Moscow State University

About: Moscow State University is a education organization based out in Moscow, Russia. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Catalysis & Laser. The organization has 66747 authors who have published 123358 publications receiving 1753995 citations. The organization is also known as: MSU & Lomonosov Moscow State University.

Bactericidal effects of non-thermal argon plasma in vitro, in biofilms and in the animal model of infected wounds.

Abstract: Non-thermal (low-temperature) physical plasma is under intensive study as an alternative approach to control superficial wound and skin infections when the effectiveness of chemical agents is weak due to natural pathogen or biofilm resistance. The purpose of this study was to test the individual susceptibility of pathogenic bacteria to non-thermal argon plasma and to measure the effectiveness of plasma treatments against bacteria in biofilms and on wound surfaces. Overall, Gram-negative bacteria were more susceptible to plasma treatment than Gram-positive bacteria. For the Gram-negative bacteria Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Burkholderia cenocepacia and Escherichia coli, there were no survivors among the initial 105 c.f.u. after a 5 min plasma treatment. The susceptibility of Gram-positive bacteria was species- and strain-specific. Streptococcus pyogenes was the most resistant with 17 % survival of the initial 105 c.f.u. after a 5 min plasma treatment. Staphylococcus aureus had a strain-dependent resistance with 0 and 10 % survival from 105 c.f.u. of the Sa 78 and ATCC 6538 strains, respectively. Staphylococcus epidermidis and Enterococcus faecium had medium resistance. Non-ionized argon gas was not bactericidal. Biofilms partly protected bacteria, with the efficiency of protection dependent on biofilm thickness. Bacteria in deeper biofilm layers survived better after the plasma treatment. A rat model of a superficial slash wound infected with P. aeruginosa and the plasma-sensitive Staphylococcus aureus strain Sa 78 was used to assess the efficiency of argon plasma treatment. A 10 min treatment significantly reduced bacterial loads on the wound surface. A 5-day course of daily plasma treatments eliminated P. aeruginosa from the plasma-treated animals 2 days earlier than from the control ones. A statistically significant increase in the rate of wound closure was observed in plasma-treated animals after the third day of the course. Wound healing in plasma-treated animals slowed down after the course had been completed. Overall, the results show considerable potential for non-thermal argon plasma in eliminating pathogenic bacteria from biofilms and wound surfaces.

Pan-cancer computational histopathology reveals mutations, tumor composition and prognosis

Abstract: We use deep transfer learning to quantify histopathological patterns across 17,355 hematoxylin and eosin-stained histopathology slide images from 28 cancer types and correlate these with matched genomic, transcriptomic and survival data. This approach accurately classifies cancer types and provides spatially resolved tumor and normal tissue distinction. Automatically learned computational histopathological features correlate with a large range of recurrent genetic aberrations across cancer types. This includes whole-genome duplications, which display universal features across cancer types, individual chromosomal aneuploidies, focal amplifications and deletions, as well as driver gene mutations. There are widespread associations between bulk gene expression levels and histopathology, which reflect tumor composition and enable the localization of transcriptomically defined tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes. Computational histopathology augments prognosis based on histopathological subtyping and grading, and highlights prognostically relevant areas such as necrosis or lymphocytic aggregates. These findings show the remarkable potential of computer vision in characterizing the molecular basis of tumor histopathology. Two papers by Kather and colleagues and Gerstung and colleagues develop workflows to predict a wide range of molecular alterations from pan-cancer digital pathology slides.

Quark and Gluon Form Factors to Three Loops

Abstract: We compute the form factors of the photon-quark-anti-quark vertex and the effective vertex of a Higgs-boson and two gluons to three-loop order within massless perturbative quantum chromodynamics. These results provide building blocks for many third-order cross sections. Furthermore, this is the first calculation of complete three-loop vertex corrections.

Crafting the magnonic and spintronic response of BiFeO3 films by epitaxial strain

Abstract: Multiferroics are compounds that show ferroelectricity and magnetism. BiFeO3, by far the most studied, has outstanding ferroelectric properties, a cycloidal magnetic order in the bulk, and many unexpected virtues such as conductive domain walls or a low bandgap of interest for photovoltaics. Although this flurry of properties makes BiFeO3 a paradigmatic multifunctional material, most are related to its ferroelectric character, and its other ferroic property--antiferromagnetism--has not been investigated extensively, especially in thin films. Here we bring insight into the rich spin physics of BiFeO3 in a detailed study of the static and dynamic magnetic response of strain-engineered films. Using Mossbauer and Raman spectroscopies combined with Landau-Ginzburg theory and effective Hamiltonian calculations, we show that the bulk-like cycloidal spin modulation that exists at low compressive strain is driven towards pseudo-collinear antiferromagnetism at high strain, both tensile and compressive. For moderate tensile strain we also predict and observe indications of a new cycloid. Accordingly, we find that the magnonic response is entirely modified, with low-energy magnon modes being suppressed as strain increases. Finally, we reveal that strain progressively drives the average spin angle from in-plane to out-of-plane, a property we use to tune the exchange bias and giant-magnetoresistive response of spin valves.