Distinct Non-Human Leukocyte Antigen Antibody Signatures Correlate with Endothelial Crossmatch Status in Lung and Renal Transplant Recipients.

Non-HLA antibodies against heterogeneous targets on endothelial cells have been associated with allograft injuries. The endothelial cell crossmatch (ECXM) is used in the detection of non-HLA antibodies but remains non-discriminatory for specific antibody identification. The primary objective of this study was to delineate the specific non-HLA antibody signatures associated with ECXM positivity and to determine the correlation of ECXM status and non-HLA antibody signatures on allograft health.

Assessing the utilization of high-resolution 2-field HLA typing in solid organ transplantation.

HLA typing in solid organ transplantation (SOT) is necessary for determining HLA-matching status between donor-recipient pairs and assessing patients' anti-HLA antibody profiles. Histocompatibility has traditionally been evaluated based on serologically defined HLA antigens. The evolution of HLA typing and antibody identification technologies, however, has revealed many limitations with using serologic equivalents for assessing compatibility in SOT.

Use of Wavelet Transform to Detect Compensated and Decompensated Stages in the Congestive Heart Failure Patient.

This research work is aimed at improving health care, reducing cost, and the occurrence of emergency hospitalization in patients with Congestive Heart Failure (CHF) by analyzing heart and lung sounds to distinguish between the compensated and decompensated states. Compensated state defines stable state of the patient but with lack of retention of fluids in lungs, whereas decompensated state leads to unstable state of the patient with lots of fluid retention in the lungs, where the patient needs medication. Acoustic signals from the heart and the lung were analyzed using wavelet transforms to measure changes in the CHF patient's status from the decompensated to compensated and vice versa.

Determining performance characteristics of an NGS-based HLA typing method for clinical applications.

This study presents performance specifications of an in-house developed human leukocyte antigen (HLA) typing assay using next-generation sequencing (NGS) on the Illumina MiSeq platform. A total of 253 samples, previously characterized for HLA-A, -B, -C, -DRB1 and -DQB1 were included in this study, which were typed at high-resolution using a combination of Sanger sequencing, sequence-specific primer (SSP) and sequence-specific oligonucleotide probe (SSOP) technologies and recorded at the two-field level. Samples were selected with alleles that cover a high percentage of HLA specificities in each of five different race/ethnic groups: European, African-American, Asian Pacific Islander, Hispanic and Native American.