Background: In this study, we explored whether the proposed short-echo-time magnitude (setMag) image derived from quantitative susceptibility mapping (QSM) could resemble NM-MRI image in substantia nigra (SN), by quantitatively comparing the spatial similarity and diagnosis performances for Parkinson's disease (PD). Methods: QSM and NM-MRI were performed in 18 PD patients and 15 healthy controls (HCs). The setMag images were calculated using the short-echo-time magnitude images. Bilateral hyperintensity areas of SN (SN hyper) were manually segmented on setMag and NM-MRI images by two raters in a blinded manner. The inter-rater reliability was evaluated by the intraclass correlation coefficients (ICC) and the Dice similarity coefficient (DSC). Then the intermodality (i.e. setMag and NM-MRI) spatial similarity was quantitatively assessed using DSC and volume of the consensual voxels identified by both of two raters. The performances of mean SN hyper volume for PD diagnosis on setMag and NM-MRI images were evaluated using receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis. Results: The SN hyper segmented by two raters showed substantial to excellent inter-rater reliability for both setMag and NM-MRI images. The DSCs of SN hyper between setMag and NM-MRI images showed substantial to excellent voxel-wise overlap in HCs (0.80~0.83) and PD (0.73~0.76), and no significant difference was found between the SN hyper volumes of setMag and NM-MRI images in either HCs or PD (p > 0.05). The mean SN hyper volume was significantly decreased in PD patients in comparison with HCs on both setMag images (77.61 mm 3 vs 95.99 mm 3 , p < 0.0001) and NM-MRI images (79.06 mm 3 vs 96.00 mm 3 , p < 0.0001). Areas under the curve (AUCs) of mean SN hyper volume for PD diagnosis were 0.904 on setMag and 0.906 on NM-MRI images. No significant difference was found between the two curves (p = 0.96). Conclusions: SN hyper on setMag derived from QSM demonstrated substantial spatial overlap with that on NM-MRI and provided comparable PD diagnostic performance, providing a new QSM-based multi-contrast imaging strategy for future PD studies.

Background Head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC) is the sixth most common cancer type worldwide. Deregulation of mRNA translation is a frequent feature of cancer. Eukaryotic translation initiation factor 3 subunit B (EIF3B) has been reported as an oncogene; however, its role in HNSCC has yet to be fully elucidated. Methods In this study, the clinical significance of EIF3B expression was analyzed based on TCGA datasets. Then, EIF3B expression was knocked down and its role in HNSCC was revealed. To explore the molecular mechanisms of EIF3B, we applied RNA sequencing and proteomics and acquired deregulated pathways. RNA immunoprecipitation (RIP) sequencing was conducted to reveal the target mRNAs of EIF3B, and TCGA datasets were used to validate potential targets of EIF3B. Results Elevated expression of EIF3B was observed in the HNSCC cancer samples. The expression of EIF3B was significantly correlated with the patient’s sex, age, HPV infection status, T stage, N stage, perineural invasion status and survival status. EIF3B serves as a marker of an unfavorable HNSCC prognosis. EIF3B-silenced Fadu and Cal27 cells exhibited reduced cell numbers, and EIF3B knockdown induced apoptosis in both cell lines. The EIF3B-silenced cells demonstrated decreased invasion and migration capabilities, and the EIF3B knockdown group mice showed significantly decreased tumor volumes. The results show that EIF3B promotes CEBPB translation and activates the MAPK pathway and revealed that IL6R and CCNG2 are targets of EIF3B-regulated CEBPB translation. Conclusion In summary, the results indicated that EIF3B is a novel oncogene in HNSCC that promotes CEBPB translation and IL6R expression, and these findings provide a link between the molecular basis and pathogenesis of HNSCC. Graphical Abstract