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Here we describe the combination of an archetypal redox-active metal sulfide cluster, Fe 4 S 4 , with an organic linker, 1,4benzenedithiolate, to prepare coordination polymers containing infinite chains of Fe 4 S 4 clusters. The crystal structures of two solid materials have been solved from synchrotron X-ray powder diffraction data using simulated annealing and refined by a leastsquares Rietveld refinement procedure. The electronic properties of these chains have also been characterized by UV−visible and Mossbauer spectroscopies. Additional experiments demonstrated that these chains can be solubilized by variation of the countercation and that the chain structure is maintained in solution. The redox-activity of the Fe 4 S 4 clusters can be accessed with chemical reagents. Introduction of charge carriers by reduction of the Fe 4 S 4 clusters is found to increase the electrical conductivity of the materials by up to 4 orders of magnitude. These results highlight the utility of Fe 4 S 4 clusters as redox-active building blocks in preparing new classes of coordination polymers.

Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) is one of the deadliest forms of cancer. Accumulating evidence indicates the tumor microenvironment is highly associated with tumorigenesis through regulation of cellular physiology, signaling systems, and gene expression profiles of cancer cells. Yet the mechanisms by which the microenvironment evolves from normal pancreas architecture to precursor lesions and invasive cancer is poorly understood. Obtaining high-content and high-resolution information from a complex tumor microenvironment in large volumetric landscapes represents a key challenge in the field of cancer biology. To address this challenge, we established a novel method to reconstruct three-dimensional (3D) centimeter-scale tissues containing billions of cells from serially sectioned histological samples, utilizing deep learning approaches to recognize eight distinct tissue subtypes from hematoxylin and eosin stained sections at micrometer and single-cell resolution. Using samples from a range of normal, precancerous, and invasive pancreatic cancer tissue, we map in 3D modes of cancer invasion in the tumor microenvironment, and emphasize the need for further 3D quantification of biological systems.

Pancreatic intraepithelial neoplasia (PanIN) is a precursor to pancreatic cancer and represents a critical opportunity for cancer interception. However, the number, size, shape, and connectivity of PanINs in human pancreatic tissue samples are largely unknown. In this study, we quantitatively assessed human PanINs using CODA, a novel machine-learning pipeline for 3D image analysis that generates quantifiable models of large pieces of human pancreas with single-cell resolution. Using a cohort of 38 large slabs of grossly normal human pancreas from surgical resection specimens, we identified striking multifocality of PanINs, with a mean burden of 13 spatially separate PanINs per cm3 of sampled tissue. Extrapolating this burden to the entire pancreas suggested a median of approximately 1000 PanINs in an entire pancreas. In order to better understand the clonal relationships within and between PanINs, we developed a pipeline for CODA-guided multi-region genomic analysis of PanINs, including targeted and whole exome sequencing. Multi-region assessment of 37 PanINs from eight additional human pancreatic tissue slabs revealed that almost all PanINs contained hotspot mutations in the oncogene KRAS, but no gene other than KRAS was altered in more than 20% of the analyzed PanINs. PanINs contained a mean of 13 somatic mutations per region when analyzed by whole exome sequencing. The majority of analyzed PanINs originated from independent clonal events, with distinct somatic mutation profiles between PanINs in the same tissue slab. A subset of the analyzed PanINs contained multiple KRAS mutations, suggesting a polyclonal origin even in PanINs that are contiguous by rigorous 3D assessment. This study leverages a novel 3D genomic mapping approach to describe, for the first time, the spatial and genetic multifocality of human PanINs, providing important insights into the initiation and progression of pancreatic neoplasia.

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