Quality Assessment of Dried Blood Spots from Patients With Tuberculosis from 4 Countries.

BACKGROUND: Dried blood spot (DBS) sampling is a blood collection tool that uses a finger prick to obtain a blood drop on a DBS card. It can be used for therapeutic drug monitoring, a method that uses blood drug concentrations to optimize individual treatment. DBS sampling is believed to be a simpler way of blood collection compared with venous sampling. The aim of this study was to evaluate the quality of DBSs from patients with tuberculosis all around the world based on quality indicators in a structured assessment procedure. METHODS: Total 464 DBS cards were obtained from 4 countries: Bangladesh, Belarus, Indonesia, and Paraguay. The quality of the DBS cards was assessed using a checklist consisting of 19 questions divided into 4 categories: the integrity of the DBS materials, appropriate drying time, blood volume, and blood spot collection. RESULTS: After examination, 859 of 1856 (46%) blood spots did not comply with present quality criteria. In 625 cases (34%), this was due to incorrect blood spot collection. The DBS cards from Bangladesh, Indonesia, and Paraguay seemed to be affected by air humidity, causing the blood spots not to dry appropriately. CONCLUSIONS: New tools to help obtain blood spots of sufficient quality are necessary and environmental specific recommendations to determine plasma concentration correctly. In addition, 3% of the DBS cards were rejected because the integrity of the materials suggesting that the quality of plastic ziplock bags currently used to protect the DBS cards against contamination and humidity may not be sufficient.

Herbal Honey Preparations of Curcuma Xanthorriza and Black Cumin Protect against Carcinogenesis through Antioxidant and Immunomodulatory Activities in Sprague Dawley (SD) Rats Induced with Dimethylbenz(a)anthracene.

BACKGROUND: Traditionally, Curcuma xanthorriza (CX), black cumin seed (BC), and honey have been used by the Indonesian people as medicinal ingredients to treat various health symptoms. CX extracts and BC have been proven in the laboratory as chemopreventive agents, antioxidants, and immunomodulators. In this study, we developed CX extract, BC oil, and honey into herbal honey preparations (CXBCH) and hypothesized that the preparations show chemopreventive activity. The purpose of the study was to determine the CXBCH potential as chemopreventive, antioxidant, and immunomodulatory. METHOD: In this experimental laboratory research, antioxidant, immunomodulatory, and cytotoxic activities were tested on human mammary cancer cell lines (T47D cells) while the chemopreventive activity of the CXBCH preparations on Sprague Dawley (SD) rats induced with dimethylbenzene(a)anthracene (DMBA). RESULTS: CXBCH preparations demonstrated immunomodulatory, antioxidant, and cytotoxic activities in T47D, Hela, and HTB-183 cells and in DMBA-induced SD rats, as the preparations inhibited tumor nodule formation, increased the number of CD4, CD8 and CD4CD25 cells, and glutathione-S-transferase (GST) activity, and decreased serum NO levels. CONCLUSIONS: CXBCH preparations display chemopreventive, antioxidant, and immunomodulatory properties.

A factorization method for the classification of infrared spectra.

BACKGROUND: Bioinformatics data analysis often deals with additive mixtures of signals for which only class labels are known. Then, the overall goal is to estimate class related signals for data mining purposes. A convenient application is metabolic monitoring of patients using infrared spectroscopy. Within an infrared spectrum each single compound contributes quantitatively to the measurement. RESULTS: In this work, we propose a novel factorization technique for additive signal factorization that allows learning from classified samples. We define a composed loss function for this task and analytically derive a closed form equation such that training a model reduces to searching for an optimal threshold vector. Our experiments, carried out on synthetic and clinical data, show a sensitivity of up to 0.958 and specificity of up to 0.841 for a 15-class problem of disease classification. Using class and regression information in parallel, our algorithm outperforms linear SVM for training cases having many classes and few data. CONCLUSIONS: The presented factorization method provides a simple and generative model and, therefore, represents a first step towards predictive factorization methods.

Polymorphisms of NAT2, CYP2E1, GST, and HLA related to drug-induced liver injury in indonesian tuberculosis patients.

Background: Gene polymorphisms have been associated with drug-induced liver injury (DILI). This study aimed to elucidate the association between polymorphisms of NAT2, CYP2E1, GSTT1, GSTM1, and HLA genes with isoniazid plasma concentration and DILI. Methods: This study was a prospective cohort study recruiting adult newly diagnosed tuberculosis (TB) patients who met the inclusion criteria from the Public Health Centers in Yogyakarta and Lampung. Defined single-nucleotide polymorphisms were rs1799929, rs1799930, rs1799931, rs1801280, and rs1041983 of NAT2; rs2031920, rs8192775, and rs2515641 of CYP2E1; rs1041981, rs1063355, and rs6906021 of HLA. GSTT1 and GSTM1 were defined as GSTT1, GSTM1, and GSTT1 deletion and GSTM1 deletion. The DNA was taken from the patient saliva. Data of anti-TB drug plasma concentration on the weeks 4-8 of treatment were retrieved from the patients' medical report. Statistical analysis was performed using Chi-square test, Student's t-test, and multinomial logistic regression. Results: Over the 207 patients, up to 1.9% of them experienced DILI. The percentage of slow acetylators of NAT2 was 69.5%. Patients with extensive acetylator phenotype did not experience DILI (odds ratio [OR]: 0.46; 95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.23-0.94). The G carriership of HLA rs1063355 could protect the patients from the DILI (OR: 0.39; 95% CI: 0.14-0.9). Furthermore, the C carriership of HLA rs1041981 can protect the patients from DILI (OR: 0.38; 95% CI: 0.15-0.50). The genotype of HLA-DQB*0302 significantly affects the isoniazid concentration. Conclusion: The NAT2 genotype was significantly associated with DILI. Furthermore, the absence of G carriership of HLA-DQA*0102 could protect the patients from DILI without being associated with an effect on the isoniazid concentration.

CYP2E1 polymorphism, acetylator profiles and drug-induced liver injury incidence of Indonesian tuberculosis patients.

OBJECTIVE: A polymorphism of CYP2E1 may be directly associated with the development of INH hepatotoxicity. We conducted this study to evaluate the association between polymorphisms of CYP2E1, Isoniazid (INH) concentration and the acetylator status of INH in cases of Indonesian tuberculosis patients with drug-induced liver disease (DILI). METHODS: We conducted our study with a cohort design consisting of 55 Indonesian adult tuberculosis (TB) patients. Acetylating phenotypes were studied in using the metabolic ratio of plasma AcHZ/HZ. DILI was defined using CTCAV version 4.0. The allelic and genotypic frequency distributions of CYP2E1 rs 3813867 were studied using the polymerase chain reaction - amplification refractory mutation system (ARMS) methodology. RESULTS: Patients with an INH concentration of more than 7µg/mL showed a higher risk of developing DILI when compared with patients who showed a therapeutic range of 3-6µg/mL INH (OR: 1.3, 95% CI: 0.2-8.2). Slow acetylators had a higher incidence of DILI when compared with rapid acetylators (OR: 4.6, 95% CI: 1.3-15.9). Meanwhile, subjects with GC had a higher risk of DILI incidence (OR: 4.3, 95% CI: 0.8-24.4). CONCLUSION: Our study shows that polymorphisms of CYP2E1 and slow acetylator may have role in the DILI incidence.