The role of nutritional vitamin D in CKD-MBD in children and adults with CKD, on dialysis and after kidney transplantation - a European consensus statement.

Vitamin D deficiency is common in patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD) and associates with poor outcomes. Current clinical practice guidelines recommend supplementation with nutritional vitamin D as for the general population. However, recent large-scale, clinical trials in the general population failed to demonstrate a benefit of vitamin D supplementation on skeletal or non-skeletal outcomes, fueling a debate on the rationale for screening for and correcting vitamin D deficiency, both in non-CKD and CKD populations.

Chronic kidney disease-mineral and bone disorder: conclusions from a Kidney Disease: Improving Global Outcomes (KDIGO) Controversies Conference.

In 2017, Kidney Disease: Improving Global Outcomes (KDIGO) published a Clinical Practice Guideline Update for the Diagnosis, Evaluation, Prevention, and Treatment of Chronic Kidney Disease-Mineral and Bone Disorder (CKD-MBD). Since then, new lines of evidence have been published related to evaluating disordered mineral metabolism and bone quality and turnover, identifying and inhibiting vascular calcification, targeting vitamin D levels, and regulating parathyroid hormone. For an in-depth consideration of the new insights, in October 2023, KDIGO held a Controversies Conference on CKD-MBD: Progress and Knowledge Gaps Toward Personalizing Care.

Epigenetic regulation of vascular smooth muscle cell phenotypes in atherosclerosis.

Vascular smooth muscle cells (VSMCs) in adult arteries maintain substantial phenotypic plasticity, which allows for the reversible cell state changes that enable vascular remodelling and homeostasis. In atherosclerosis, VSMCs dedifferentiate in response to lipid accumulation and inflammation, resulting in loss of their characteristic contractile state. Recent studies showed that individual, pre-existing VSMCs expand clonally and can acquire many different phenotypes in atherosclerotic lesions.

Immune changes in pregnancy: associations with pre-existing conditions and obstetrical complications at the 20th gestational week-a prospective cohort study.

Background: Pregnancy is a complex biological process and serious complications can arise when the delicate balance between the maternal and semi-allogeneic fetal immune systems is disrupted or challenged. Gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM), pre-eclampsia, preterm birth, and low birth weight pose serious threats to maternal and fetal health. Identification of early biomarkers through an in-depth understanding of molecular mechanisms is critical for early intervention.

PER1 Oscillation in Rat Parathyroid Hormone and Calcitonin Producing Cells.

Many endocrine glands exhibit circadian rhythmicity, but the interplay between the central circadian clock in the suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN), the peripheral endocrine clock, and hormones is sparsely understood. We therefore studied the cellular localizations of the clock protein PER1, parathyroid hormone (PTH) and calcitonin (CT) in the parathyroid and thyroid glands, respectively. Thyroid glands, including the parathyroids, were dissected at different time-points from rats housed in 12 h:12 h light-darkness cycles, and were double-immunostained for PER1 and PTH or CT.