Accurate genetic diagnosis of complex disorders will require complete evaluation of the genetic background even after a candidate disease-associated variant is identified.

Three new color‐tunable (deep‐blue to sky‐blue) and solution‐processable emitters—9′‐(2,12‐di‐tert‐butyl‐5,9‐dioxa‐13b‐boranaphtho[3,2,1‐de]anthracen‐7‐yl)‐9′H‐9,3′:6′,9″‐tercarbazole (TB‐3Cz), 9′‐(2,12‐di‐tert‐butyl‐5,9‐dioxa‐13b‐boranaphtho[3,2,1‐de]anthracen‐7‐yl)‐9,9″‐diphenyl‐9H,9′H,9″H‐3,3′:6′,3″‐tercarbazole (TB‐P3Cz), and 9‐(2,12‐di‐tert‐butyl‐5,9‐dioxa‐13b‐boranaphtho[3,2,1‐de]anthracen‐7‐yl)‐N3,N3,N6,N6‐tetraphenyl‐9H‐carbazole‐3,6‐diamine (TB‐DACz)—are demonstrated, which are cleverly designed and synthesized by appending a boron‐fused entity as an electron acceptor to different electron‐rich entities containing carbazole derivatives as donors. The thermal, photophysical, electrochemical, and electroluminescent characteristics of all the new materials are extensively investigated. Comprehensive photophysical investigations reveal that these emitters exhibit not only thermally activated delayed fluorescence (TADF) but also aggregation‐induced emission (AIE) properties. Consequently, solution‐processable organic light‐emitting diodes (OLEDs) fabricated using these new materials as nondoped emitters in the emissive layer exhibit a maximum external quantum efficiency (EQE) and Commission Internationale de l'Éclairage (CIE) color coordinates of 9.90% and (0.17, 0.07), respectively, for TB‐3Cz; 6.13% and (0.15, 0.08), respectively, for TB‐P3Cz; and 6.04% and (0.18, 0.40), respectively, for TB‐DACz. As far as it is known, the performance and ultrahigh color purity satisfying the deep‐blue CIE coordinates of the National Television System Committee (NTSC) for TB‐3Cz and TB‐P3Cz are the highest reported thus far for nondoped solution‐processable TADF emitters, indicating the great potential of these materials as deep‐blue luminogens in OLED applications.

A new side-chain polymer (X-TPACz) bearing hole-transporting pendant groups accompanying a thermally crosslinkable entity was synthesized using N-([1,1′-biphenyl]-4-yl)-N-(4-(9-(4-vinylbenzyl)-9H-carbazol-3-yl)­phenyl)­bicyclo­[4.2.0]­octa-1­(6),2,4-trien-3-amine (6) via addition polymerization. The X-TPACz could be spontaneously crosslinked without using any further reagents and showed a good film-forming property upon low-temperature thermal treatment. The thermal curing temperature for the X-TPACz film was optimized to be 180 °C based on a differential scanning calorimetry thermogram. Moreover, the thermal degradation temperature of X-TPACz measured to be over 467 °C using thermogravimetric analysis demonstrated that it shows excellent thermal stability. In particular, X-TPACz exhibits the highest occupied molecular orbital (HOMO) energy level to be −5.26 eV, which is beneficial for facile hole injection and transportation. Consequently, the thermally activated delayed fluorescence organic light-emitting diodes fabricated using X-TPACz as the hole-transporting material showed state-of-the-art performances with a low turn-on voltage (V on) of only 2.7 V and a high external quantum efficiency (EQE) of 19.18% with a high current efficiency (CE) of 66.88 cd/A and a high power efficiency (PE) of 60.03 lm/W, which are highly superior to those of the familiar poly­(9-vinylcarbazole) (PVK)-based devices (V on = 3.9 V, EQE of 17.42%, with CE of 58.33 cd/A and PE of 33.32 lm/W). The extremely low turn-on voltage and high EQE were found to be due to the higher-lying highest occupied molecular orbital energy level (E HOMO = −5.23 eV) and better hole-transporting property of X-TPACz than those of PVK.

There is no specific marker to evaluate the immuno-suppressive status of cancer patients. Several markers, such as CD124, latencyassociated peptide (LAP), arginase I, indole-amine-2,3-dioxygenase (IDO) and inducible nitric oxide synthase (iNOS), are known to be associated with immune suppression. However, there is little research regarding the change in these parameters after chemotherapy. The present study enrolled 23 chemo-naïve non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients and 19 healthy donors. From the 23 NSCLC patients, 11 post-chemotherapy samples were collected. Surface and functional markers were analyzed by flow-cytometry. The mean fluorescence intensities (MFI) of iNOS were higher and the MFI of LAP were lower in NSCLC patient than in healthy donors (P < 0.05). In a comparison of pre-chemotherapy and post-chemotherapy groups with NSCLC, the MFI of iNOS on granulocytes and monocytes and IDO on monocytes were significantly lower in the post-chemotherapy group than in the pre-chemotherapy group (P < 0.05). In a serial analysis with 10 patients who had paired samples and who showed clinical benefits from chemotherapy, the MFI of iNOS for both cell types, and of IDO and CD124 for monocytes decreased significantly after chemotherapy, compared with those before chemotherapy (iNOS, 4.79 ± 1.75 vs 2.83 ± 0.77, P = 0.005, for granulocytes and 6.15 ± 2.94 vs 2.76 ± 1.05, P = 0.005 for monocytes; IDO, 6.81 ± 3.43 vs 4.64 ± 1.55, P = 0.012 for monocytes; CD124, 2.31 ± 0.39 vs 1.94 ± 0.43, P = 0.008 for monocytes). The changes in arginase I and LAP expression were not significant. The changes in iNOS, IDO and CD124 expression were significant after chemotherapy in NSCLC. Further evaluation of the possibility of immune status monitoring using these parameters is needed. (Cancer Sci 2012; 103: 155-160)

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