The aim of this study was to investigate the dosimetric performance of a novel optical fiber sensor for use in external beam radiation therapy. Repeatability and reproducibility of the output signal, linearity, dose rate and dose per pulse dependence were evaluated. Angular dependence was investigated in the axial and azimuthal planes. The percentage depth dose and lateral dose profiles were measured using the optical fiber sensor system and compared to commercially available detectors such as Exradin W1 plastic scintillator and a PTW-microdiamond detector. The result of this study show that the optical fiber sensor system has good repeatability and reproducibility of the output signal with a maximum deviation of 0.17% and 1.00%, respectively. The system also showed an excellent linearity with dose, and its signal was independent of dose rate. However, the system showed a strong dependence on dose per pulse with 27% deviation from the W1 result at the highest dose per pulse value that was achieved at 75 cm source to surface distance. The system also showed an angular dependence when the incident beam was in the azimuthal plane due to the geometry of the scintillator at the tip of the fiber. The optical fiber sensor overresponded when measuring percentage depth dose curves and lateral dose profiles due in part to the sensitivity of the scintillating material (Gd2O2S:Tb) to low energy scattered radiation. However, further investigation is needed to quantify the overall contribution of Cerenkov radiation to the over-response of the optical fiber sensor.

Dystrophin forms an essential link between sarcolemma and cytoskeleton, perturbation of which causes muscular dystrophy. We analysed Dystrophin binding dynamics in vivo for the first time. Within maturing fibres of host zebrafish embryos, our analysis reveals a pool of diffusible Dystrophin and complexes bound at the fibre membrane. Combining modelling, an improved FRAP methodology and direct semi-quantitative analysis of bleaching suggests the existence of two membrane-bound Dystrophin populations with widely differing bound lifetimes: a stable, tightly bound pool, and a dynamic bound pool with high turnover rate that exchanges with the cytoplasmic pool. The three populations were found consistently in human and zebrafish Dystrophins overexpressed in wild-type or dmdta222a/ta222a zebrafish embryos, which lack Dystrophin, and in Gt(dmd-Citrine)ct90a that express endogenously-driven tagged zebrafish Dystrophin. These results lead to a new model for Dystrophin membrane association in developing muscle, and highlight our methodology as a valuable strategy for in vivo analysis of complex protein dynamics.DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.7554/eLife.06541.001

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Radiation dosimetry plays a crucial role in the Quality Assurance (QA) in radiotherapy. To date this is limited to monitoring the overall dose over the complete beam time and so there is limited information on the actual beam quality. An optical fibre sensor is developed based on cerium doped yttrium aluminum garnet (YAG:Ce) scintillator. The temporal resolution and stability of this scintillator-based optical fibre sensor have been experimentally evaluated and directly compared with similarly fabricated sensors based on Terbium activated Gadolinium Oxysulfide (GOS:Tb) and commercial plastic scintillating fibre, BCF-12. The photon yield and repeatability of the YAG based sensor is compared in the clinical setting with the BCF-12 sensor, and both show a high stability. The coefficient of variation of the YAG sensor is 0.7 %, which is lower than the BCF sensor with a coefficient of variation of 1.4 %.