Vitiligo Skin Biomarkers Associated With Favorable Therapeutic Response.

Vitiligo is an acquired depigmentation skin disease caused by immune-mediated death of melanocytes. The most common treatment for vitiligo is narrow band ultraviolet B phototherapy, which often is combined with topical therapies such as tacrolimus. However, patients' responses to these treatments show large variations. To date, the mechanism for this heterogeneity is unknown, and there are no molecular indicators that can predict an individual patient's response to therapy. The goal of this study is to identify clinical parameters and gene expression biomarkers associated with vitiligo response to therapy. Six patients with segmental vitiligo and 30 patients with non-segmental vitiligo underwent transcriptome sequencing of lesional and nonlesional skin at baseline before receiving combined UBUVB and tacrolimus therapy for 6 month, and were separated into good response and bad response groups based on target lesion achieving > 10% repigmentation or not. Our study revealed that treatment-responsive vitiligo lesions had significantly shorter disease duration compared with non-responsive vitiligo lesions (2.5 years vs 11.5 years, p=0.046, t-Test), while showing no significant differences in the age, gender, ethnicity, vitiligo subtype, or disease severity. Transcriptomic analyses identified a panel of 68 genes separating the good response from bad response lesions including upregulation of immune active genes, such as CXCL10, FCRL3, and TCR, Further, compared with vitiligo lesions with long disease duration, the lesions with short duration also have much higher level of expression of immune-active genes, including some (such as FCRL3 and TCR genes) that are associated with favorable therapeutic response. In conclusion, our study has identified clinical parameters such as short disease duration and a panel of immune active and other gene expression biomarkers that are associated with favorable response to immune suppressive NBUVB + tacrolimus therapy. These markers may be useful clinically for individualized therapeutic management of vitiligo patients in the future.

Protective effect of anisodamine in rats with glycerol-induced acute kidney injury.

BACKGROUND: Anisodamine is used for the treatment of reperfusion injury in various organs. In this study, we investigated the effectiveness and mechanisms of action of anisodamine in promoting recovery from glycerol-induced acute kidney injury (AKI). METHODS: We compared the protective effects of atropine and anisodamine in the rat model of glycerol-induced AKI. We examined signaling pathways involved in oxidative stress, inflammation and apoptosis, as well as expression of kidney injury molecule-1 (KIM-1). Renal injury was assessed by measuring serum creatinine and urea, and by histologic analysis. Rhabdomyolysis was evaluated by measuring creatine kinase levels, and oxidative stress was assessed by measuring malondialdehyde (MDA) and superoxide dismutase (SOD) levels in kidney tissues. Inflammation was assessed by quantifying interleukin 6 (IL-6) and CD45 expression. Apoptosis and necrosis were evaluated by measuring caspase-3 (including cleaved caspase 3) and RIP3 levels, respectively. RESULTS: Glycerol administration resulted in a higher mean histologic damage score, as well as increases in serum creatinine, urea, creatine kinase, reactive oxygen species (ROS), MDA, IL-6, caspase-3 and KIM-1 levels. Furthermore, glycerol reduced kidney tissue SOD activity. All of these markers were significantly improved by anisodamine and atropine. However, the mean histologic damage score and levels of urea, serum creatinine, creatine kinase, ROS and IL-6 were lower in the anisodamine treatment group compared with the atropine treatment group. CONCLUSION: Pretreatment with anisodamine ameliorates renal dysfunction in the rat model of glycerol-induced rhabdomyolytic kidney injury by reducing oxidative stress, the inflammatory response and cell death.

[Effects of potato/soybean intercropping on photosynthetic characteristics and yield of three soybean varieties].

The potato/soybean intercropping trials using three soybean varieties including Zhonghuang 30 (early-maturing variety) , Jidou 17 (mid maturing variety) and Qihuang 34 (late maturing variety) with the sole cropping potato as control were carried out to determine the dynamic changes of leaf area index (LAI) of soybean, accumulation of dry matter, photosynthetic characteristics, yield and yield components. The results showed that the LAI, dry matter accumulation, net photosynthesis (Pn), transpiration rate (Tr) and stomatal conduction (g(s)) of soybean in all intercropping systems were lower than in monoculture because of the influence of intensified lower light during earlier growing stage, and the duration from planting to flowering was extended. When the potato was harvested, the LAI, dry matter accumulation, Pn, Tr and g(s) of soybean in all intercropping systems increased, especially for mid-maturing and late-maturing varieties, which became much closer to those in the monoculture. Compared with sole cropping, the pods per plant, seeds per plant and seeds per pod in intercropping system significantly decreased by 22.0%, 36.0% and 17.6% for early-maturing soybean, 5.1%, 13.1% and 8.9% for mid-maturing soybean, 5.7%, 7.6% and 2.1% for late-maturing soybean, respectively. The yields of mid-maturing and late-maturing varieties in intercropping systems were higher than that of the early-maturing, which increased by 92.4% and 163.4%, with the land equivalent ratio (LER) of 1.81 and 1.84, respectively. This suggested that mid-maturing and late-maturing soybean varieties were suitable for intercropping with the potato to improve photosynthetic efficiency, dry matter accumulation and yield of intercropping soybean.