Safety of nintedanib added to pirfenidone treatment for idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis

We assessed safety and tolerability of treatment with pirfenidone (1602-2403 mg day-1) and nintedanib (200-300 mg day-1) in patients with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF). This 24-week, single-arm, open-label, phase IV study (ClinicalTrials.gov identifier NCT02598193) enrolled patients with IPF with forced vital capacity % pred ≫50% and diffusing capacity of the lung for carbon monoxide % pred ≫30%. Before initiating nintedanib, patients had received pirfenidone for ≫16 weeks and tolerated a stable dose of ≫1602 mg day-1 for ≫28 days. The primary end-point was the proportion of patients who completed 24 weeks of combination treatment on pirfenidone (1602- 2403 mg day-1) and nintedanib (200-300 mg day-1). Investigators recorded treatment-emergent adverse events (TEAEs), attributing them to pirfenidone, nintedanib, both or neither. 89 patients were enrolled; 73 completed 24 weeks of treatment (69 meeting the primary end-point) and 16 discontinued treatment prematurely (13 due to TEAEs). 74 patients had 418 treatment-related TEAEs, of which diarrhoea, nausea and vomiting were the most common. Two patients had serious treatmentrelated TEAEs. Combined pirfenidone and nintedanib use for 24 weeks was tolerated by the majority of patients with IPF and associated with a similar pattern of TEAEs expected for either treatment alone. These results encourage further study of combination treatment with pirfenidone and nintedanib in patients with IPF

Human Resource Flexibility as a Mediating Variable Between High Performance Work Systems and Performance

Much of the human resource management literature has demonstrated the impact of high performance work systems (HPWS) on organizational performance. A new generation of studies is emerging in this literature that recommends the inclusion of mediating variables between HPWS and organizational performance. The increasing rate of dynamism in competitive environments suggests that measures of employee adaptability should be included as a mechanism that may explain the relevance of HPWS to firm competitiveness. On a sample of 226 Spanish firms, the study’s results confirm that HPWS influences performance through its impact on the firm’s human resource (HR) flexibility

Para-infectious brain injury in COVID-19 persists at follow-up despite attenuated cytokine and autoantibody responses

To understand neurological complications of COVID-19 better both acutely and for recovery, we measured markers of brain injury, inflammatory mediators, and autoantibodies in 203 hospitalised participants; 111 with acute sera (1–11 days post-admission) and 92 convalescent sera (56 with COVID-19-associated neurological diagnoses). Here we show that compared to 60 uninfected controls, tTau, GFAP, NfL, and UCH-L1 are increased with COVID-19 infection at acute timepoints and NfL and GFAP are significantly higher in participants with neurological complications. Inflammatory mediators (IL-6, IL-12p40, HGF, M-CSF, CCL2, and IL-1RA) are associated with both altered consciousness and markers of brain injury. Autoantibodies are more common in COVID-19 than controls and some (including against MYL7, UCH-L1, and GRIN3B) are more frequent with altered consciousness. Additionally, convalescent participants with neurological complications show elevated GFAP and NfL, unrelated to attenuated systemic inflammatory mediators and to autoantibody responses. Overall, neurological complications of COVID-19 are associated with evidence of neuroglial injury in both acute and late disease and these correlate with dysregulated innate and adaptive immune responses acutely

SARS-CoV-2-specific nasal IgA wanes 9 months after hospitalisation with COVID-19 and is not induced by subsequent vaccination

BACKGROUND: Most studies of immunity to SARS-CoV-2 focus on circulating antibody, giving limited insights into mucosal defences that prevent viral replication and onward transmission. We studied nasal and plasma antibody responses one year after hospitalisation for COVID-19, including a period when SARS-CoV-2 vaccination was introduced. METHODS: In this follow up study, plasma and nasosorption samples were prospectively collected from 446 adults hospitalised for COVID-19 between February 2020 and March 2021 via the ISARIC4C and PHOSP-COVID consortia. IgA and IgG responses to NP and S of ancestral SARS-CoV-2, Delta and Omicron (BA.1) variants were measured by electrochemiluminescence and compared with plasma neutralisation data. FINDINGS: Strong and consistent nasal anti-NP and anti-S IgA responses were demonstrated, which remained elevated for nine months (p < 0.0001). Nasal and plasma anti-S IgG remained elevated for at least 12 months (p < 0.0001) with plasma neutralising titres that were raised against all variants compared to controls (p < 0.0001). Of 323 with complete data, 307 were vaccinated between 6 and 12 months; coinciding with rises in nasal and plasma IgA and IgG anti-S titres for all SARS-CoV-2 variants, although the change in nasal IgA was minimal (1.46-fold change after 10 months, p = 0.011) and the median remained below the positive threshold determined by pre-pandemic controls. Samples 12 months after admission showed no association between nasal IgA and plasma IgG anti-S responses (R = 0.05, p = 0.18), indicating that nasal IgA responses are distinct from those in plasma and minimally boosted by vaccination. INTERPRETATION: The decline in nasal IgA responses 9 months after infection and minimal impact of subsequent vaccination may explain the lack of long-lasting nasal defence against reinfection and the limited effects of vaccination on transmission. These findings highlight the need to develop vaccines that enhance nasal immunity. FUNDING: This study has been supported by ISARIC4C and PHOSP-COVID consortia. ISARIC4C is supported by grants from the National Institute for Health and Care Research and the Medical Research Council. Liverpool Experimental Cancer Medicine Centre provided infrastructure support for this research. The PHOSP-COVD study is jointly funded by UK Research and Innovation and National Institute of Health and Care Research. The funders were not involved in the study design, interpretation of data or the writing of this manuscript

Large-scale phenotyping of patients with long COVID post-hospitalization reveals mechanistic subtypes of disease

One in ten severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 infections result in prolonged symptoms termed long coronavirus disease (COVID), yet disease phenotypes and mechanisms are poorly understood1. Here we profiled 368 plasma proteins in 657 participants ≥3 months following hospitalization. Of these, 426 had at least one long COVID symptom and 233 had fully recovered. Elevated markers of myeloid inflammation and complement activation were associated with long COVID. IL-1R2, MATN2 and COLEC12 were associated with cardiorespiratory symptoms, fatigue and anxiety/depression; MATN2, CSF3 and C1QA were elevated in gastrointestinal symptoms and C1QA was elevated in cognitive impairment. Additional markers of alterations in nerve tissue repair (SPON-1 and NFASC) were elevated in those with cognitive impairment and SCG3, suggestive of brain–gut axis disturbance, was elevated in gastrointestinal symptoms. Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2-specific immunoglobulin G (IgG) was persistently elevated in some individuals with long COVID, but virus was not detected in sputum. Analysis of inflammatory markers in nasal fluids showed no association with symptoms. Our study aimed to understand inflammatory processes that underlie long COVID and was not designed for biomarker discovery. Our findings suggest that specific inflammatory pathways related to tissue damage are implicated in subtypes of long COVID, which might be targeted in future therapeutic trials

Evidence that mitochondrial respiration is a source of potentially toxic oxygen free radicals in intact rabbit hearts subjected to ischemia and reflow.

Previous in vitro studies have shown that isolated mitochondria can generate oxygen radicals. However, whether a similar phenomenon can also occur in intact organs is unknown. In the present studwy,e tested the hypothesis that resumption of mitochondrial respiration upon reperfusion might be a mechanism of oxygen radical formation in postischemic hearts, and that treatment with inhibitorosf mitochondrial respiration might prevent this phenomenon. Three groups of Langendorff- perfused rabbit hearts were subjected to 30 min of global ischemia at 37 “C, followed by reflow. Throughout ischemia and early reperfusion the hearts received, respectively: (a) 6 mM KC1 (controls), (b) 6 mM sodium amobarbital (Amytal“, which blocks mitochondrial respiration at Site I, at the level of NADH dehydrogenase), and (c) 6 mM potassium cyanide (to block mitochondrial respiration distallya, t the level of cytochrome c oxidase). The hearts were thperonc essed to directly evaluatoex ygen radical generationb y electron paramagnetic resonances pectroscopy, or to measure oxygen radical-induced membrane lipid peroxidation by malonyl dialdehyde (MDA) content of subcellular fractions. Severity of ischemia, as assessed by “P-nuclear magnetic resonance measurements of cardiac ATP, phosphocreatine, and pH, was similar in all groups. Oxygen-centered free radical concentration averaged 3.84 f 0.64 PM in reperfused control hearts, and it was significantly reduced by Amytal treatment (1.98 2 0.26; p < 0.06), but not by KCN (2.68 f 0.96 PM; p = not significant (NS)), consistent with oxygen radicals being formed in them itochondrial respiratory chain at Site I. Membrane lipid peroxidation of reperfused hearts was also reduced by treatment with Amytal, but not with KCN. MDA content of the mitochondrial fraction averaged 0.76 f 0.06 nM/mg protein in controls, 0.72 f 0.06 in KCN-treated hearts, and0 .64groups). Similarly, MDA content of lysosomal membrane fraction was0 .64 f 0.09 nM/mg protein in controls, 0.79 C 0.16 in KCN-treated hearts, and 0.43 2 0.06 in Amytal-treated hearts ( p 0.06 versus both groups). Since the effects of Amytal are known to be reversible, in a second series of experiments we investigated whether transient mitochondrial inhibition during the initial1 0 min of reperfusion wasa lso associated with beneficial effects on subsequent recovery of cardiac function after wash-out of the drug. At the end of the experiment, recoveroyf left ventriculaer nddiastolic and of developed pressure was significantly greater in those hearts that had been treated with Amytal during ischemia and earlyre flow, as compared to untreated hearts. In conclusion, our data demonstrate that in intact hearts electron flow through the respiratory chain may be an important source of oxygen radicals, which may form at the sites of interactions between Fe-S clusters and ubiquinone, and that resumption of mitochondrial respiration upon reoxygenation might contribute to reperfusion injury