Identification of hypervirulent Klebsiella pneumoniae based on biomarkers and Galleria mellonella infection model.

BACKGROUND: Currently, clinical laboratories lack an effective method to differentiate between classical Klebsiella pneumoniae (cKP) and hypervirulent Klebsiella pneumoniae (hvKP) strains, leading to delays in diagnosing and treating hvKP infections. Previous studies have identified peg-344, iroB, iucA, prmpA, prmpA2, and siderophores (SP) yields greater than 30 µg/ml as reliable markers for distinguishing hvKP from cKp strains. However, these diagnostic tests were conducted on a relatively small study population and lacked sufficient clinical data support. In this study, hvKP strains were identified by biomarker analysis and the Galleria mellonella model. Combined with in vitro and in vivo experiments, the reliability of clinical identification method of hvKP was verified, which provided an experimental basis for timely diagnosis of hvKP infection. RESULTS: According to the clinical data, a total of 108 strains of hvKP were preliminary screened. Among them, 94 strains were further identified using PCR analysis of biomarkers and quantitative determination of SP. The high virulence of hvKP was subsequently confirmed through infection experiments on Galleria mellonella. Additionally, susceptibility testing revealed the identification of 58 carbapenem-resistant hvKP (CR-hvKP) strains and 36 carbapenem-sensitive hvKP (CS-hvKP) strains. By comparing molecular diagnostic indexes, molecular characteristics such as high SP production of CR-hvKP were found. CONCLUSION: The combination of clinical data and molecular diagnostic index analysis effectively enables the identification of hvKP, particularly CR-hvKP. This study provides a scientific basis for accurate clinical identification and timely treatment of hvKP.

Extensive serum biomarker analysis in patients with non-small-cell lung carcinoma.

Lung cancer is a common malignant disease, nearly 2.09 million new patients occurred last year. Approximately 85% of the patients are classified as non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC). It is therefore important to identify new diagnostic and prognostic biomarkers for the early detection of this disease. The presented study identifies biomarkers in the serum of NSCLC patients. The expression of 274 cytokines was measured by a novel antibody array methodology and ELISA was applied to validate the array results. The levels of MIP-1 α, IL-8, MIP-1 ß, Resistin, GDF-15, HGF, CA125, FLRG, VCAM-1, DKK-3, sTNF-R1, CTACK, Acrp30, CXCL-16 and LYVE-1 were significantly higher in serum from NSCLC patients, while the level of TIMP-2 and IGFBP-6 were lower. More importantly, the validation supported the result of the antibody array. The result of the antibody array indicates that these cytokines might be novel auxiliary biomarkers in the diagnosis and prognosis of NSCLC.