Association between prealbumin, all-cause mortality, and response to nutrition treatment in patients at nutrition risk: Secondary analysis of a randomized controlled trial.

Background: Because of the shorter half-life as compared with albumin, serum prealbumin concentrations have been proposed to be useful nutrition biomarkers for the assessment of patients at nutrition risk. In a post hoc analysis of patients at nutrition risk from a randomized controlled nutrition trial, we tested the hypothesis that (1) prealbumin is associated with higher all-cause 180-day mortality rates and that (2) individualized nutrition support compared with usual-care nutrition more effectively improves survival at 30 days in patients with low prealbumin levels compared with patients with normal prealbumin levels.

Methods: We performed a prespecified cohort study in patients included in the pragmatic, Swiss, multicenter randomized controlled EFFORT trial comparing the effects of individualized nutrition support with usual care.

Surplus embryos in Switzerland in 2003: legislation and availability of human embryos for research.

Legislation influences the availability of embryos for research. The law in Switzerland, and in some other European countries, is restrictive concerning medically assisted reproduction and stem cell research. Swiss law prohibits the creation of embryos for research purposes.

Interferon-kappa, a novel type I interferon expressed in human keratinocytes.

High throughput cDNA sequencing has led to the identification of interferon-kappa, a novel subclass of type I interferon that displays approximately 30% homology to other family members. Interferon-kappa consists of 207 amino acids, including a 27-amino acid signal peptide and a series of cysteines conserved in type I interferons. The gene encoding interferon-kappa is located on the short arm of chromosome 9 adjacent to the type I interferon gene cluster and is selectively expressed in epidermal keratinocytes.

Expression, purification, and bioassay of human stanniocalcin from baculovirus-infected insect cells and recombinant CHO cells.

Stanniocalcin is a calcium- and phosphate-regulating glycoprotein hormone that was first described in fish where it functions in preventing hypercalcemia. Human cDNA clones encoding the homolog of stanniocalcin have been recently isolated. In this study, the full-length cDNA coding for human stanniocalcin (hSTC) was cloned into both baculovirus and CHO expression vectors.

Stanniocalcin: a novel protein regulating calcium and phosphate transport across mammalian intestine.

Stanniocalcin (STC) is an anti-hypercalcemic glycoprotein hormone previously identified in the corpuscles of Stannius in bony fish and recently in the human genome. This study undertook to express human STC in Chinese hamster ovary (CHO) cells and to determine its effects on calcium and phosphate absorption in swine and rat intestine. Unidirectional mucosal-to-serosal (Jm-->s) and serosal-to-mucosal (Js-->m) 45Ca and 32P fluxes were measured in vitro in duodenal tissue in voltage-clamped Ussing chambers.