Publications by authors named "D De Leonardis"
In the past decade, scientific research in the area of Nephrology has focused on evaluating the clinical utility and performance of various biomarkers for diagnosis, risk stratification and prognosis. Before implementing a biomarker in everyday clinical practice for screening a specific disease context, specific statistic measures are necessary to evaluate the diagnostic accuracy and performance of this biomarker. Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC) Curve analysis is an important statistical method used to estimate the discriminatory performance of a novel diagnostic test, identify the optimal cut-off value for a test that maximizes sensitivity and specificity, and evaluate the predictive value of a certain biomarker or risk, prediction score.
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- Exosomes facilitate communication between cells by transferring molecular materials, influencing the biological responses of recipient cells, with milk exosomes (MEx) showing particular effectiveness with immune cells.
- The study focuses on how porcine MEx are taken up by porcine monocytes (immune cell precursors) and assesses their effect on these cells' immune functions.
- Findings reveal that porcine MEx can be internalized by monocytes, leading to decreased chemotaxis and phagocytosis while increasing reactive oxygen species production, indicating a significant role for MEx in modifying immune responses in pigs.
Background: Sex differences for cardiovascular (CV) risk and outcomes in chronic kidney disease (CKD) patients not on dialysis have been scarcely or never investigated. We therefore studied this important aspect in a cohort of CKD stage 2-5 in the south of Italy.
Methods: We tested the relationship between sex and fatal and non-fatal major CV events in a cohort of 759 stage 2-5 CKD patients followed up for a median time of 36 months.
Background: Metabolic acidosis accelerates chronic kidney disease (CKD) progression towards kidney failure in animal models. Clinical trials testing the effect of bicarbonate on kidney outcomes are underpowered and/or of suboptimal quality. On the other hand, observational studies testing the same hypothesis are generally based on bicarbonate measured at a single time point.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Neuropeptide Y (NPY) is a neurotransmitter expressed in both the central and peripheral nervous systems, which is involved in regulating a multitude of physiological processes ranging from arterial pressure, energy balance, the immune response and inflammation and renal electrolyte transport. In a cohort of chronic kidney disease (CKD) patients, we recently showed that high plasma NPY levels predict renal disease progression independently of hypertension and other risk factors but the causal nature of this association remains unproven.
Methods: In the same cohort of the previous study, we tested the relationship of NPY gene variability, as assessed by five single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) that explained the whole gene variability, with the incidence rate of a predefined combined renal endpoint (dialysis/transplantation/estimated glomerular filtration rate reduction >30%) over a median follow up of 36 months (inter-quartile range 35-37 months) in 735 ethnically homogeneous patients with stage 2-5 CKD.