multiple test correction (i.e., the adjustment of the original p-values).

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Background: Proteogenomics aims to identify variant or unknown proteins in bottom-up proteomics, by searching transcriptome- or genome-derived custom protein databases. However, empirical observations reveal that these large proteogenomic databases produce lower-sensitivity peptide identifications. Various strategies have been proposed to avoid this, including the generation of reduced transcriptome-informed protein databases, which only contain proteins whose transcripts are detected in the sample-matched transcriptome.

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In their recent review ( 2022, 21 (4), 849-864), Crook et al. diligently discuss the basics (and less basics) of Bayesian modeling, survey its various applications to proteomics, and highlight its potential for the improvement of computational proteomic tools. Despite its interest and comprehensiveness on these aspects, the pitfalls and risks of Bayesian approaches are hardly introduced to proteomic investigators.

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Genes are pleiotropic and getting a better knowledge of their function requires a comprehensive characterization of their mutants. Here, we generated multi-level data combining phenomic, proteomic and metabolomic acquisitions from plasma and liver tissues of two C57BL/6 N mouse models lacking the Lat (linker for activation of T cells) and the Mx2 (MX dynamin-like GTPase 2) genes, respectively. Our dataset consists of 9 assays (1 preclinical, 2 proteomics and 6 metabolomics) generated with a fully non-targeted and standardized approach.

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Background: The clustering of data produced by liquid chromatography coupled to mass spectrometry analyses (LC-MS data) has recently gained interest to extract meaningful chemical or biological patterns. However, recent instrumental pipelines deliver data which size, dimensionality and expected number of clusters are too large to be processed by classical machine learning algorithms, so that most of the state-of-the-art relies on single pass linkage-based algorithms.

Results: We propose a clustering algorithm that solves the powerful but computationally demanding kernel k-means objective function in a scalable way.

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Summary: Many factors can influence results in clinical research, in particular bias in the distribution of samples prior to biochemical preparation. Well Plate Maker is a user-friendly application to design single- or multiple-well plate assays. It allows multiple group experiments to be randomized and therefore helps to reduce possible batch effects.

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  • In bottom-up discovery proteomics, target-decoy competition (TDC) is the main method for controlling false discovery rates (FDR), but it has stability issues that have gone unnoticed in practical applications.
  • * Despite TDC's solid statistical basis, evidence suggests that its reliability has decreased as modern mass spectrometers have become more accurate.
  • * The article proposes a new FDR control method that is based on the Benjamini-Hochberg framework, which is easier to use, faster, and more stable, making it better suited for today's proteomic platforms.
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Wilson's disease (WD), a rare genetic disease caused by mutations in the ATP7B gene, is associated with altered expression and/or function of the copper-transporting ATP7B protein, leading to massive toxic accumulation of copper in the liver and brain. The Atp7b mouse, a genetic and phenotypic model of WD, was developed to provide new insights into the pathogenic mechanisms of WD. Many plasma proteins are secreted by the liver, and impairment of liver function can trigger changes to the plasma proteome.

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Results from mass spectrometry based quantitative proteomics analysis correspond to a subset of proteins which are considered differentially abundant relative to a control. Their selection is delicate and often requires some statistical expertise in addition to a refined knowledge of the experimental data. To facilitate the selection process, we have considered differential analysis as a five-step process, and here we present the practical aspects of the different steps.

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ProStaR is a software tool dedicated to differential analysis in label-free quantitative proteomics. Practically, once biological samples have been analyzed by bottom-up mass spectrometry-based proteomics, the raw mass spectrometer outputs are processed by bioinformatics tools, so as to identify peptides and quantify them, by means of precursor ion chromatogram integration. Then, it is classical to use these peptide-level pieces of information to derive the identity and quantity of the sample proteins before proceeding with refined statistical processing at protein-level, so as to bring out proteins which abundance is significantly different between different groups of samples.

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  • Two new genera are introduced: Robertsicus and Archaeocroton, each based on unique tick species formerly classified under Amblyomma.
  • Robertsicus includes R. elaphensis, a tick found on the Trans-Pecos rat-snake in Mexico and parts of the USA, while Archaeocroton includes Ar. sphenodonti, a tick associated with the tuatara in New Zealand.
  • This reclassification helps clarify the systematic issues within the Amblyomma genus and resolves a long-standing mystery regarding a tick that resembled Ar. sphenodonti found in the Carpathian Mountains, which was actually a result of travel from New Zealand.
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  • The term "spectral clustering" can refer to both clustering mass spectrometry data and a set of popular clustering algorithms.
  • This dual meaning can lead to confusion in understanding what is being discussed.
  • To clarify this issue, creating a more specific term for one of the meanings could be beneficial.
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