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Many DDB1-CUL4 associated factors (DCAFs) have been identified and serve as substrate receptors. Although the oncogenic role of CUL4A has been well established, specific DCAFs involved in cancer development remain largely unknown. Here we infer the potential impact of 19 well-defined DCAFs in human lung adenocarcinomas (LuADCs) using integrative omics analyses, and discover that mRNA levels of DTL, DCAF4, 12 and 13 are consistently elevated whereas VBRBP is reduced in LuADCs compared to normal lung tissues. The transcriptional levels of DCAFs are significantly correlated with their gene copy number variations. SKIP2, DTL, DCAF6, 7, 8, 13 and 17 are frequently gained whereas VPRBP, PHIP, DCAF10, 12 and 15 are frequently lost. We find that only transcriptional level of DTL is robustly, significantly and negatively correlated with overall survival across independent datasets. Moreover, DTL-correlated genes are enriched in cell cycle and DNA repair pathways. We also identified that the levels of 25 proteins were significantly associated with DTL overexpression in LuADCs, which include significant decreases in protein level of the tumor supressor genes such as PDCD4, NKX2-1 and PRKAA1. Our results suggest that different CUL4-DCAF axis plays the distinct roles in LuADC development with possible relevance for therapeutic target development.

Active metasurfaces, in which the optical property of a metasurface device can be controlled by external stimuli, have attracted great research interest recently. For optical switching and modulation applications, high-performance active metasurfaces need to show high transparency, high power efficiency, as well as ultrafast switching and large-scale fabrication capability. This paper reports Au/VO2-based active metasurfaces meeting the requirements above. Centimeter-scale Au/VO2 metasurfaces are fabricated by polystyrene sphere colloidal crystal self-assembly. The devices show optical modulation on-off ratio up to 12.7 dB and insertion loss down to 3.3 dB at 2200 nm wavelength in the static heating experiment, and ΔT/T of 10% in ultrafast pump-probe experiments. In particular, by judiciously aligning the surface plasmon resonance wavelength to the pump wavelength of the femtosecond laser, the enhanced electric field at 800 nm is capable to switch off the extraordinary optical transmission effect at 2200 nm in 100 fs time scale. Compared to VO2 thin-film samples, the devices also show 50% power reduction for all-optical modulation. Our work provides a practical way to fabricate large-scale and power-efficient active metasurfaces for ultrafast optical modulation.

Polarization imaging enables the capture of material properties and surface characteristics of objects, finding applications in remote sensing and defense. However, most existing polarization imaging systems rely on polarization filtering elements, resulting in energy loss exceeding 50% and compromising intensity imaging performance. Conventionally, a rotary device equipped with different polarizers and a blank area is used to acquire both polarization and intensity images, which is cumbersome for integration and miniaturization purposes. In this study, a miniaturized and easily integrated active metasurface based on VO2 grating structure for switchable detection of intensity and polarization in the far‐infrared band (8–14 µm) is proposed. With VO2 in the dielectric state, the device exhibits high transmittance for both TE‐ and TM‐polarized light (Experimental transmittance of up to 65%). Upon phase transition to the metallic state, the device demonstrates low transmittance for TE‐polarized light while maintaining high transmittance for TM‐polarized light (linear polarization extinction ratio up to 10 dB). Finally, the tunable thermal intensity and polarization imaging capabilities of the custom‐made setup are characterized. The metasurface showcases comparable performance to standard commercial polarizers in terms of polarization imaging. The developed tunable far‐infrared polarization imaging system holds promise for next‐generation multidimensional information perception. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]