Common Inflammation-Related Candidate Gene Variants and Acute Kidney Injury in 2647 Critically Ill Finnish Patients

Acute kidney injury (AKI) is a syndrome with high incidence among the critically ill. Because the clinical variables and currently used biomarkers have failed to predict the individual susceptibility to AKI, candidate gene variants for the trait have been studied. Studies about genetic predisposition to AKI have been mainly underpowered and of moderate quality. We report the association study of 27 genetic variants in a cohort of Finnish critically ill patients, focusing on the replication of associations detected with variants in genes related to inflammation, cell survival, or circulation. In this prospective, observational Finnish Acute Kidney Injury (FINNAKI) study, 2647 patients without chronic kidney disease were genotyped. We defined AKI according to Kidney Disease: Improving Global Outcomes (KDIGO) criteria. We compared severe AKI (Stages 2 and 3, n = 625) to controls (Stage 0, n = 1582). For genotyping we used iPLEX(TM) Assay (Agena Bioscience). We performed the association analyses with PLINK software, using an additive genetic model in logistic regression. Despite the numerous, although contradictory, studies about association between polymorphisms rs1800629 in TNFA and rs1800896 in IL10 and AKI, we found no association (odds ratios 1.06 (95% CI 0.89-1.28, p = 0.51) and 0.92 (95% CI 0.80-1.05, p = 0.20), respectively). Adjusting for confounders did not change the results. To conclude, we could not confirm the associations reported in previous studies in a cohort of critically ill patients

Morphology and enzymatic degradation of thermoplastic starch-polycaprolactone blends

This study's aim was to evaluate the effect of processing conditions on the morphology and enzymatic degradation of 50/50 (w/w) thermoplastic starch-polycaprolactone blends. The blends, produced from native potato starch, glycerol, and polycaprolactone in a melt mixer using different mixing speeds and temperatures, were cocontinuous, and the blends were very homogeneous. Enzymatic hydrolysis was performed using Bacillus licheniformis alpha-amylase and Aspergillus niger glucoamylase on both milled and intact samples. The thin layer of polycaprolactone (≈ 5 μm) formed on the surface of the thermoplastic starch-polycaprolactone blends during compression molding strongly reduced the rate of enzymatic hydrolysis