Role and mechanisms of CHI3L1 in coronary artery lesions in a mouse model of Kawasaki disease-like vasculitis / 中国当代儿科杂志

OBJECTIVES@#To explore the role and potential mechanisms of chitinase-3-like protein 1 (CHI3L1) in coronary artery lesions in a mouse model of Kawasaki disease (KD)-like vasculitis.@*METHODS@#Four-week-old male SPF-grade C57BL/6 mice were randomly divided into a control group and a model group, with 10 mice in each group. The model group mice were intraperitoneally injected with 0.5 mL of lactobacillus casei cell wall extract (LCWE) to establish a mouse model of KD-like vasculitis, while the control group mice were injected with an equal volume of normal saline. The general conditions of the mice were observed on the 3rd, 7th, and 14th day after injection. Changes in coronary artery tissue pathology were observed using hematoxylin-eosin staining. The level of CHI3L1 in mouse serum was measured by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. Immunofluorescence staining was used to detect the expression and localization of CHI3L1, von Willebrand factor (vWF), and α-smooth muscle actin (α-SMA) in coronary artery tissue. Western blot analysis was used to detect the expression of CHI3L1, vWF, vascular endothelial cadherin (VE cadherin), Caspase-3, B cell lymphoma-2 (Bcl-2), Bcl-2 associated X protein (Bax), nuclear factor κB (NF-κB), and phosphorylated NF-κB (p-NF-κB) in coronary artery tissue.@*RESULTS@#The serum level of CHI3L1 in the model group was significantly higher than that in the control group (P<0.05). Compared to the control group, the expression of CHI3L1 in the coronary artery tissue was higher, while the expression of vWF was lower in the model group. The relative expression levels of CHI3L1, Bax, Caspase-3, NF-κB, and p-NF-κB were significantly higher in the model group than in the control group (P<0.05). The relative expression levels of vWF, VE cadherin, and Bcl-2 were lower in the model group than in the control group (P<0.05).@*CONCLUSIONS@#In the LCWE-induced mouse model of KD-like vasculitis, the expression levels of CHI3L1 in serum and coronary arteries increase, and it may play a role in coronary artery lesions through endothelial cell apoptosis mediated by inflammatory reactions.

Association between duration of fever before treatment and intravenous immunoglobulin resistance in Kawasaki disease / 中国当代儿科杂志

OBJECTIVES@#To examine the association between duration of fever before intravenous immunoglobulin (IVIG) treatment and IVIG resistance in children with Kawasaki disease (KD).@*METHODS@#A retrospective analysis was performed on the medical data of 317 children with KD who were admitted from January 2018 to December 2020. According to the duration of fever before IVIG treatment, they were divided into two groups: short fever duration group (≤4 days) with 92 children and long fever duration group (>4 days) with 225 children. According to the presence or absence of IVIG resistance, each group was further divided into a drug-resistance group and a non-drug-resistance group. Baseline data and laboratory results were compared between groups. A multivariate logistic regression analysis was used to identify the influencing factors for IVIG resistance.@*RESULTS@#In the short fever duration group, 19 children (20.7%) had IVIG resistance and 5 children (5.4%) had coronary artery aneurysm, and in the long fever duration group, 22 children (9.8%) had IVIG resistance and 19 children (8.4%) had coronary artery aneurysm, suggesting that the short fever duration group had a significantly higher rate of IVIG resistance than the long fever duration group (P<0.05), while there was no significant difference in the incidence rate of coronary artery aneurysm between the two groups (P>0.05). In the short fever duration group, compared with the children without drug resistance, the children with drug resistance had a significantly lower level of blood sodium and significantly higher levels of procalcitonin, C-reactive protein, and N-terminal B-type natriuretic peptide before treatment (P<0.05). In the long fever duration group, the children with drug resistance had significantly lower levels of blood sodium and creatine kinase before treatment than those without drug resistance (P<0.05). The multivariate logistic regression analysis showed that a reduction in blood sodium level was associated with IVIG resistance in the long fever duration group (P<0.05).@*CONCLUSIONS@#IVIG resistance in children with KD varies with the duration of fever before treatment. A reduction in blood sodium is associated with IVIG resistance in KD children with a duration of fever of >4 days before treatment.

Clinical features of children with recurrent Kawasaki disease: a Meta analysis / 中国当代儿科杂志

OBJECTIVE@#To study the clinical features of children with recurrent Kawasaki disease (KD).@*METHODS@#PubMed, Web of Science, Embase, CNKI, Wanfang Med Online, and Weipu Data were searched for case-control studies on the clinical features of initial and recurrent KD. The articles were screened according to the inclusion and exclusion criteria. RevMan 5.3 software was used to perform the Meta analysis. Effect models were selected based on the results of heterogeneity test, and then pooled @*RESULTS@#A total of 9 case-control studies were included, with 12 059 children with KD in total, among whom 206 children had recurrent KD (127 boys/61.7%; 79 girls/38.3%). The results of the Meta analysis showed that compared with the initial KD onset, the children with recurrent KD had a shorter duration of fever (@*CONCLUSIONS@#Current evidence shows that children with recurrent KD tend to have a shorter duration of fever and a lower incidence of swelling of the hands and feet. KD recurrence is more common in boys. Current evidence does not show an increased risk of developing coronary artery lesions in children with recurrent KD.

Sequencing analysis and identification of a novel HLA-B(*)40:162 allele / 中国实验血液学杂志

The aim of this study was to identify a novel HLA-B allele in Chinese population. The HLA typing of bone marrow donors was performed by PCR-SBT. The ambiguous novel HLA allele was confirmed with GSSP and single stranded SBT method. The result indicated that there was a sample, the sequence of which was different from all alleles in the HLA databases. The sequence analysis showed that it differed from the closet matching allele B(*)40:06:01 in one nucleotide substitution, 272 C>T in Exon 2, which resulted in an amino acid change from Serine (Ser) to Phenylalanine (Phe) at codon 63. It is concluded that the novel allele has been identified and is named HLA-B(*)40:162 by the WHO Nomenclature Committee.