There is growing evidence that oxidative stress contributes not only to the pathophysiology of atherosclerosis but also to acute kidney injury (AKI). This study investigated the prognostic value of nHDLox (normalized high-density lipoprotein with reduced antioxidant function) in hospitalized patients with AKI. nHDLox was measured within 48 hours of AKI diagnosis. We assessed its performance in predicting the following primary endpoints: in-hospital all-cause mortality, need for kidney replacement therapy (KRT), and restoration of kidney function before discharge. Secondary endpoints included clinical markers of severe disease course: intensive care treatment, ventilatory support, and vasopressor requirement. Among 132 participants, 16.7% died in the hospital, 36.4% required KRT, and 31.1% had no restoration of kidney function. For all primary endpoints, nHDLox levels were significantly higher in non-survivors (2.00 vs. 1.26; +58.7%; p = 0.009), in patients requiring KRT (1.66 vs. 1.23; +34.9%; p = 0.002), and in those without renal recovery (1.71 vs. 1.23; +39.0%; p = 0.001). nHDLox was independently associated with death, KRT, and lack of renal recovery, with odds ratios for a twofold increase (95% CI) of 1.88 (1.19-2.98), 1.78 (1.17-2.69), and 2.09 (1.34-3.26), respectively. Predictive performance was moderate, with AUC-ROC values (95% CI) of 0.68 (0.54-0.81), 0.66 (0.56-0.76), and 0.67 (0.57-0.78). No differences were observed across secondary endpoints. Impaired antioxidant HDL function is closely associated with clinically relevant AKI outcomes. nHDLox, therefore, represents a significant risk factor in both cardiovascular and kidney disease.

Sepsis is a life-threatening condition and a major cause of hospital mortality worldwide. This study investigated the diagnostic utility of monocyte mean volume (MONO MEAN-V), monocyte distribution width (MDW), monocyte mean conductivity (MONO MEAN-C), and monocyte standard deviation conductivity (MONO Sd-C) for sepsis, compared to conventional markers. A prospective cohort study was conducted in two centers, enrolling adult patients classified into three groups: sepsis, septic shock, and febrile. Blood was drawn from septic patients on days 1, 3, and 5 of admission. MDW and other inflammatory parameters were measured in all patients. Patients with sepsis or septic shock exhibited significantly elevated MONO MEAN-V, MDW, and MONO MEAN-C and lower MONO Sd-C compared to febrile patients. Among the biomarkers evaluated, MDW emerged as a reliable predictor of sepsis. A cut-off MDW value of 25.1 on day 1 demonstrated optimal diagnostic performance, with an area under the ROC curve of 0.84 (95% CI: 0.77-0.91), sensitivity of 75%, and specificity of 91.2%. MDW appears to be a cost-effective, rapid marker for sepsis detection, performing at least as effectively as existing biomarkers. Our findings corroborate other published studies, highlighting MDW's potential to enhance early sepsis recognition.

Background: The circulating rare cell population is diverse and rich in diagnostic information. Its characterization and clinical exploitation by cell-based liquid biopsy is an ongoing research task. Bone marrow is one of the major contributors to the peripheral blood rare cell population and, consequently, determines individual rare cell profiles thus depending on bone marrow health status. Bone marrow damage has been associated with aggressive or late-stage systemic diseases and egress of various bone marrow cells into the blood circulation. The association of quantity and heterogeneity of circulating erythroblast with bone marrow damage is of particular interest. Methods: Circulating CD71high/CD45-/Hoechsthigh blast cells from healthy, noncancer- and cancer-afflicted donors were enriched by CD45 depletion and analyzed by immunofluorescence microscopy. Results: A new finding of aberrant and mitotic circulating erythroid-like cells that appear similar across blood donors afflicted with various systemic pathologies is reported. Further presented is a classification of said erythroblast-like cells in nine subcategories according to morphological differences between phenotypically similar cells. Conclusion: Aberrant and mitotic bone marrow-derived rare circulating erythroid-like cells can be detected in the blood of afflicted individuals but not in healthy donors, suggesting the cause of bone marrow damage.

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Background:The ability to achieve quality recovery of cell-free foetal DNA is important for making non-invasive prenatal diagnoses. In this study, we performed quantitative and qualitative analyses of isolated DNA from maternal plasma, using different DNA-isolation methods.Method:DNA was isolated from 30 iso-immunized women via the QIAamp column-based method, using four different elution volumes and two conventionally based methods. Real-time polymerase chain-reaction quantification of RHD and β-globin genes was performed in order to determine foetal-specific sequences and total genome equivalents, respectively.Results:The column-based method at a 3 μl elution volume yielded the highest quality and quantity of total DNA (67.0±0.6 ng/μL). At a 3 μl elution volume, the β-globin and RHD‐gene sequences were estimated to be the highest among all isolation procedures, with 2778.13±1.5 and 66.9±0.6 GEq/mL, respectively, and a 100% sensitivity for RHD‐gene sequence detection. Among the two conventional manual methods, the boiling lysis method yielded a higher DNA concentration (53.8±0.8 ng/μL) and purity (1.73±0.05). In addition, the method's sensitivity for foetal-detection sequences was only 80%, whereas the salting-out method's sensitivity was just 70%.Conclusions:This study confirms the theory that the QIAamp method is a specific and sensitive approach for purifying and quantifying plasma DNA, when used in the minimum elution volume.

Over the past decade, it has become evident that the microbiome is an important environmental factor that affects many physiological processes, such as cell proliferation and differentiation, behaviour, immune function and metabolism. More importantly, it may contribute to a wide variety of diseases, including cancer, inflammatory diseases, metabolic diseases and responses to pathogens. We expect that international, integrative and interdisciplinary translational research teams, along with the emergence of FDA-approved platforms, will set the framework for microbiome-based therapeutics and diagnostics. We recognize that the microbiome ecosystem offers new promise for personalized/precision medicine and targeted treatment for a variety of diseases.The short course was held as a four-session webinar series in April 2015, taught by pioneers and experts in the microbiome ecosystem, covering a broad range of topics from the healthy microbiome to the effects of an altered microbiome from neonates to adults and the long term effects as it is related to disease, from asthma to cancer. We have learned to appreciate how beneficial our microbes are in breaking down our food, fighting off infections and nurturing our immune system, and this information provides us with ideas as to how we can manipulate our microbiome to prevent certain diseases. However, given the variety of applications, there are scientific challenges, though there are very promising areas in reference to the clinical benefits of understanding more about our microbiome, whether in our gut or on our skin: the outlook is bright. A summary of the short course is presented as a meeting dispatch.

Retrospective analysis of patient tumour samples is a cornerstone of clinical research. CTC biomarker characterization offers a non-invasive method to analyse patient samples. However, current CTC technologies require prospective blood collection, thereby reducing the ability to utilize archived clinical cohorts with long-term outcome data. We sought to investigate CTC recovery from frozen, archived patient PBMC pellets. Matched samples from both mCRPC patients and mock samples, which were prepared by spiking healthy donor blood with cultured prostate cancer cell line cells, were processed “fresh” via Epic CTC Platform or from “frozen” PBMC pellets. Samples were analysed for CTC enumeration and biomarker characterization via immunofluorescent (IF) biomarkers, fluorescence in-situ hybridization (FISH) and CTC morphology. In the frozen patient PMBC samples, the median CTC recovery was 18%, compared to the freshly processed blood. However, abundance and localization of cytokeratin (CK) and androgen receptor (AR) protein, as measured by IF, were largely concordant between the fresh and frozen CTCs. Furthermore, a FISH analysis of PTEN loss showed high concordance in fresh vs. frozen. The observed data indicate that CTC biomarker characterization from frozen archival samples is feasible and representative of prospectively collected samples.