The quality assessment of the Japanese Adverse Drug Event Report database using vigiGrade.

Background The quality of adverse drug reaction reports can have a strong influence on the causality assessment or the detection of safety signals. Various methods have been used to evaluate the quality of adverse drug reaction reports. Objective We used the vigiGrade completeness score to evaluate the quality of the Japanese adverse drug event report database (JADER). Methods Among all reports in the JADER (cases received by regulatory authorities from April 2004 to November 2018), 427,797 cases that did not meet the exclusion criteria were analyzed using vigiGrade. An report was considered a 'well-documented' report if the completeness score > 0.8. For each dimension, the proportion of incomplete information was calculated. Main outcome measure Proportion of 'well-documented' reports. Results A total of 211,774 (49.5%) cases were classified as 'well-documented' reports. When classified by sender, 6240 out of 8257 cases (75.6%) from medical institutions were 'well-documented', while 205,534 out of 419,540 cases (49.0%) from pharmaceutical companies were categorized as such. 'Time-to-onset' could not be calculated in 173,027 (41.2%) cases from the pharmaceutical companies and in 1228 (14.9%) cases from medical institutions. Conclusion In the JADER, the proportion of 'well-documented' adverse drug reaction reports from medical institutions was higher than that from pharmaceutical companies, and reports from medical institutions could help to clarify generated safety signals. We also found that more than 40% of the reports from pharmaceutical companies did not include information that is considered essential for the evaluation of any causal relationship between suspected drugs and adverse drug reactions, which could pose challenges to the detection of safety signals.

Quality evaluation of the Japanese Adverse Drug Event Report database (JADER).

INTRODUCTION: The spontaneous adverse drug reaction (ADR) reporting system plays an important role in pharmacovigilance by providing information from clinical settings in the postmarketing environment. The Japanese Adverse Drug Event Report (JADER) database contains a portion of Japanese ADR reports, and no previous study has described the quality or characteristics of ADR reports in the JADER. OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study was to identify the characteristics of the JADER database and to evaluate the quality of ADR reports contained in the JADER using the documentation-grading scheme developed by the World Health Organization. METHODS: Of 478 508 ADR reports in the JADER, the analysis set consisted of 395 091 reports meeting inclusion criteria. An analysis was carried out to evaluate the quality of the reports according to the type of report, the type of sender, and the qualification of the reporter. Annual changes in the number of reports from medical institutions submitted by pharmacists were compared with changes in the number submitted by physicians. RESULTS: The distribution of documentation grade differed according to the type of report, the type of sender, and the qualification of the reporter. Regarding "medical institution reports", the quality of reports was similar among qualification types, while the quality of reports submitted by physicians was higher for "company reports" and "study reports" (P < .0001, respectively). CONCLUSION: Our study showed that the quality of the ADR reports in the JADER differed among the type of report, the sender of the report, and the qualification of the reporter.

Effect of Educational Interventions on Adverse Drug Reaction Reporting in a Cancer Institute in Japan: A Questionnaire Study.

Background: Limited data regarding knowledge and factors related to understanding the adverse drug reaction (ADR) reporting system of health care professionals are available in Japan. Objective: The objective of this study was to identify factors related to understanding the ADR reporting system in Miyagi Cancer Center and to find ways to increase the number and quality of ADR reports. Methods: Self-administered questionnaire surveys were administered before and after the educational meeting among health care professionals who were working in our hospital during the study period. Subanalyses restricted to nurses were also performed. Main Outcome Measure: Understanding ADR reporting system among healthcare professionals. Results: The percentage of respondents who understood the ADR reporting system in the questionnaire after the educational meeting was significantly higher than that in the questionnaire before the educational meeting. In the questionnaire after the educational meeting, multivariate logistic regression analysis found that having over 30 years of practical experience (odds ratio [OR], 3.852; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.228-12.081 for 20-29 years, 7.695; 1.650-35.881 for over 30 years), being a physician (8.071; 1.923-33.878), being a pharmacist (18.357; 3.847-87.585), and participating in the educational meeting (5.111; 1.700-15.365) were factors associated with understanding the ADR reporting system. Multivariate logistic regression analysis of the questionnaire results before the educational meeting among nurses showed that working at outpatient departments (8.330; 3.008-23.069) was significantly and independently associated with understanding the ADR reporting system. Conclusions: The present study demonstrated that many years of practical experience, profession (physicians, pharmacists), and educational interventions were associated with good understanding of the ADR reporting system among health care professionals.

Two novel heat-soluble protein families abundantly expressed in an anhydrobiotic tardigrade.

Tardigrades are able to tolerate almost complete dehydration by reversibly switching to an ametabolic state. This ability is called anhydrobiosis. In the anhydrobiotic state, tardigrades can withstand various extreme environments including space, but their molecular basis remains largely unknown. Late embryogenesis abundant (LEA) proteins are heat-soluble proteins and can prevent protein-aggregation in dehydrated conditions in other anhydrobiotic organisms, but their relevance to tardigrade anhydrobiosis is not clarified. In this study, we focused on the heat-soluble property characteristic of LEA proteins and conducted heat-soluble proteomics using an anhydrobiotic tardigrade. Our heat-soluble proteomics identified five abundant heat-soluble proteins. All of them showed no sequence similarity with LEA proteins and formed two novel protein families with distinct subcellular localizations. We named them Cytoplasmic Abundant Heat Soluble (CAHS) and Secretory Abundant Heat Soluble (SAHS) protein families, according to their localization. Both protein families were conserved among tardigrades, but not found in other phyla. Although CAHS protein was intrinsically unstructured and SAHS protein was rich in ß-structure in the hydrated condition, proteins in both families changed their conformation to an α-helical structure in water-deficient conditions as LEA proteins do. Two conserved repeats of 19-mer motifs in CAHS proteins were capable to form amphiphilic stripes in α-helices, suggesting their roles as molecular shield in water-deficient condition, though charge distribution pattern in α-helices were different between CAHS and LEA proteins. Tardigrades might have evolved novel protein families with a heat-soluble property and this study revealed a novel repertoire of major heat-soluble proteins in these anhydrobiotic animals.

Proteomic analysis of protein complexes in human SH-SY5Y neuroblastoma cells by using blue-native gel electrophoresis: an increase in lamin A/C associated with heat shock protein 90 in response to 6-hydroxydopamine-induced oxidative stress.

There is accumulating evidence that oxidative stress plays an important role in aging. Our previous phosphoproteomic study of the human neuroblastoma cell line SH-SY5Y revealed changes in the phosphorylation of several proteins such as lamin A/C during 6-hydroxydopamine-induced oxidative stress. The present study employed native proteomic analysis to clarify protein-protein interaction under physiological conditions. We examined oxidative stress-related changes in SH-SY5Y cellular proteins using blue-native polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (BN-PAGE), a powerful tool for the separation of protein complexes. BN-PAGE gel images showed successful separation of several complexes. Components of these complexes, separated by 2-D BN-PAGE in combination with SDS-PAGE, were identified by peptide mass fingerprinting employing MALDI-TOF MS and an MS/MS ion search on LC-MS/MS. TCP-1 complex, ATP synthase, and the complex of heat shock protein 90 with its client proteins such as pyruvate kinase were detected. Two dimensional BN-PAGE and Western blot analysis revealed an increase of lamin A/C associated with heat shock protein 90 in response to 6-OHDA-induced oxidative stress.

Phosphorylation of measles virus nucleoprotein upregulates the transcriptional activity of minigenomic RNA.

We report the first identification of phosphorylation sites of the nucleoprotein (N) of the family Paramyxoviridae. The N protein is known to be the most abundant protein in infected cells; it constructs the N-RNA complex (nucleocapsid) and supports transcription and replication of viral genomic RNA. To determine the role of phosphorylation of the N protein, we expressed the N protein of the HL strain of measles virus (MV) in mammalian cells and purified the nucleocapsid. After separation of the C-terminal region from the core region, phosphorylated amino acids were assayed using MALDI-TOF/TOF and ESI-Q-TOF MS analyses. Two amino acids, S479 and S510, were shown to be phosphorylated by both methods of analysis. Metabolic labeling of the N protein with (32)P demonstrated that these two sites are the major phosphorylated sites within the MV-N protein. In transcriptional analysis using negative-strand minigenomic RNA containing the ORF of the luciferase gene, mutants of each phosphorylation site showed approximately 80% reduction in luciferase activity compared with the wild-type N, suggesting that the phosphorylation of N protein is important in the activation of the transcription of viral mRNA and/or replication of the genome in vivo.