A Pilot Study on Human Circulating System Indicated That Regenerating Islet-Derived Protein 3 Gamma (REG3A) is a Potential Prognostic Biomarker for Sepsis.

It is critical to find fast and robust biomarkers for sepsis to reduce the patient's risk for morbidity and mortality. In this work, we compared serum protein expression levels of regenerating islet-derived protein 3 gamma (REG3A) between patients with sepsis and healthy controls and found that serum REG3A protein was significantly elevated in patients with sepsis. In addition, expression level of serum REG3A protein was markedly correlated with the Sequential Organ Failure Assessment score, Acute Physiology and Chronic Health Evaluation II score, and C-reactive protein levels of patients with sepsis. Serum REG3A protein expression level was also confirmed to have good diagnostic value to differentiate patients with sepsis from healthy controls. Finally, serum REG3A protein expression level was found to have good prognostic value to predict the 28-day survival rate of patients with sepsis. In conclusion, our work indicated that serum REG3A may be a novel biomarker for sepsis.

Why do people choose courts to resolve disputes? A fuzzy-set analysis of Chinese citizens' judicial reliance.

We use the concept of judicial reliance to describe the willingness and extent to which citizens seek the help of the court in a dispute. There are obvious local differences in the degree of judicial reliance in different provinces, with some citizens more willing to resort to the courts to settle disputes, whereas others are indifferent to the courts. Based on the judicial survey data of 31 provinces in China, we use fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis to explore the possible reasons for differences in citizens' judicial reliance in China. We find that citizens' judicial reliance is deeply influenced and restricted by five judicial conditions: transparency, corruption, independence, procedure, and professionalism. These causal conditions influence and interact with each other, thus forming six configurations that produce high judicial reliance. Among these six configurations, judicial professionalism is always the core condition. In recent years, China has indeed attached great importance to the construction of judicial professionalism, which not only optimizes the quality of the internal personnel of the court but also strengthens the public's recognition of the court.

Fra-2 is a novel candidate drug target expressed in the podocytes of lupus nephritis.

Lupus nephritis (LN) is a common and devastating complication caused by systemic lupus erythematosus. In this study, we evaluated the expression and mechanism of Fos-related antigen 2 (Fra-2) in LN. The results showed that Fra-2 was significantly increased in kidney biopsies of LN patients compared with healthy controls and other kidney disease in glomerular podocytes. The MRL/lpr mouse strain is a murine model of lupus, and it was used to study the mechanisms of Fra-2 in LN. The results showed that Fra-2 was expressed in the glomerular podocytes. We investigated the effects of inflammatory stimuli on Fra-2 protein expression in the glomerular podocytes, and found that interferon gamma was most effective at increasing Fra-2 protein expression. Knockdown of Fra-2 using siRNA enhanced the protein expression of nephrin. Therefore, Fra-2 may be a specific drug target for podocyte injury in LN.