EMpowerment of PArents in THe Intensive Care: A multicentre validation study in Japan.

Background: The importance of assessing family satisfaction in paediatric intensive care units (PICUs) is becoming increasingly recognised. The survey, EMpowerment of Parents in THe Intensive Care "EMPATHIC-30", was designed to assess family satisfaction and has been translated and implemented in several countries but not yet in Japan.

Objectives: The objective of this study was to translate, culturally adapt, and validate the EMPATHIC-30 questionnaire in Japanese and to identify potential factors for family-centred care satisfaction.

Myocardin regulates fibronectin expression and secretion from human pleural mesothelial cells.

During the progression of pleural fibrosis, pleural mesothelial cells (PMCs) undergo a phenotype switching process known as mesothelial-mesenchymal transition (MesoMT). During MesoMT, transformed PMCs become myofibroblasts that produce increased extracellular matrix (ECM) proteins, including collagen and fibronectin (FN1) that is critical to develop fibrosis. Here, we studied the mechanism that regulates FN1 expression in myofibroblasts derived from human pleural mesothelial cells (HPMCs).

Role of ZIP kinase in development of myofibroblast differentiation from HPMCs.

During the development of pleural fibrosis, pleural mesothelial cells (PMCs) undergo phenotypic switching from differentiated mesothelial cells to mesenchymal cells (MesoMT). Here, we investigated how external stimuli such as TGF-β induce HPMC-derived myofibroblast differentiation to facilitate the development of pleural fibrosis. TGF-β significantly increased di-phosphorylation but not mono-phosphorylation of myosin II regulatory light chain (RLC) in HPMCs.