Direct Identification of Intact Proteins Using a Low-Resolution Mass Spectrometer with CIDn/ETnoD.

Over the past decades, proteomics has become increasingly important and a heavily discussed topic. The identification of intact proteins remains a major focus in this field. While most intact proteins are analyzed using high-resolution mass spectrometry, identifying them through low-resolution mass spectrometry continues to pose challenges. In our study, we investigated the capability of identifying various intact proteins using collision-induced dissociation (CID) and electron transfer without dissociation (ETnoD). Using myoglobin as our test protein, stable product ions were generated with CID, and the identities of the product ions were identified with ETnoD. ETnoD uses a short activation time (AcT, 5 ms) to create sequential charge-reduced precursor ion (CRI). The charges of the fragments and their sequences were determined with corresponding CRI. The product ions can be selected for subsequent CID (termed CIDn) combined with ETnoD for further sequence identification and validation. We refer to this method as CIDn/ETnoD. The use of a multistage CID activation (CIDn) and ETnoD protocol has been applied to several intact proteins to obtain multiple sequence identifications.

The value of HPV DNA and HPV E6/E7 mRNA detection in screening for cervical lesions / 国际检验医学杂志

Objective To investigate the value of human papillomavirus(HPV)DNA and HPV E6/E7 mRNA detection in screening for cervical lesions.Methods A total of 619 patients who were screened for cer-vical lesions in West China Second University Hospital from September 2021 to August 2022 were selected as the study objects.The value of HPV DNA and HPV E6/E7 mRNA detection in cervical lesion screening was evaluated based on their pathological results.Results The positive rate of HPV DNA detection was 64.78％(401/619)and that of HPV E6/E7 mRNA detection was 60.74％(376/619)in 619 patients.Cervical lesion screening was mainly conducted in sexually active people aged 30-＜40 years and 40-＜50 years.The posi-tive rates of HPV DNA and HPV E6/E7 mRNA increased with the increase of cervical lesion grade.The sen-sitivity,positive predictive value and negative predictive value of the two methods were higher than those of HPV DNA or HPV E6/E7 mRNA detection.Conclusion The combined detection of the two methods can be used for screening cervical lesions at various pathological stages,which can provide greater guidance value in clinical diagnosis and treatment.

Cytokine-Induced Myeloid-Derived Suppressor Cells Demonstrate Their Immunoregulatory Functions to Prolong the Survival of Diabetic Mice.

Type 1 diabetes is an inflammatory state. Myeloid-derived suppressive cells (MDSCs) originate from immature myeloid cells and quickly expand to control host immunity during infection, inflammation, trauma, and cancer. This study presents an ex vivo procedure to develop MDSCs from bone marrow cells propagated from granulocyte-macrophage-colony-stimulating factor (GM-CSF), interleukin (IL)-6, and IL-1ß cytokines expressing immature morphology and high immunosuppression of T-cell proliferation. The adoptive transfer of cytokine-induced MDSCs (cMDSCs) improved the hyperglycemic state and prolonged the diabetes-free survival of nonobese diabetic (NOD) mice with severe combined immune deficiency (SCID) induced by reactive splenic T cells harvested from NOD mice. In addition, the application of cMDSCs reduced fibronectin production in the renal glomeruli and improved renal function and proteinuria in diabetic mice. Moreover, cMDSCs use mitigated pancreatic insulitis to restore insulin production and reduce the levels of HbA1c. In conclusion, administering cMDSCs propagated from GM-CSF, IL-6, and IL-1ß cytokines provides an alternative immunotherapy protocol for treating diabetic pancreatic insulitis and renal nephropathy.

Association of cytomegalovirus infection with T cell senescence and cardiovascular diseases in maintenance hemodialysis patients / 中华肾脏病杂志

Objective:To evaluate the influence of cytomegalovirus (CMV) infection on T cell senescence and cardiovascular disease (CVD) in maintenance hemodialysis (MHD) patients.Methods:It was a single center cross sectional study. Patients aged over 18 years old and received hemodialysis for at least 6 months at the Blood Purification Centre of the Department of Nephrology of Zhongshan Hospital Affiliated to Fudan University from January 2021 to April 2021 were enrolled. Demographic, hematological, nutritional and inflammatory markers were obtained. Anti-CMV-IgM and IgG antibodies were detected using the Roche Elecsys assay. CD28 - T cell was evaluated by flow cytometry. Mann-Whitney U test or Kruskal-Wallis H test was used for anti-CMV-IgG comparison among groups. Spearman correlation and linear regression were used to assess the relationship between anti-CMV-IgG and CD28 - T cell compartment. Logistic regression was used to assess the relationship between anti-CMV-IgG and CVD. Results:A total of 438 MHD patients (270 men and 168 women) were enrolled in the study. The median age was 62 (51, 70) years. The median time on hemodialysis was 57 (21, 100) months. The primary diseases included chronic glomerulonephritis [213 cases (48.6%)], diabetic nephropathy [82 cases (18.7%)], polycystic kidney disease [34 cases (7.8%)], hypertensive renal disease [34 cases (7.8%)], etc. Of these patients, 430 (98.2%) were seropositive for anti-CMV-IgG, 206 (47.0%) had anti-CMV-IgG titers exceeding the upper limit of 500 U/ml. Patients aged over 70 years old were 100% seropositive for anti-CMV-IgG. Patients on HD for more than 5 years had a higher seropositive rate of 99.1% than those with shorter HD duration, although these results were not statistically significant. Spearman correlation analysis showed that the anti-CMV-IgG titers in MHD patients were positively correlated with the proportion of CD4 + CD28 - T cells and CD8 + CD28 - T cells ( r=0.316, P<0.001; r=0.272, P<0.001). Multiple linear regression analysis showed that after adjusting for age and gender, lg[CD4 + CD28 - T cells(%)] and lg[CD8 + CD28 - T cells(%)] were positively correlated with lg[anti-CMV-IgG titers (U/ml)], respectively ( β=0.455, t=8.315, P<0.001; β=0.412, t=7.282, P<0.001). In analyzing the relationship between anti-CMV-IgG titers and CVD, patients were divided into six groups according to age and anti-CMV-IgG level. Group 1 included young patients with a lower anti-CMV-IgG titers (age ≤55 years old, anti-CMV-IgG <400 U/ml); Group 2 included young patients with a higher anti-CMV-IgG titers (age≤55 years old, anti-CMV-IgG ≥400 U/ml); Group 3 included middle-aged patients with a lower anti-CMV-IgG titers (55<age≤65 years old, anti-CMV-IgG<400 U/ml); Group 4 included middle-aged patients with a higher anti-CMV-IgG titers (55<age≤65 years old, anti-CMV-IgG≥400 U/ml); Group 5 included old aged patients with a lower anti-CMV-IgG titers (age >65 years old, anti-CMV-IgG<400 U/ml); Group 6 included old aged patients with a higher anti-CMV-IgG titers (age>65 years old, anti-CMV-IgG≥400 U/ml). The incidence of CVD was significantly different among the six groups ( χ2=18.780, P=0.002) and patients aged over 55 years old with higher anti-CMV-IgG level had a higher CVD incidence compared with group 1 ( P<0.05). Multivariate logistic regression analysis showed that increased age ( OR=1.020, 95% CI 1.002-1.038, P=0.033), male ( OR=1.855, 95% CI 1.161-2.965, P=0.010), history of diabetes ( OR=1.867, 95% CI 1.145-3.046, P=0.012), increased lg[NT-proBNP(μg/L)] ( OR=2.848, 95% CI 1.816-4.467, P<0.001) and lg[anti-CMV-IgG (U/ml)] ( OR=3.183, 95% CI 1.582- 6.405, P=0.001) were independent factors associated with CVD in MHD patients. Conclusions:CMV infection is extremely common in MHD patients. Increased anti-CMV-IgG is related to T cell senescence and CVD complications in MHD patients.

Privacy-Preserving Anonymity for Periodical Releases of Spontaneous Adverse Drug Event Reporting Data: Algorithm Development and Validation.

BACKGROUND: Spontaneous reporting systems (SRSs) have been increasingly established to collect adverse drug events for fostering adverse drug reaction (ADR) detection and analysis research. SRS data contain personal information, and so their publication requires data anonymization to prevent the disclosure of individuals' privacy. We have previously proposed a privacy model called MS(k, θ*)-bounding and the associated MS-Anonymization algorithm to fulfill the anonymization of SRS data. In the real world, the SRS data usually are released periodically (eg, FDA Adverse Event Reporting System [FAERS]) to accommodate newly collected adverse drug events. Different anonymized releases of SRS data available to the attacker may thwart our single-release-focus method, that is, MS(k, θ*)-bounding. OBJECTIVE: We investigate the privacy threat caused by periodical releases of SRS data and propose anonymization methods to prevent the disclosure of personal privacy information while maintaining the utility of published data. METHODS: We identify potential attacks on periodical releases of SRS data, namely, BFL-attacks, mainly caused by follow-up cases. We present a new privacy model called PPMS(k, θ*)-bounding, and propose the associated PPMS-Anonymization algorithm and 2 improvements: PPMS+-Anonymization and PPMS++-Anonymization. Empirical evaluations were performed using 32 selected FAERS quarter data sets from 2004Q1 to 2011Q4. The performance of the proposed versions of PPMS-Anonymization was inspected against MS-Anonymization from some aspects, including data distortion, measured by normalized information loss; privacy risk of anonymized data, measured by dangerous identity ratio and dangerous sensitivity ratio; and data utility, measured by the bias of signal counting and strength (proportional reporting ratio). RESULTS: The best version of PPMS-Anonymization, PPMS++-Anonymization, achieves nearly the same quality as MS-Anonymization in both privacy protection and data utility. Overall, PPMS++-Anonymization ensures zero privacy risk on record and attribute linkage, and exhibits 51%-78% and 59%-82% improvements on information loss over PPMS+-Anonymization and PPMS-Anonymization, respectively, and significantly reduces the bias of ADR signal. CONCLUSIONS: The proposed PPMS(k, θ*)-bounding model and PPMS-Anonymization algorithm are effective in anonymizing SRS data sets in the periodical data publishing scenario, preventing the series of releases from disclosing personal sensitive information caused by BFL-attacks while maintaining the data utility for ADR signal detection.

Proteomic analysis of "Oriental Beauty" oolong tea leaves with different degrees of leafhopper infestation.

RATIONALE: Oriental Beauty, a type of oolong tea native to Taiwan, is highly prized by connoisseurs for its unique fruity aroma and sweet taste. Leaves of Oriental Beauty vary in appearance, aroma, and taste, depending on the degree of tea green leafhopper (Jacobiasca formosana) infestation. In this study, the aim is to investigate the differential expression of proteins in leaves with low, medium, and high degrees of leafhopper infestation. METHODS: Proteomic techniques 2DE (two-dimensional electrophoresis) and nanoscale liquid chromatography/tandem mass spectrometry (LC/MS/MS) were used to investigate the differential expression of proteins in tea leaves with different degrees of leafhopper infestation. RESULTS: A total of 89 proteins were found to exhibit significant differences in expression. In a gene ontology analysis, most of these proteins participated in biosynthesis, carbohydrate metabolism, transport, responses to stress, and amino acid metabolism. CONCLUSIONS: These results indicated that the unique aroma and taste of the leaves might be influenced by their protein expression profiles, as well as related factors such as defensive responses to tea green leafhopper saliva.

Rapid determination of isoflavones and other bioactive compounds in soybean using SWATH-MS.

Isoflavones are the major bioactive components in soybeans. Sequential window acquisition of all theoretical fragment ions (SWATH) is a kind of data-independent acquisition (DIA), such that all fragments of each precursor will be preserved in a SWATH-Mass Spectrometry (SWATH-MS) run. In this study, a high-throughput SWATH-MS method for the determination of 12 isoflavones in soybeans was established. Furthermore, amino acids, saponins can be semi-quantitated from the same SWATH-MS data. Combination of targeted quantification and untargeted profiling with SWATH, all bioactive compounds were analyzed within 5 min in 10 min run time, and the method had good linear regression with r2 > 0.99. The precisions (RSD %) of the intra-day and inter-day analyses ranged from 2.11% to 18.7%, and the accuracies (RE%) ranged from -14.39% to 17.48%. The matrix effect ranged from 88.66% to 114.82%. Moreover, 7 varieties of soybeans were analyzed and compared with this robust screening method.

Hepatic Stellate Cells Enhance Liver Cancer Progression by Inducing Myeloid-Derived Suppressor Cells through Interleukin-6 Signaling.

The tumor microenvironment, which consists of fibroblasts, smooth muscle cells, endothelial cells, immune cells, epithelial cells, and extracellular matrices, plays a crucial role in tumor progression. Hepatic stellate cells (HSCs), a class of unique liver stromal cells, participate in immunomodulatory activities by inducing the apoptosis of effector T-cells, generation of regulatory T-cells, and development of myeloid-derived suppressor cells (MDSCs) to achieve long-term survival of islet allografts. This study provides in vitro and in vivo evidences that HSCs induce the generation of MDSCs to promote hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) progression through interleukin (IL)-6 secretion. HSC-induced MDSCs highly expressed inducible nitric oxide synthase (iNOS) and arginase 1 mRNA and presented potent inhibitory T-cell immune responses in the tumor environment. Wild-type HSC-induced MDSCs expressed lower levels of CD40, CD86, and MHC II, and a higher level of B7-H1 surface molecules, as well as increased the production of iNOS and arginase I compared with MDSCs induced by IL-6-deficient HSCs in vitro. A murine-transplanted model of the liver tumor showed that HCCs cotransplanted with HSCs could significantly enhance the tumor area and detect more MDSCs compared with HCCs alone or HCCs cotransplanted with HSCs lacking IL-6. In conclusion, the results indicated that MDSCs are induced mainly by HSCs through IL-6 signaling and produce inhibitory enzymes to reduce T-cell immunity and then promote HCC progression within the tumor microenvironment. Therapies targeting the pathway involved in MDSC production or its immune-modulating pathways can serve as an alternative immunotherapy for HCC.

Administration of cytokine-induced myeloid-derived suppressor cells ameliorates renal fibrosis in diabetic mice.

BACKGROUND: Diabetes is a proinflammatory state. Fibrosis of the renal glomerulus is the most common cause of end-stage renal disease. Glomerulosclerosis is caused by the accumulation of extracellular matrix (ECM) proteins in the mesangial interstitial space. Mesangial cells are unique stromal cells in the renal glomerulus that form the vascular pole of the renal corpuscle along with the mesangial matrix. Myeloid-derived suppressor cells (MDSCs) are heterogeneous immature myeloid cells that rapidly expand to regulate host immunity during inflammation, infection, and cancer. High concentrations of granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor (GM-CSF) alone or in combination with other molecules represent the most common ex-vivo protocol for differentiating MDSCs from bone marrow or from peripheral blood mononuclear cells. In this study, we analyzed and characterized the functions of MDSCs under the influence of mouse mesangial cells (MMCs) in a hyperglycemic environment and investigated whether cytokine-induced MDSCs ameliorated renal glomerulosclerosis in diabetic mice. METHODS: Cytokine-induced MDSCs were propagated from bone marrow cells cultured with mouse recombinant GM-CSF, IL-6, and IL-1ß. Diabetic mice were induced with streptozotocin (STZ) and maintained at a blood glucose concentration exceeding 350 mg/dl. The ECM of the renal cortex and fibronectin expression of MMCs were analyzed through immunohistochemistry and western blotting. Arginase 1 and inducible NO synthase expressions of MDSCs were evaluated using quantitative reverse-transcriptase PCR. Cytokines released from MMCs were examined using a cytokine array assay. RESULTS: MDSCs in the diabetic mice were redistributed from the bone marrow into peripheral organs. An increase in fibronectin production was also observed in the renal glomerulus. MMCs in vitro produced more fibronectin and proinflammatory cytokines, such as macrophage inflammatory protein-2, RANTES, and stromal-cell-derived factor-1, under hyperglycemic conditions. The adoptive transfer of cytokine-induced MDSCs into STZ-induced mice normalized the glomerular filtration rate to reduce the kidney to body weight ratio and decrease fibronectin production in the renal glomerulus, ameliorating renal fibrosis. These results demonstrate the anti-inflammatory properties of cytokine-induced MDSCs and offer an alternative immunotherapy protocol for the management of diabetic nephropathy. CONCLUSIONS: The application of cytokine-induced MDSCs provides a promising treatment for renal fibrosis and the prevention of diabetic nephropathy.

Emergence of novel canine parvovirus type 2 and its pathogenesis in raccoon dogs.

Three parvoviruses were isolated from the raccoon dogs experiencing severe enteritis, named RDPV-DP1, RDPV-DP2 and RDPV-DP3, respectively. The VP2 genes of the 3 isolates showed 99.9% identity at the nucleotide level, and shared 99.1%-99.5% identity with the reference CPVs. The RDPVs resembled original CPV-2, but with four mutations. The RDPVs displayed S297A of VP2 protein as CPV-2a or CPV-2b prevalent throughout most of the world. Residue N375D was found in the 3 isolates, resembling CPV-2a/2b/2c. And the 3 isolates had a natural mutation of VP2 residue V562L, which is adjacent to residue 564 and 568 and might be involved in host range. Interestingly, VP2 S27T was firstly found in the isolates. Phylogenetic analysis of VP2 genes revealed that the RDPVs were clustered into one small evolutionary branch and shared the identical branch with 7 CPV-2 isolates from raccoon dogs and one CPV-2 isolate from fox, not with CPV vaccine viruses. Phylogenetic analysis of NS1 genes demonstrated that the RDPVs shared the identical branch with the reference CPV-2a/2b/2c. Experimental infection showed that RDPV infection caused a high morbidity in raccoon dogs. It implied that the RDPV was virulent to raccoon dogs and continued to evolve in China.

Role of body mass index on acute kidney injury patients after cardiac surgery / 中华肾脏病杂志

Objective To explore the association between BMI and the risk of developing cardiac surgery associated acute kidney injury (CS-AKI),mortality of AKI and AKI requiring renal replacement therapy (AKI-RRT) after cardiac surgery.Methods Clinical data of patients undergoing cardiac surgery from January 2011 to December 2015 in Zhongshan Hospital of Fudan University were prospectively collected.Patients were divided into four groups according to BMI classification of Chinese population.Adjustment for selection bias was further assessed using propensity score method (PSM) to evaluate the role of BMI in the development of AKI.Results A total of 8442 patients were enrolled,among which 1092 patients successfully matched through PSM.The AKI incidences were respectively 30.3％,33.3％,38.6％ and 46.8％ in four BMI groups (P ＜ 0.01) before PSM.The AKI incidences were respectively 31.9％,35.2％,42.5％ and 42.9％ in four BMI groups (P=0.016) after PSM.The risk of developing AKI increased by 19.9％ as the BMI increased per 5 kg/m2 (95％ CI:1.070-1.344,P=0.002).The hospital mortality of patient (overall,AKI,AKI-RRT) in four groups was not statistically different after PSM (P ＞ 0.05),but overweight group always had the lowest mortality.Conclusions BMI is a risk factor for AKI after cardiac surgery,and the AKI incidence increases with increasing BMI in a certain range.

Study on meridian tropism of Evodiae Fructus based on receptors of its secondary metabolites using system biological method / 中草药

Objective Using meridian tropism of Evodiae Fructus as an example, a new method was built based on system biological method to study the tropism of Chinese herbal medicine from the view of secondary metabolites acting with protein receptors. Methods After establishing the complex secondary metabolites compounds-receptors network of Evodiae Fructus, the receptors connecting with at least five compounds were selected. These functions and tissue distribution of receptors were compared with the traditional efficacy and meridian viscera and organs of Evodiae Fructus. Results A total of 34 receptors of secondary metabolites of Evodiae Fructus were acquired. Their functions and distributions were consistent highly with the traditional efficacy and meridian tropism of Evodiae Fructus locating anatomical organs and tissues. Conclusion This original innovation method clearly elucidated the modern scientific material basis and mechanism of the meridian tropism of Chinese herbal medicine from the aspect of component action receptor. Also it will be of important reference value for the study of promoting meridian tropism.

Privacy preserving data anonymization of spontaneous ADE reporting system dataset.

BACKGROUND: To facilitate long-term safety surveillance of marketing drugs, many spontaneously reporting systems (SRSs) of ADR events have been established world-wide. Since the data collected by SRSs contain sensitive personal health information that should be protected to prevent the identification of individuals, it procures the issue of privacy preserving data publishing (PPDP), that is, how to sanitize (anonymize) raw data before publishing. Although much work has been done on PPDP, very few studies have focused on protecting privacy of SRS data and none of the anonymization methods is favorable for SRS datasets, due to which contain some characteristics such as rare events, multiple individual records, and multi-valued sensitive attributes. METHODS: We propose a new privacy model called MS(k, θ (*) )-bounding for protecting published spontaneous ADE reporting data from privacy attacks. Our model has the flexibility of varying privacy thresholds, i.e., θ (*) , for different sensitive values and takes the characteristics of SRS data into consideration. We also propose an anonymization algorithm for sanitizing the raw data to meet the requirements specified through the proposed model. Our algorithm adopts a greedy-based clustering strategy to group the records into clusters, conforming to an innovative anonymization metric aiming to minimize the privacy risk as well as maintain the data utility for ADR detection. Empirical study was conducted using FAERS dataset from 2004Q1 to 2011Q4. We compared our model with four prevailing methods, including k-anonymity, (X, Y)-anonymity, Multi-sensitive l-diversity, and (α, k)-anonymity, evaluated via two measures, Danger Ratio (DR) and Information Loss (IL), and considered three different scenarios of threshold setting for θ (*) , including uniform setting, level-wise setting and frequency-based setting. We also conducted experiments to inspect the impact of anonymized data on the strengths of discovered ADR signals. RESULTS: With all three different threshold settings for sensitive value, our method can successively prevent the disclosure of sensitive values (nearly all observed DRs are zeros) without sacrificing too much of data utility. With non-uniform threshold setting, level-wise or frequency-based, our MS(k, θ (*))-bounding exhibits the best data utility and the least privacy risk among all the models. The experiments conducted on selected ADR signals from MedWatch show that only very small difference on signal strength (PRR or ROR) were observed. The results show that our method can effectively prevent the disclosure of patient sensitive information without sacrificing data utility for ADR signal detection. CONCLUSIONS: We propose a new privacy model for protecting SRS data that possess some characteristics overlooked by contemporary models and an anonymization algorithm to sanitize SRS data in accordance with the proposed model. Empirical evaluation on the real SRS dataset, i.e., FAERS, shows that our method can effectively solve the privacy problem in SRS data without influencing the ADR signal strength.

Association of intradialytic hypotension and 5-year mortality in maintaining hemodialysis patients / 中华肾脏病杂志

Objective To assess the risk factors of intradialytic-hypotension (IDH) and the prognosis of IDH among maintenance hemodialysis (MHD) patients for the prevention and treatment of IDH.Methods 276 MHD patients were enrolled during Jan.2009 to Mar.2009.Intradialytic blood pressure was monitored during a 3-month period.IDH was defined as an event characterized by a sudden drop in systolic BP more than 20 mmHg or in mean artery pressure (MAP) more than 10 mmHgassociated with clinical events and need for interventions.Dialysis-related information was collected.Kaplan-Meier method,log-rank test,logistic regression and Cox regression analyses were performed to examine the association between IDH and survival,using a follow-up through 31 May 2014.Results A total of 276 patients were recruited.The incidence rate of IDH was 40.9％.163 patients with no-IDH (＜ 1/10 hypotensive events/3 months) served as controls.113 patients with IDH (≥ 1/10 hypotensive events/3 months) were identified among all 276 patients.Multivariate logistic regression analysis showed that age,ultrafiltration rate,gender,serum NT-proBNP,serum albumin and aortic rool inside dimension (AoRD) were associated with IDH among MHD patients.During the 5-year follow-up,74 patients died,with a mortality rate 5.2 per 100 person-year.Kaplan-Meier survival curve showed significant difference of overall and CV mortality rates between 2 groups.The multivariate Cox regression model indicated that IDH increased the risk of death (HR=1.572,95％CI 1.077-2.293,P=0.019).So did the rise of LVMI (HR=1.010,95％CI 1.009-1.085,P=0.020).Conclusion Elderly,female,high ultrafiltration rate,high level of serum NT-proBNP,hypoalbuminemia and shorter AoRD are independent risk factors for IDH among MHD patients.LVMI can predict the outcome of MHDpatients.Intradialytic hypotension is an independent risk factor for long-term mortality in MHD patients.

Sustained increase of microRNA-21 abundance drives aristolochic acid-induced acute kidney injury to renal tubulointerstitial fibrosis / 中华肾脏病杂志

Objective To investigate the role of increased microRNA-21 (miR-21) in the development of renal tubulointerstitial fibrosis secondary to aristolochic acid induced acute kidney injury.Methods C57BL/6J male mice were intraperitoneally injected with aristolochic acid at a dose of 10 mg/kg.Blood samples and kidneys were harvested at day 1,3,7,14,28 after aristolochic acid treatment.To assess the role of miR-21 in aristolochic acid induced acute kidney injury to chronic kidney disease progression,mice were intravenously injected with anti-miR-21 or anti-scramble (10 mg/kg) at 1 h before aristolochic acid dosing,as well as d5 and d10 after aristolochic acid dosing.Results Increased serum creatinine and severe kidney injury were found at d3 after aristolochic acid treatment.Renal tubulointerstitial fibrosis was developed at d14 after aristolochic acid treatment.Protein expression of α-SMA,vimentin and collagen Ⅰ were significantly up-regulated at d7 and peaked at d14 (P ＜ 0.01),while protein abundance of E-Cadherin decreased at d14 and lasted until d28 (P ＜ 0.01).The abundance of miR-21 increased at d7 after aristolochic acid dosing,peaking at d14 and thereafter maintaining at a high level.Anti-miR-21 intervention relieved renal injury with reduced serum creatinine (P ＜ 0.05) and attenuation of renal tubulointerstitial fibrosis.Besides,the protein expression of α-SMA,vimentin,and collagen Ⅰ/Ⅳ was all down-regulated after anti-miR-21 treatment (P ＜ 0.05).PTEN was up-regulated and the ratio of its downstream genes p-AKT/AKT was decreased.(P ＜ 0.05) Conclusions A single high dose of aristolochic acid leads to acute kidney injury and the development of renal tubulointerstitial fibrosis secondary to AKI.Renal tubulointerstitial fibrosis could be partially reversed by inhibiting miR-21 via PTEN/p-AKT pathway.

Mechanism of miR?21 in delayed ischemia preconditioning and its protection against subsequent ischemia reperfusion injury in kidney / 中华肾脏病杂志

Objective To investigate the molecular mechanism of protection of ischemia preconditioning on renal ischemia reperfusion injury. Methods Male C57/BL6N mice were randomly divided into two groups: in IR group, 35 min ischemia was induced by occlusion of both renal pedicles followed by 24 h perfusion (I/R). 15 min ischemia was induced 4 days before I/R in IPC group. Blood sample and kidney were collected in IR and IPC group after 24 h perfusion. Serum creatinine (Scr) and histological changes were used to evaluate the renal injury. PHD2 and HIF-1αwere evaluated by Western blotting, miR-21 expression was confirmed by real-time PCR. In vitro, hypoxic model was established by 1% O2 in HK-2 cells. Knockdown of miR-21 in hypoxic model was perfermed by locked nucleic acid modified-anti-miR-21 transfection. The levels of miR-21, HIF-1α and PHD2 mRNA were confirmed by real-time PCR. The levels of HIF-1α and PHD2 proteins were tested by Western blotting. Results In vivo, Compared with IR group, the renal function and histological changes were improved in IPC group (P<0.01). Compared with IR group, the expression of miR-21(P<0.01) and HIF-1α(P<0.05) were increased in IPC group, while PHD2 was reduced (P<0.01). In vitro, hypoxia reduced miR-21. The inhibition of miR-21 could increased the expression of PHD2 (P<0.05). Conclusions Ischemia preconditioning may exert protection against renal ischemia reperfusion injury by inhibiting PHD2.

A long-term outcome study of acute kidney injury after cardiac surgery / 中华内科杂志

Objective To evaluate the long-term outcome of acute kidney injury (AKI) during hospitalization after cardiac surgery.Methods 1 770 patients underwent cardiac surgery in Fudan University Zhongshan Hospital from April 2009 to February 2011 were enrolled.Based on the Kidney Disease:Improving Global Outcomes (KDIGO) guideline of AKI,the patients were divided into the AKI and the nonAKI groups,and followed up for 2 years.The 2-year survival rate and incidence of the advanced chronic kidney disease (CKD) was compared between the two groups.Factors influencing the 2-year survival rate and incidence of the advanced CKD were also analyzed.Results Among all the patients,715 (40.4％) of them were developed AKT.(1) The 2-year survival rate of the AKI group was lower than that of the non-AKI group (83.2％ vs 93.6％ ;P ＜0.05).Compared with the non-AKI group,AKI group had an increased risk for death with the hazard ratio of 1.710 (95％ CI 1.250-2.340).COX regression analysis showed that AKI was an independent factor for death with the risk intensity just less than diabetes and chronic cardiac insufficiency.The advanced age,the preoperative history of chronic cardiac insufficiency and the time of staying in ICU also significantly increased the risk of death.(2) Compared with patients without AKI (0.2 ％),the incidence of the 2-year of advanced CKD was higher in patients with AKI (6.7 ％ ; P ＜ 0.05) with an hazard ratio of 31.220 (95 ％ CI 7.550-129.110).COX regression analysis showed that AKI was still the independent risk factor for advanced CKD after adjustment of other factors.In addition,diabetes,the time of the cardiopulmonary bypass and the time of staying in ICU were also associated with the risk for the advanced CKD.Conclusions AKI is common after cardiac surgery,which was associated with a decrease in the 2-year survival rate and an increase in the incidence of advanced CKD of patients,which emphasized the importance of prevention and treatment of AKI,and close follow-up of renal function for the improvement of patient long-term prognosis.

Decreased lymphocyte and increased monocyte count in peripheral blood is associated with cardiovascular disease and one-year mortality in maintenance hemodialysis patients / 中华肾脏病杂志

Objective To investigate the association between peripheral white blood cell count including its subtypes and cardiovascular disease (CVD) incidence and one-year all-cause mortality in maintenance hemodialysis (MHD) patients.Methods A total of 371 MHD patients at Zhongshan Hospital,Fudan University between March 2009 and February,2011 were enrolled.Demographic,hematological,nutritional and inflammatory markers were obtained.All patients were followed for one year to investigate the risks for CVD event and mortality.Spearman correlation and linear regression were used to assess the relationship between white blood cell count and other laboratory parameters.Difference in categorical factors between two groups were determined with Chi-square test,Difference in continuous values between two groups were assessed with t test.Kaplan-Meier analysis and Cox proportional hazards model were applied to assess one-year mortality predictors.Results Patients with CVD event had lower lymphocyte count level (1.17±0.38 vs 1.34±0.51,P＜ 0.05) and higher monocyte count level (0.44 ± 0.15 vs 0.37 ± 0.15,P＜0.01) than those without CVD event.Cox proportional hazard regression showed that an increased lymphocyte count was associated with reduced mortality risk,95％CI:0.136-0.719,P ＜ 0.01) and that an increased monocyte count was associated with increased mortality risk,95％ CI:2.657-74.396,P＜0.01) after adjustment for hsCRP.Conclusion Decreased lymphocyte level and increased monocyte level are significantly related to CVD event and are independent predictors of increased one-year all-cause mortality risk in MHD patients.

Validation of 5 prediction models for acute kidney injury and its outcome after cardiac surgery procedures in Chinese patients / 中华肾脏病杂志

Objective To assess the clinical usefulness and value of the 5 models for the prediction of acute kidney injury (AKI),severe AKI which renal replacement treatment was needed (RRT-AKI) and death after cardiac surgery procedures in Chinese patients.Methods One thousand and sixty-seven patients who underwent cardiac surgery procedures in the department of cardiac surgery in the Zhongshan Hospital,Fudan University between May 2010 and January 2011 were involved in this research.The predicting value for AKI (AKICS),RRT-AKI (Cleveland,SRI and Mehta score) and death (EURO score) after cardiac surgery procedures was evaluated by Hosmer-Lemeshow goodness-of-fit test for the calibration and area under receiver operation characteristic curve (AUROC)for the discrimination.Results The incidence of AKI was 20.34％(217/1067),and 63.13％ of their renal function recovered completely.The incidence of RRT-AKI was 3.56％(38/1067) and the mortality of AKI and RRT-AKI was 9.68％ (21/217) and 44.73％ (17/38) respectively.The total mortality was 3.28％ (35/1067).The discrimination and calibration for the prediction ofAKI of AKICS were low.For the prediction ofRRT-AKI,the discrimination and calibration of Cleveland score were high enough,but the predicated value was lower than the real value (1.70％ vs 3.86％).The discrimination of Mehta score and the calibration of SRI were low.The discrimination and calibration for the prediction of death of EURO score was low.Conclusion According to the 2012 KDIGO AKI definition,none of the 5 models above is good at predicting AKI after cardiac surgery procedures.Cleveland score has been validated to have a proper impact on predicting RRT-AKI after cardiac surgery procedures,but the predicting value is still in doubt.EURO score has been validated to have an inaccurate predicting value for death after cardiac surgery procedures.