Publications by authors named "Maristella Laggetta"
Alzheimer's disease (AD), the most prevalent neurodegenerative disease in the growing population of elderly people, is still lacking minimally-invasive circulating biomarkers that could facilitate the diagnosis and the monitoring of disease progression. MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are emerging as tissue-specific and/or circulating biomarkers of several age-related diseases, but evidence on AD is still not conclusive. Since a systemic pro-inflammatory status was associated with an increased risk of AD development and progression, we focused our investigation on a subset of miRNAs modulating the inflammatory process, namely inflamma-miRNAs.
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- The study focused on evaluating effective albumin concentration (eAlb) in patients with decompensated cirrhosis, highlighting its dysfunction compared to total albumin concentration (tAlb).
- Researchers found that eAlb better reflected the severity of cirrhosis and was associated with clinical outcomes, specifically in patients with acute-on-chronic liver failure (ACLF).
- The findings suggest that eAlb has greater prognostic value than tAlb, indicating its potential as a biomarker for evaluating patients with liver cirrhosis.
BACKGROUND The persisting organ shortage in the field of transplantation recommends the use of marginal kidneys which poorly tolerate ischemic damage. Adenosine triphosphate (ATP) depletion during cold ischemia time (CIT) is considered crucial for graft function. We tested different strategies of kidney perfusion before transplantation in the attempt to improve the technique.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFDecompensated cirrhosis is associated to extensive post-transcriptional changes of human albumin (HA). This study aims to characterize the occurrence of HA homodimerization in a large cohort of patients with decompensated cirrhosis and to evaluate its association with clinical features and prognosis. HA monomeric and dimeric isoforms were identified in peripheral blood by using a HPLC-ESI-MS technique in 123 cirrhotic patients hospitalized for acute decompensation and 50 age- and sex-comparable healthy controls.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground & Aims: Patients with cirrhosis present structural changes of human serum albumin (HSA) affecting non-oncotic functions. Ischaemia-modified albumin (IMA), which reflects the capacity to bind cobalt, has been associated to patient mortality during acute-on-chronic liver failure. This study aimed to assess whether circulating IMA is elevated in advanced cirrhosis and its relationship with severity of cirrhosis and specific complications.
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- Human serum albumin (HSA) experiences structural changes in pro-oxidant and pro-inflammatory conditions, like those found in liver cirrhosis, including the formation of albumin dimers.
- A study used mass spectrometry techniques to identify and characterize these HSA dimers, revealing that they can form through disulfide bridges at a specific site (Cys-34) and can exist as both homo- and hetero-dimers.
- In patients with liver cirrhosis, the ratio of HSA dimers to monomers was significantly higher compared to healthy individuals, suggesting that these dimeric forms could serve as potential biomarkers for liver disease.
Article Synopsis
- Human serum albumin (HSA) plays key roles beyond fluid regulation, including binding, transport, and detoxification, but its function is compromised in cirrhotic patients due to posttranscriptional alterations.
- A study involving 168 cirrhotic patients and 94 healthy controls identified altered HSA isoforms that were more prevalent in patients, correlating with clinical complications and disease severity.
- The native HSA isoform and certain altered forms were identified as predictors of patient survival, suggesting that these changes in HSA could serve as crucial biomarkers for assessing health outcomes in cirrhosis.