Species Composition of a Small Mammal Community and Prevalence of Echinococcus spp. in the Alpine Pastoral Area of the Eastern Tibetan Plateau.

We aimed to investigate the species composition of a small mammal community and the prevalence of Echinococcus spp. in a typical endemic area of the Tibetan Plateau. One pika and five rodent species were identified based on the morphological characteristics of 1278 small mammal specimens collected during 2014-2019. Detection of Echinococcus DNA in tissue samples from small mammal specimens revealed that Ochotona curzoniae (pika, total prevalence: 6.02%, 26/432), Neodon fuscus (5.91%, 38/643), N. leucurus (2.50%, 3/120), and Alexandromys limnophilus (21.74%, 10/46) were infected by both E. multilocularis and E. shiquicus; Cricetulus longicaudatus (16.67%, 1/6) was infected by E. shiquicus; and no infection was detected in N. irene (0/15). Neodon fuscus and O. curzoniae were the two most abundant small mammal species. There was no significant difference in the prevalence of pika and the overall rodent species assemblage (6.26%, 53/846); however, the larger rodent populations suggested that more attention should be paid to their role in the transmission of echinococcosis in the wildlife reservoir, which has long been underestimated. Moreover, although DNA barcoding provides a more efficient method than traditional morphological methods for identifying large numbers of small mammal samples, commonly used barcodes failed to distinguish the three Neodon species in this study. The close genetic relationships between these species suggest the need to develop more powerful molecular taxonomic tools.

Kidney injury molecule-1 and osteopontin: new markers for prediction of early kidney transplant rejection.

BACKGROUND: Kidney injury molecule-1 (KIM-1) and osteopontin (OPN) play important roles in immune regulation. We hypothesized that serum KIM-1 and OPN might serve as biomarkers for predicting early acute rejection after kidney transplantation (KTx). METHODS: We conducted a single-center study of 155 subjects, who were classified into acute rejection group (ARG, n=32), non-rejection group (NRG, n=45) and healthy controls (HC, n=78). Serum KIM-1 and OPN levels were measured by Luminex. RESULTS: The pre-transplant levels of serum KIM-1 and OPN in all KTx recipients were higher than those of HC (P<0.01). Compared with NRG, ARG showed significantly high serum levels of KIM-1 on day 0 (pre-KTx) and on the 1st, 4th, and 7th post-KTx days, and significantly high OPN levels on day 0 and the 7th day. Kaplan-Meier survival analysis showed that the higher levels of KIM-1 on day 0, the 1st and 4th days and OPN on day 0 and the 7th day were significantly associated with the lower probabilities of rejection-free survival. ROC analyses highlight the superiority of KIM-1 on the 1st day and OPN on the 7th day over those on other post-KTx days in prediction of acute rejection episodes. Multivariate logistic analysis revealed that the serum KIM-1 levels on the 1st post-KTx day and the OPN level on the 7th day were independent and powerful predictors of acute rejection episodes. An optimal predictive model was built by combining KIM-1 on the 1st day and OPN on the 7th day, and this model had the highest AUC (0.922). CONCLUSIONS: This study was the first to demonstrate that serum KIM-1 and OPN may be the promising and elegant markers for prediction of early acute kidney allograft rejection.

Impact of HLA-G 14-bp polymorphism on acute rejection and cytomegalovirus infection in kidney transplant recipients from northwestern China.

Human leukocyte antigen (HLA)-G plays an important role in promoting transplant tolerance and helping human cytomegalovirus (CMV) to subvert host defenses. Strong evidence suggests that HLA-G 14-bp insertion/deletion polymorphism influences the stability of HLA-G mRNAs and levels of protein expression. We hypothesized that HLA-G 14-bp polymorphism of recipients has an influence on the risk of acute rejection (AR) and CMV infection. We investigated the impact of HLA-G 14-bp polymorphism on a total of 363 unrelated Chinese Han individuals who included 42 kidney transplant recipients with AR, 43 recipients with CMV infection, 102 recipients with stable allograft function (STA), and 176 healthy controls (HC). No statistically significant difference was found between all kidney transplant patients and HC (P=0.149). But, our data showed an increased frequency of homozygous genotype +14/+14 bp (P(c)=0.004) and allele +14 bp (P(c)=0.002) in patients with AR when compared with STA, with the odds ratio of 3.17 and 2.28, respectively. Moreover, we found that the frequency of the -14/-14 bp genotype (P(c)=0.008) and the -14 bp allele (P(c)=0.016) was increased in patients with CMV infection when compared with STA, with the OR of 2.66 and 1.96, respectively. Multivariate analysis further demonstrated that HLA-G homozygous +14 bp and -14 bp genotypes were an independent risk factor for allograft rejection and CMV infection, respectively. In conclusion, this study identified an important genetic risk factor for acute allograft rejection, and it was the first to show a significant correlation between HLA-G 14-bp polymorphism and CMV infection after kidney transplantation from northwestern China.