Ordered molecular materials are increasingly used in active electronic and photonic organic devices. In this progress report we discuss whether the self‐assembling properties and supramolecular structures of liquid crystals can be tailored to improve such devices. Recent developments in charge‐transporting and luminescent liquid crystals are discussed in the context of material requirements for organic light‐emitting devices, photovoltaics, and thin film transistors. We identify high carrier mobility, polarized emission, and enhanced output‐coupling as the key advantages of nematic and smectic liquid crystals for electroluminescence. The formation of anisotropic polymer networks gives the added benefits of multilayer capability and photopatternability. The anisotropic transport and high carrier mobilities of columnar liquid crystals make them promising candidates for photovoltaics and transistors. We also outline some of the issues in material design and processing that these applications demand. The photonic properties of chiral liquid crystals and their use as mirror‐less lasers are also discussed.
For the first time photo cross-linking of linearly polymerizable polymers (LPPs) is shown to induce uniaxial planar alignment in adjacent liquid crystal polymer (LCP)-layers on single substrates. Ways and novel materials allowing integration of LPP-aligning layers with optical retarders in patterned, hybrid LPP-LCP-configurations with freely adjustable optical axes are presented. The novel multifunctional, anisotropic photopolymer configurations are shown to render in-situ optical retarders and polarization interference filters for black-white and color liquid crystal displays (LCDs) feasible. The molecular mechanisms inducing the anisotropic film properties and their thermal and optical stabilities are outlined. The photo-patternable, high resolution hybrid configurations are shown to exhibit excellent thermal and light stability.
from alternative islet cell fates. Furthermore, β cells appeared to transdifferentiate to acquire other non-β cell endocrine identities. Deletion of Nkx2.2 in fully differentiated adult β cells also resulted in the very rapid onset of diabetes, and the islets of these mice were also characterized by a loss of β cell identity and the acquisition of δ cell characteristics, confirming the importance of NKX2.2 ration and/or function, we generated mouse models that allowed constitutive and inducible deletion of the Nkx2.2 gene. Disruption of Nkx2.2 in maturing β cells resulted in the rapid development of diabetes, with a significant decrease in insulin expression and content. Strikingly, the loss of genes associated with β cell identity and function was accompanied by increased expression of genes ΔBeta compared with control mice at 4 weeks of age. The white boxes indicate regions of the islet that are shown in higher magnification in E and F. (G) Ad libitum blood glucose levels in 2-week-old male Nkx2.2ΔBeta mice compared with controls (n = 3-16), in 3-week-old mice (n = 5-22), and in 11-week-old mice (n = 6-18). **P ≤ 0.01, ***P ≤ 0.001; 2-tailed Student's t test. Each control genotype was examined separately to ensure that the individual Cre and floxed alleles did not cause metabolic phenotypes. (H) Higher fasting blood glucose levels are evident in 11-week-old Nkx2.2ΔBeta mice compared with controls (3-week-old mice: n = 6-23; 11-week-old mice: n = 8-21). *P ≤ 0.05; 2-tailed Student's t test. (I) Glucose intolerance is observed in Nkx2.2ΔBeta male mice compared with controls at 3 weeks of age (n = 6-23). *P ≤ 0.05, ***P ≤ 0.001; 2-tailed Student's t test. (J) Glucose intolerance becomes more severe at 11 weeks of age in Nkx2.2ΔBeta male mice compared with control mice (n = 8-21). *P ≤ 0.05, **P ≤ 0.01, ***P ≤ 0.001; 2-tailed Student's t test.
Glioblastoma (GBM) is the most lethal type of human brain cancer, where deletions and mutations in the tumour suppressor gene PTEN (phosphatase and tensin homolog) are frequent events and are associated with therapeutic resistance. Herein, we report a novel chromatin-associated function of PTEN in complex with the histone chaperone DAXX and the histone variant H3.3. We show that PTEN interacts with DAXX and, in turn PTEN directly regulates oncogene expression by modulating DAXX-H3.3 association on the chromatin, independently of PTEN enzymatic activity. Furthermore, DAXX inhibition specifically suppresses tumour growth and improves the survival of orthotopically engrafted mice implanted with human PTEN-deficient glioma samples, associated with global H3.3 genomic distribution changes leading to upregulation of tumour suppressor genes and downregulation of oncogenes. Moreover, DAXX expression anti-correlates with PTEN expression in GBM patient samples. Since loss of chromosome 10 and PTEN are common events in cancer, this synthetic growth defect mediated by DAXX suppression represents a therapeutic opportunity to inhibit tumorigenesis specifically in the context of PTEN deletion.
BackgroundChromatin conformation capture techniques have evolved rapidly over the last few years and have provided new insights into genome organization at an unprecedented resolution. Analysis of Hi-C data is complex and computationally intensive involving multiple tasks and requiring robust quality assessment. This has led to the development of several tools and methods for processing Hi-C data. However, most of the existing tools do not cover all aspects of the analysis and only offer few quality assessment options. Additionally, availability of a multitude of tools makes scientists wonder how these tools and associated parameters can be optimally used, and how potential discrepancies can be interpreted and resolved. Most importantly, investigators need to be ensured that slight changes in parameters and/or methods do not affect the conclusions of their studies.ResultsTo address these issues (compare, explore and reproduce), we introduce HiC-bench, a configurable computational platform for comprehensive and reproducible analysis of Hi-C sequencing data. HiC-bench performs all common Hi-C analysis tasks, such as alignment, filtering, contact matrix generation and normalization, identification of topological domains, scoring and annotation of specific interactions using both published tools and our own. We have also embedded various tasks that perform quality assessment and visualization. HiC-bench is implemented as a data flow platform with an emphasis on analysis reproducibility. Additionally, the user can readily perform parameter exploration and comparison of different tools in a combinatorial manner that takes into account all desired parameter settings in each pipeline task. This unique feature facilitates the design and execution of complex benchmark studies that may involve combinations of multiple tool/parameter choices in each step of the analysis. To demonstrate the usefulness of our platform, we performed a comprehensive benchmark of existing and new TAD callers exploring different matrix correction methods, parameter settings and sequencing depths. Users can extend our pipeline by adding more tools as they become available.ConclusionsHiC-bench consists an easy-to-use and extensible platform for comprehensive analysis of Hi-C datasets. We expect that it will facilitate current analyses and help scientists formulate and test new hypotheses in the field of three-dimensional genome organization.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12864-016-3387-6) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
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