ESAT-6 protein suppresses allograft rejection by inducing CD4Foxp3 regulatory T cells through IκBα/cRel pathway.

Background: Maintenance immunosuppression is required for suppression of alloimmunity or allograft rejection. However, continuous use of immunosuppressants may lead to various side effects, necessitating the use of alternative immunosuppressive drugs. The early secreted antigenic target of 6 kDa (ESAT-6) is a virulence factor and immunoregulatory protein of mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb), which alters host immunity through dually regulating development or activation of various immune cells.

A patient report scale research to access the symptom burden in patients with IgA nephropathy.

Patients diagnosed with IgA nephropathy (IgAN) commonly experience a substantial burden of symptoms encompassing both physical and psychological aspects. Presently, there's a dearth of standardized assessment tools to effectively gauge the extent of symptom burden in IgAN patients. Therefore, this study aims to devise an IgAN Symptom Assessment Tool that enables a comprehensive evaluation of patient symptom burden and their self-perceived severity.

The renal damage and mechanisms relevant to antitumoral drugs.

Over the past few decades, significant progress has been made in the development of drugs to combat cancer. It is unfortunate that these drugs can also lead to various kidney injuries and imbalances in electrolyte levels. Nephrotoxicity caused by chemotherapy drugs can impact different parts of the kidneys, including the glomeruli, renal tubules, interstitium, or renal microvessels.

Miniaturized matrix solid-phase dispersion and solid-phase clear-up combined with capillary electrophoresis for efficient determination of trace bioactive components in complicated sample matrix: Take Wubi Shanyao Pill as an example.

Accurate quantitative analysis of trace analytes in a complicated matrix is a challenge in modern analytical chemistry. An appropriate analytical method is considered to be one of the most common gaps during the whole process. In this study, a green and efficient strategy based on miniaturized matrix solid-phase dispersion and solid-phase extraction combined with capillary electrophoresis was first proposed for extracting, purifying and determining target analytes from complicated matrix, using Wubi Shanyao Pill as an example.

Immunogenicity and safety of SARS-CoV-2 vaccine in hemodialysis patients: A systematic review and meta-analysis.

Rationale And Objective: COVID-19 vaccination is the most effective way to prevent COVID-19. For chronic kidney disease patients on long-term dialysis, there is a lack of evidence on the pros and cons of COVID-19 vaccination. This study was conducted to investigate the immunogenicity and safety of COVID-19 vaccines in patients on dialysis.

LASSO-derived nomogram predicting new-onset diabetes mellitus in patients with kidney disease receiving immunosuppressive drugs.

What Is Known And Objective: Patients with kidney disease receiving immunosuppressive drugs (ISDs) (tacrolimus, cyclosporine and glucocorticoids) have a high risk of developing new-onset diabetes mellitus (NODM). We aimed to establish a precise and convenient model for predicting NODM in patients receiving immunosuppressive drugs.

Methods: This retrospective study recruited 1883 patients receiving ISDs between January 2010 and October 2018.

ZMYND8 promotes the growth and metastasis of hepatocellular carcinoma by promoting HK2-mediated glycolysis.

The bromodomain protein zinc finger MYND-type containing 8 (ZMYND8) plays a critical role in human breast cancer. However, the expression and biological function of ZMYND8 in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) are poorly understood. In this study, ZMYND8 expression was found to be elevated in HCC based on the cancer genome atlas (TCGA) and gene expression omnibus (GEO) databases.

Hypoxia-induced TUFT1 promotes the growth and metastasis of hepatocellular carcinoma by activating the Ca/PI3K/AKT pathway.

Tuftelin1 (TUFT1), an acidic protein constituent of developing and mineralizing tooth tissues, is regulated by hypoxia and the Hedgehog signaling pathway. We investigated the role of TUFT1 in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). qRT-PCR, immunohistochemistry and western blot were employed to evaluate TUFT1 level in HCC.

Distinction between medical and non-medical usages of short forms in clinical narratives.

The short forms of medical concepts or expressions (i.e., acronyms/abbreviations) are prevalent in clinical documentation.

Clinical information extraction applications: A literature review.

Background: With the rapid adoption of electronic health records (EHRs), it is desirable to harvest information and knowledge from EHRs to support automated systems at the point of care and to enable secondary use of EHRs for clinical and translational research. One critical component used to facilitate the secondary use of EHR data is the information extraction (IE) task, which automatically extracts and encodes clinical information from text.

Objectives: In this literature review, we present a review of recent published research on clinical information extraction (IE) applications.

Recommending Education Materials for Diabetic Questions Using Information Retrieval Approaches.

Background: Self-management is crucial to diabetes care and providing expert-vetted content for answering patients' questions is crucial in facilitating patient self-management.

Objective: The aim is to investigate the use of information retrieval techniques in recommending patient education materials for diabetic questions of patients.

Methods: We compared two retrieval algorithms, one based on Latent Dirichlet Allocation topic modeling (topic modeling-based model) and one based on semantic group (semantic group-based model), with the baseline retrieval models, vector space model (VSM), in recommending diabetic patient education materials to diabetic questions posted on the TuDiabetes forum.

Suppression of allograft rejection by CD8+CD122+PD-1+ Tregs is dictated by their Fas ligand-initiated killing of effector T cells versus Fas-mediated own apoptosis.

Mounting evidence has shown that naturally occurring CD8+CD122+ T cells are regulatory T cells (Tregs) that suppress both autoimmunity and alloimmunity. We have previously shown that CD8+CD122+PD-1+ Tregs not only suppress allograft rejection, but also are more potent in suppression than conventional CD4+CD25+ Tregs. However, the mechanisms underlying their suppression of alloimmunity are not well understood.

Impacts of cigarette smoking on immune responsiveness: Up and down or upside down?

Cigarette smoking is associated with numerous diseases and poses a serious challenge to the current healthcare system worldwide. Smoking impacts both innate and adaptive immunity and plays dual roles in regulating immunity by either exacerbation of pathogenic immune responses or attenuation of defensive immunity. Adaptive immune cells affected by smoking mainly include T helper cells (Th1/Th2/Th17), CD4+CD25+ regulatory T cells, CD8+ T cells, B cells and memory T/B lymphocytes while innate immune cells impacted by smoking are mostly DCs, macrophages and NK cells.

Tanshinol suppresses cardiac allograft rejection in a murine model.

Background: Achieving long-term cardiac allograft survival without continuous immunosuppression is highly desired in organ transplantation. Studies have shown that Salvia miltiorrhiza, an herb also known as danshen, improves microcirculation and is highly effective in treating coronary heart disease. Our objective is to determine whether tanshinol, an ingredient of danshen, improves cardiac allograft survival.

Medicinal herbs Fructus corni and Semen cuscutae suppress allograft rejection via distinct immune mechanisms.

Achieving long-term allograft survival without continuous global immunosuppression is highly desirable because constant immunosuppression causes severe side effects. Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) has been utilized to treat numerous diseases for centuries. To seek novel immunosuppressive agents, we investigated several Chinese herbal formulas that have been shown to be effective in treating autoimmune diseases.

Emodin via colonic irrigation modulates gut microbiota and reduces uremic toxins in rats with chronic kidney disease.

Gut microbiota plays a dual role in chronic kidney disease (CKD) and is closely linked to production of uremic toxins. Strategies of reducing uremic toxins by targeting gut microbiota are emerging. It is known that Chinese medicine rhubarb enema can reduce uremic toxins and improve renal function.

Rhubarb Enema Attenuates Renal Tubulointerstitial Fibrosis in 5/6 Nephrectomized Rats by Alleviating Indoxyl Sulfate Overload.

Aim: To investigate the effects of rhubarb enema treatment using a 5/6 nephrectomized rat model and study its mechanisms.

Methods: Twenty-eight Sprague Dawley rats were divided into three groups: sham operation group (n = 8), 5/6 nephrectomized (5/6Nx) (n = 10), and 5/6Nx with rhubarb enema treatment (n = 10). The rhubarb enema was continuous for 1.

Grape seed proanthocyanidin extract protects human umbilical vein endothelial cells from indoxyl sulfate-induced injury via ameliorating mitochondrial dysfunction.

Objective: To investigate the effects of grape seed proanthocyanidin extract (GSPE) on indoxyl sulfate-induced Human Umbilical Vein Endothelial Cells (HUVECs) injury in vitro and study its mechanism.

Methods: HUVECs were incubated with indoxyl sulfate at concentrations in the range found in uremic patients. Then we determined the effect of indoxyl sulfate on endothelial phenotype, endothelial function, ROS (reactive oxygen species), cell apoptosis and mitochondrial function.

A naturally occurring CD8(+)CD122(+) T-cell subset as a memory-like Treg family.

Despite extensive studies on CD4(+)CD25(+) regulatory T cells (Tregs) during the past decade, the progress on their clinical translation remains stagnant. Mounting evidence suggests that naturally occurring CD8(+)CD122(+) T cells are also Tregs with the capacity to inhibit T-cell responses and suppress autoimmunity as well as alloimmunity. In fact, they are memory-like Tregs that resemble a central memory T cell (TCM) phenotype.