Radiation therapy is a part of the standard treatment for brain tumor patients, often resulting in irreversible neuropsychological deficits. These deficits may be due to permanent damage to the neural stem cell (NSC) niche, damage to local neural progenitors, or...
Adult hypothalamic neurogenesis has been recently reported, but the cell of origin and function of these newborn neurons are unknown. We utilize genetic fate mapping to show that median eminence tanycytes generate newborn neurons; blocking this neurogenesis alters...
Reconstruction algorithms for diffuse optical tomography (DOT) and bioluminescence tomography (BLT) have been developed based on diffusion theory. The algorithms numerically solve the diffusion equation using the finite element method. The direct measurements of the...
Glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) is a high-grade primary brain cancer with a median survival of only 14.6 months in humans despite standard tri-modality treatment consisting of surgical resection, post-operative radiation therapy and temozolomide chemotherapy. New...
This study evaluated the dosimetric impact of surface dose reduction due to the loss of backscatter from the bone interface in kilovoltage (kV) X-ray radiation therapy. Monte Carlo simulation was carried out using the EGSnrc code. An inhomogeneous phantom containing a...
Double-strand breaks (DSBs) are repaired by two distinct pathways, non-homologous end joining (NHEJ) and homologous recombination (HR). The endonuclease Artemis and the PIK kinase Ataxia-Telangiectasia Mutated (ATM), mutated in prominent human radiosensitivity syndromes, are essential for repairing a subset of DSBs via NHEJ in G1 and HR in G2. Both proteins have been implicated in DNA end resection, a mandatory step preceding homology search and strand pairing in HR. Here, we show that during S-phase Artemis but not ATM is dispensable for HR of radiation-induced DSBs. In replicating AT cells, numerous Rad51 foci form gradually, indicating a Rad51 recruitment process that is independent of ATM-mediated end resection. Those DSBs decorated with Rad51 persisted through S- and G2-phase indicating incomplete HR resulting in unrepaired DSBs and a pronounced G2 arrest. We demonstrate that in AT cells loading of Rad51 depends on functional ATR/Chk1. The ATR-dependent checkpoint response is most likely activated when the replication fork encounters radiation-induced single-strand breaks leading to generation of long stretches of single-stranded DNA. Together, these results provide new insight into the role of ATM for initiation and completion of HR during S- and G2-phase. The DSB repair defect during S-phase significantly contributes to the radiosensitivity of AT cells.
Sabrina Köcher, Thorsten Rieckmann, Gabor Rohaly, Wael Y Mansour, Ekkehard Dikomey, Irena Dornreiter, and Jochen Dahm-Daphi
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Preclinical studies of cranial radiation therapy (RT) using animal brain tumor models have been hampered by technical limitations in the delivery of clinically relevant RT. We established a bioimageable mouse model of glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) and an image-guided...
In this work, the suitability and performance of a mouse-size MOSFET (Mousefet) phantom is investigated for routine quality assurance (QA) of the small animal radiation research platform (SARRP). This Mousefet phantom is a simple construction consisting of five micro-MOSFETS custom integrated in a quincunx pattern within a tissue-equivalent phantom, allowing repeat/multiple QA tasks to be quickly performed in one experimental set-up. The Mousefet phantom is particularly evaluated for facilitating SARRP QA tasks which may warrant daily evaluation, including output constancy, isocenter congruency test and cone beam computed tomography (CBCT) image geometric accuracy. Results for the output constancy measurements showed a maximum daily variation of less than 2.6% for all MOSFETS, in consonance with observations from concurrent ion chamber measurements. It is also shown that the design of the Mousefet phantom allows the output check data to be used for prompt verification of beam energy and cone profile constancy. For the isocenter congruency test, it is demonstrated that the Mousefet phantom can detect 0.3 mm deviations of the CBCT isocenter from the radiation isocenter. Meanwhile, results for CBCT image geometric accuracy were consistently found to be within 2% of the expected value. Other CBCT image quality parameters could also be assessed in terms of image intensity constancy, noise and image uniformity. Overall, the results establish the Mousefet phantom as a simple and time-efficient multipurpose tool that could be employed effectively for routine QA of the SARRP.
Ngwa W, Tsiamas P, Zygmanski P, Makrigiorgos GM, Berbeco RI.
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This paper describes the software integration of a treatment planning system (TPS), based on the open-source 3D Slicer package, with the Small Animal Radiation Research Platform (SARRP).The TPS is designed to enable researchers to replicate their clinical techniques,...
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