Expression of GSK-3β in renal allograft tissue and its significance in pathogenesis of chronic allograft dysfunction

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Objective</p> <p>To explore the expression of Glycogen synthase kinase 3 beta (GSK-3β) in renal allograft tissue and its significance in the pathogenesis of chronic allograft dysfunction.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Renal allograft biopsy was performed in all of the renal allograft recipients with proteinuria or increased serum creatinine level who came into our hospital from January 2007 to December 2009. Among them 28 cases was diagnosed as chronic allograft dysfunction based on pahtological observation, including 21 males with a mean age of 45 ± 10 years old and 7 females with a mean age of 42 ± 9 years old. The time from kidney transplantation to biopsy were 1-9 (3.5) years. Their serum creatinine level were 206 ± 122 umol/L. Immunohistochemical assay and computer-assisted genuine color image analysis system (imagepro-plus 6.0) were used to detect the expression of GSK-3β in the renal allografts of 28 cases of recipients with chronic allograft dysfunction. Mean area and mean integrated optical density of GSK-3β expression were calculated. The relationship between expression level of GSK-3β and either the grade of inflammatory cell infiltration or interstitial fibrosis/tubular atrophy in renal allograft was analyzed. Five specimens of healthy renal tissue were used as controls.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>The expression level of the GSK-3β was significantly increased in the renal allograft tissue of recipients with chronic allograft dysfunction, compared to normal renal tissues, and GSK-3β expression became stronger along with the increasing of the grade of either inflammatory cell infiltration or interstitial fibrosis/tubular atrophy in renal allograft tissue.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>There might be a positive correlation between either inflammatory cell infiltration or interstitial fibrosis/tubular atrophy and high GSK-3β expression in renal allograft tissue.</p> <p>Virtual slides</p> <p>The virtual slide(s) for this article can be found here:</p> <p><url>http://www.diagnosticpathology.diagnomx.eu/vs/9924478946162998</url>.</p

A proton nuclear magnetic resonance-based metabonomics study of metabolic profiling in immunoglobulin a nephropathy

OBJECTIVES: Immunoglobulin A nephropathy is the most common cause of chronic renal failure among primary glomerulonephritis patients. The ability to diagnose immunoglobulin A nephropathy remains poor. However, renal biopsy is an inconvenient, invasive, and painful examination, and no reliable biomarkers have been developed for use in routine patient evaluations. The aims of the present study were to identify immunoglobulin A nephropathy patients, to identify useful biomarkers of immunoglobulin A nephropathy and to establish a human immunoglobulin A nephropathy metabolic profile. METHODS: Serum samples were collected from immunoglobulin A nephropathy patients who were not using immunosuppressants. A pilot study was undertaken to determine disease-specific metabolite biomarker profiles in three groups: healthy controls (N = 23), low-risk patients in whom immunoglobulin A nephropathy was confirmed as grades I-II by renal biopsy (N = 23), and high-risk patients with nephropathies of grades IV-V (N = 12). Serum samples were analyzed using proton nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy and by applying multivariate pattern recognition analysis for disease classification. RESULTS: Compared with the healthy controls, both the low-risk and high-risk patients had higher levels of phenylalanine, myo-Inositol, lactate, L6 lipids ( = CH-CH2-CH = O), L5 lipids (-CH2-C = O), and L3 lipids (-CH2-CH2-C = O) as well as lower levels of &#946; -glucose, &#945;-glucose, valine, tyrosine, phosphocholine, lysine, isoleucine, glycerolphosphocholine, glycine, glutamine, glutamate, alanine, acetate, 3-hydroxybutyrate, and 1-methylhistidine. CONCLUSIONS: These metabolites investigated in this study may serve as potential biomarkers of immunoglobulin A nephropathy. Point scoring of pattern recognition analysis was able to distinguish immunoglobulin A nephropathy patients from healthy controls. However, there were no obvious differences between the low-risk and high-risk groups in our research. These results offer new, sensitive and specific, noninvasive approaches that may be of great benefit to immunoglobulin A nephropathy patients by enabling earlier diagnosis

Comparison of immunohistochemistry (IHC) and fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) assessment for Her-2 status in breast cancer

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The concordance rate between IHC and FISH according to clinical performance is still controversial. We report a prospective study to reflect the concordance between IHC and FISH in Guilin city, People's Republic of China.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Fifty cases of invasive ductal carcinoma of breast tested by IHC and scored as 0, 1+, 2+ and 3+ by pathologists were further analyzed by FISH using a commercially available double-color probe, and the FISH findings were compared with IHC test results.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>A total concordance of 82.0% was observed with a Kappa coefficient of 0.640 (P < 0.001). A high discordance was observed in 30.0% of the patients with IHC 2+, 7.1% in IHC 3+, 19.2% overall in IHC 0 and 1+.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>The IHC can be used firstly to screen the HER-2 status, and FISH can be used as a supplementary role to IHC and 2+ and some negative cases. And only those cases with Her-2 status of IHC 3+ or FISH positive should be treated with Herceptin.</p

Direct and indirect effects of climate on richness drive the latitudinal diversity gradient in forest trees

Data accessibility statement: Full census data are available upon reasonable request from the ForestGEO data portal, http://ctfs.si.edu/datarequest/ We thank Margie Mayfield, three anonymous reviewers and Jacob Weiner for constructive comments on the manuscript. This study was financially supported by the National Key R&D Program of China (2017YFC0506100), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (31622014 and 31570426), and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (17lgzd24) to CC. XW was supported by the Strategic Priority Research Program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (XDB3103). DS was supported by the Czech Science Foundation (grant no. 16-26369S). Yves Rosseel provided us valuable suggestions on using the lavaan package conducting SEM analyses. Funding and citation information for each forest plot is available in the Supplementary Information Text 1.Peer reviewedPostprin

Ship Pipe Routing Design Using NSGA-II and Coevolutionary Algorithm

Pipe route design plays a prominent role in ship design. Due to the complex configuration in layout space with numerous pipelines, diverse design constraints, and obstacles, it is a complicated and time-consuming process to obtain the optimal route of ship pipes. In this article, an optimized design method for branch pipe routing is proposed to improve design efficiency and to reduce human errors. By simplifying equipment and ship hull models and dividing workspace into three-dimensional grid cells, the mathematic model of layout space is constructed. Based on the proposed concept of pipe grading method, the optimization model of pipe routing is established. Then an optimization procedure is presented to deal with pipe route planning problem by combining maze algorithm (MA), nondominated sorting genetic algorithm II (NSGA-II), and cooperative coevolutionary nondominated sorting genetic algorithm II (CCNSGA-II). To improve the performance in genetic algorithm procedure, a fixed-length encoding method is presented based on improved maze algorithm and adaptive region strategy. Fuzzy set theory is employed to extract the best compromise pipeline from Pareto optimal solutions. Simulation test of branch pipe and design optimization of a fuel piping system were carried out to illustrate the design optimization procedure in detail and to verify the feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed methodology

Univariate and multiple linear regression analyses for 23 single nucleotide polymorphisms in 14 genes predisposing to chronic glomerular diseases and IgA nephropathy in Han Chinese

Immunoglobulin A nephropathy (IgAN) is a complex trait regulated by the inter-action among multiple physiologic regulatory systems and probably involving numerous genes, which leads to inconsistent findings in genetic studies. One possibility of failure to replicate some single-locus results is that the underlying genetics of IgAN nephropathy is based on multiple genes with minor effects. To learn the association between 23 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in 14 genes predisposing to chronic glomerular diseases and IgAN in Han males, the 23 SNPs genotypes of 21 Han males were detected and analyzed with a BaiO gene chip, and their asso-ciations were analyzed with univariate analysis and multiple linear regression analysis. Analysis showed that CTLA4 rs231726 and CR2 rs1048971 revealed a significant association with IgAN. These findings support the multi-gene nature of the etiology of IgAN and propose a potential gene-gene interactive model for future studies

Damage and Failure Characteristics of Surrounding Rock in Deep Circular Cavern under Cyclic Dynamic Load: A True Triaxial Experiment Investigation

For ensuring safety and efficiency during the construction of deep engineering, it is essential to explore the failure mode of the surrounding rock mass under dynamic disturbance and high geo-stress. We conducted true triaxial load tests for rock-like material with a preexisting circular hole, and monitored the acoustic emission (AE) signal during the whole test. The result demonstrates the evolution characteristics of damage and failure mode with different cyclic dynamic load amplitudes and intermediate principal stress. With the increase in cyclic dynamic load amplitude or the decrease in intermediate principal stress, the failure source mainly occurs at the two horizontal side walls of the surrounding rock where the failure patterns change from the slabbing to wall caving and, finally, to rockburst. The former failure mode can actually serve as an important precursor for the latter. Based on such mechanisms, the precursor can be indirectly detected in forms of AE signal released by microcracking. The research can provide a reliable guidance for the rock stability control and faithfully forecasting the larger-scale failure during the excavation of deep circular cavern

Damage and Failure Characteristics of Surrounding Rock in Deep Circular Cavern under Cyclic Dynamic Load: A True Triaxial Experiment Investigation

For ensuring safety and efficiency during the construction of deep engineering, it is essential to explore the failure mode of the surrounding rock mass under dynamic disturbance and high geo-stress. We conducted true triaxial load tests for rock-like material with a preexisting circular hole, and monitored the acoustic emission (AE) signal during the whole test. The result demonstrates the evolution characteristics of damage and failure mode with different cyclic dynamic load amplitudes and intermediate principal stress. With the increase in cyclic dynamic load amplitude or the decrease in intermediate principal stress, the failure source mainly occurs at the two horizontal side walls of the surrounding rock where the failure patterns change from the slabbing to wall caving and, finally, to rockburst. The former failure mode can actually serve as an important precursor for the latter. Based on such mechanisms, the precursor can be indirectly detected in forms of AE signal released by microcracking. The research can provide a reliable guidance for the rock stability control and faithfully forecasting the larger-scale failure during the excavation of deep circular cavern

The Effects of Consumption L-Arabinose on Metabolic Syndrome in Humans

On the basis of results in rat, L-arabinose decreased total cholesterol (TC), triglycerides (TG), fasting glucose, systolic blood pressure, increased high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDLC), and enhanced the glucose tolerance. The primary purposes of the present study was to determine the effects of consumption L-arabinose on metabolic syndrome in humans.All volunteers received L-Arabinose by dissolving it in water. The volunteers didn’t change the diet habits and lifestyles during the whole experiment. The trial lasted for 6 months, and experimental indicators were assayed every two months, which including weight, waist circumference, blood pressure, TG, TC, HDLC, low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDLC), fasting plasma glucose, erum uric acid, serum creatinine (Scr), bloodurea nitrogen (BUN), alanine aminotransferase (ALT) and aspartate aminotransferase (AST). Our results showed that the L-arabinose decreased waist circumference, TC, fasting glucose, serum uric acid, ALT and slightly increased HDLCand slightly decreased diastolic blood pressure after 6 months. A tendency for decreased waist circumference, TC, fasting glucose, serum uric acid, ALT after 2, 4 and 6 months of treatment with L-arabinose was observed. In addition, L-arabinose decreased TC, LDLC and body weight. No effects on Scr, BUN, AST. In conclusions, L-arabinosewould reduce most the metabolic syndrome risk factors(decreased circumference, TC, fasting glucose, and so on), and treat the metabolic syndrome as a whole.The present study would provides strong evidence that long-term received L-arabinose would be manage metabolic syndrome