DPP-4 inhibitor induces FGF21 expression via sirtuin 1 signaling and improves myocardial energy metabolism

学位記番号：医博甲1838

Periostin-expressing cell-specific transforming growth factor-β inhibition in pulmonary artery prevents pulmonary arterial hypertension

Transforming growth factor beta (TGF-β) has been shown to play a critical role in pathogenesis of pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) although the precise role of TGF-β signaling remains uncertain. A recent report has shown that periostin (Pn) is one of the most upregulated proteins in human PAH lung compared with healthy lungs. We established type I TGF-β receptor knockout mice specifically with Pn expressing cell (Pn-Cre/Tgfb1fl/fl mice). Increases in PA pressure and pulmonary artery muscularization were induced by hypoxia of 10% oxygen for 4 weeks. Lung Pn expression was markedly induced by 4 week-hypoxia. Pn-Cre/Tgfb1fl/fl mice showed lower right ventricular pressure elevation, inhibition of PA medial thickening. Fluorescent co-immunostaining showed that Smad3 activation in Pn expressing cell is attenuated. These results suggest that TGF-β signaling in Pn expressing cell may have an important role in the pathogenesis of PAH by controlling medial thickening

Dose equivalents of antidepressants: Evidence-based recommendations from randomized controlled trials

Dose equivalence of antidepressants is critically important for clinical practice and for research. There are several methods to define and calculate dose equivalence but for antidepressants, only daily defined dose and consensus methods have been applied to date. The purpose of the present study is to examine dose equivalence of antidepressants by a less arbitrary and more systematic method

Overstatements in abstract conclusions claiming effectiveness of interventions in psychiatry: A study protocol for a meta-epidemiological investigation

Introduction: Abstracts are the major and often the most important source of information for readers of the medical literature. However, there is mounting criticism that abstracts often exaggerate the positive findings and emphasise the beneficial effects of intervention beyond the actual findings mentioned in the corresponding full texts. In order to examine the magnitude of this problem, we will introduce a systematic approach to detect overstated abstracts and to quantify the extent of their prevalence in published randomised controlled trials (RCTs) in the field of psychiatry. Methods and analysis: We will source RCTs published in 2014 from the Cochrane Register of Controlled Trials (CENTRAL) that claim effectiveness of any intervention for mental disorders. The abstract conclusions will be categorised into three types: superior (only stating significant superiority of intervention to control), limited (suggesting that intervention has limited superiority to control) and equal (claiming equal effectiveness of intervention as control). The full texts will also be classified as one of the following based on the primary outcome results: significant (all primary outcomes were statistically significant in favour of the intervention), mixed (primary outcomes included both significant and non-significant results) or all non-significant results. By comparing the abstract conclusion classification and that of the corresponding full text, we will assess whether each study exhibited overstatements in its abstract conclusion. Ethics and dissemination: This trial requires no ethical approval. We will publish our findings in a peer-reviewed journal. Trial registration number: UMIN000018668; Pre-results

Gene Silencing Using 4′-thioDNA as an Artificial Template to Synthesize Short Hairpin RNA Without Inducing a Detectable Innate Immune Response

The development of a versatile technique to induce RNA interference (RNAi) without immune stimulation in vivo is of interest as existing approaches to trigger RNAi, such as small interfering RNA (siRNA) and plasmid DNA (pDNA) expressing short hairpin RNA (shRNA), present drawbacks arising from innate immune stimulation. To overcome them, an intelligent shRNA expression device (iRed) designed to induce RNAi was developed. The minimum sequence of iRed encodes only the U6 promoter and shRNA. A series of iRed comprises a polymerase chain reaction (PCR)-amplified 4′-thioDNA in which any one type of adenine (A), guanine (G), cytosine (C), or thymine (T) nucleotide unit was substituted by each cognate 4′-thio derivatives, i.e., dSA iRed, dSG iRed, dSC iRed, and ST iRed respectively. Each modified iRed acted as a template to transcribe shRNA with RNAi activity. The highest shRNA yield was generated using dSC iRed that exerted gene silencing activity in an orthotopic mouse model of mesothelioma. Reducing the minimal structure required to transcribe shRNA and the presence of the 4′-thiomodification synergistically function to abrogate innate immune response induced by dsDNA. The iRed will introduce a new approach to induce RNAi without inducing a detectable innate immune response

Strategic use of new generation antidepressants for depression: SUN(^_^) D protocol update and statistical analysis plan

Background: SUN(^_^)D, the Strategic Use of New generation antidepressants for Depression, is an assessor-blinded, parallel-group, multicenter pragmatic mega-trial to examine the optimum treatment strategy for the first- and second-line treatments for unipolar major depressive episodes. The trial has three steps and two randomizations. Step I randomization compares the minimum and the maximum dosing strategy for the first-line antidepressant. Step II randomization compares the continuation, augmentation or switching strategy for the second-line antidepressant treatment. Step III is a naturalistic continuation phase. The original protocol was published in 2011, and we hereby report its updated protocol including the statistical analysis plan. Results: We implemented two important changes to the original protocol. One is about the required sample size, reflecting the smaller number of dropouts than had been expected. Another is in the organization of the primary and secondary outcomes in order to make the report of the main trial results as pertinent and interpretable as possible for clinical practices. Due to the complexity of the trial, we plan to report the main results in two separate reports, and this updated protocol and the statistical analysis plan have laid out respective primary and secondary outcomes and their analyses. We will convene the blind interpretation committee before the randomization code is broken. Conclusion: This paper presents the updated protocol and the detailed statistical analysis plan for the SUN(^_^)D trial in order to avoid reporting bias and data-driven results. Trial registration: ClinicalTrials.gov: NCT01109693(registered on 21 April 2010)

Effects of HLA-DRB1 alleles on susceptibility and clinical manifestations in Japanese patients with adult onset Still’s disease

BackgroundHLA-DRB1 alleles are major determinants of genetic predisposition to rheumatic diseases. We assessed whether DRB1 alleles are associated with susceptibility to particular clinical features of adult onset Still’s disease (AOSD) in a Japanese population by determining the DRB1 allele distributions.MethodsDRB1 genotyping of 96 patients with AOSD and 1,026 healthy controls was performed. Genomic DNA samples from the AOSD patients were also genotyped for MEFV exons 1, 2, 3, and 10 by direct sequencing.ResultsIn Japanese patients with AOSD, we observed a predisposing association of DRB1*15:01 (p = 8.60 × 10−6, corrected p (Pc) = 0.0002, odds ratio (OR) = 3.04, 95% confidence interval (95% CI) = 1.91–4.84) and DR5 serological group (p = 0.0006, OR = 2.39, 95% CI = 1.49–3.83) and a protective association of DRB1*09:01 (p = 0.0004, Pc = 0.0110, OR = 0.34, 95% CI = 0.18–0.66) with AOSD, and amino acid residues 86 and 98 of the DRβ chain were protectively associated with AOSD. MEFV variants were identified in 49 patients with AOSD (56.3%). The predisposing effect of DR5 was confirmed only in patients with AOSD who had MEFV variants and not in those without MEFV variants. Additionally, DR5 in patients with AOSD are associated with macrophage activation syndrome (MAS) and steroid pulse therapy.ConclusionThe DRB1*15:01 and DR5 are both associated with AOSD susceptibility in Japanese subjects. A protective association between the DRB1*09:01 allele and AOSD was also observed in these patients. Our data also highlight the effects of DRB1 alleles in susceptibility to AOSD

Comparative efficacy and acceptability of 21 antidepressant drugs for the acute treatment of adults with major depressive disorder:a systematic review and network meta-analysis

Background Major depressive disorder is one of the most common, burdensome and costly psychiatric disorders worldwide in adults. Both pharmacological and non-pharmacological treatments are available, however, because of lack of resources, antidepressants are used more frequently. Prescription of these agents should be informed by the best available evidence. Consequently, we aimed to update and expand our previous work to compare and rank antidepressants for major depressive disorder in adults. Methods We searched Cochrane CENTRAL, CINAHL, EMBASE, LiLACS, MEDLINE, PSYCINFO, regulatory agencies' websites, and international registers for published and unpublished, double-blind randomised controlled trials up to January 8th 2016, for the acute treatment of major depressive disorder diagnosed according to standard operationalised criteria. We included placebo-controlled and head-to-head trials of 21 antidepressants in adults. We assessed the certainty of evidence using GRADE. Primary outcomes were efficacy (response rate) and acceptability (discontinuations due to any cause). Secondary outcomes included symptom severity, remission rate and discontinuations due to adverse events. We estimated summary odds ratios (OR) and standardised mean differences (with 95% credibility intervals - 95% CrIs) using pairwise and network meta-analysis with random effects. This study is registered with PROSPERO (CRD42012002291). Findings We included 522 trials with 116,477 participants. The certainty of evidence was moderate to very low. In terms of efficacy, all antidepressants were more effective than placebo, with OR ranging between 2·13 (95% CrI 1·89 to 2·41) for amitriptyline and 1·38 (95% CrI 1·16 to 1·63) for reboxetine. For acceptability, agomelatine and fluoxetine were associated with fewer dropouts than placebo (OR 0·84, 95% CrI 0·72 to 0·97 and 0·88, 95% CrI 0·80 to 0·96, respectively), while clomipramine was worse than placebo (OR 1.31, 95% CrI 1·01 to 1·68). When all trials were considered, differences in OR between antidepressants ranged from 1·15 (95% CrI 1·04 to 1·27) to 1·55 (95% CrI 1·27 to 1·91) for efficacy and from 0.64 (95% CrI 0·48 to 0·86) to 0.85 (95% CrI 0·75 to 0·96) for acceptability, with wide confidence intervals on most of the comparative analyses. In head-to-head studies, agomelatine, amitriptyline, escitalopram, mirtazapine, paroxetine, sertraline, venlafaxine and vortioxetine were more effective than other antidepressants (OR range: 1.12 [95% CrI 1·00 to 1·32] to 1.96 [95% CrI 1·09 to 3·57]), while fluoxetine, reboxetine and trazodone were the least efficacious drugs (OR range: 0.51 [95% CrI 0·72 to 0·97] to 0.89 [95% CrI 0·72 to 0·97]). For acceptability, agomelatine, citalopram, escitalopram, fluoxetine, sertraline and vortioxetine were the best drugs (OR range: 0.42 [95% CrI 0·72 to 0·97] to 0.81 [95% CrI 0·72 to 0·97]), while amitriptyline, clomipramine, duloxetine, fluvoxamine, reboxetine, trazodone and venlafaxine had the highest dropout rates (OR range: 1.23 [95% CrI 1·00 to 1·32] to 2.37 [95% CrI 1·00 to 1·32]). Interpretation All antidepressants were more efficacious than placebo in adults with major depressive disorder. Smaller differences between active drugs were found when placebo-controlled trials were included in the analysis, while there was more variability in efficacy and rate of drop out in head-to-head trials. These results should serve evidence-based practice and inform patients, physicians, guideline developers and policy-makers on the relative merits of the different antidepressants.</p