Inflammatory biomarker profile in children with cystic fibrosis: preliminary study

Acute retinal vein occlusion and cystic fibrosis

Background

The ocular manifestations of cystic fibrosis typically present with surface irritation or nyctalopia due to Vitamin A deficiency, however, there have been two previous reports of patients with cystic fibrosis that developed retinal vein occlusions. These reports hypothesized that either elevated fibrinogen levels due to chronic infections or elevated homocysteine levels have predisposed patients with cystic fibrosis to develop retinal vein occlusions.

Case presentation

We present a case of a 35-year-old male with cystic fibrosis complicated by chronic sinusitis with no history of organ transplantation or chronic pulmonary infections who presented with an acute branch retinal vein occlusion in his left eye with associated macular edema. Evaluation revealed an elevated fibrinogen level, while the rest of his workup was relatively unremarkable including a normal homocysteine level. His vision remained 20/20 throughout his care and he did not require treatment of his macular edema.

Conclusions

Patients with cystic fibrosis are at an increased risk of developing retinal vein occlusions likely due to a variety of systemic thrombogenic factors rather than a single risk factor which had been reported previously. Elevated fibrinogen levels in these patients may not be due to chronic infections, but inherent to the cystic fibrosis.

Identification of biomarkers for endometriosis in plasma from patients with endometriosis using a proteomics approach

The present study aimed to examine potential biomarkers for the diagnosis of endometriosis. A plasma-based proteomic approach, including 2-dimentional electrophoresis and mass spectrometry, was used. Samples were obtained from patients with (n=15) and without (n=15) endometriosis, or from mice with surgically induced endometriosis. Seven spots corresponding to six differentially expressed proteins were identified in the human plasma samples. However, only haptoglobin (Hp) was identified to be significantly decreased in the plasma levels of patients with endometriosis (P<0.05) and in mice with surgically induced endometriosis (P<0.05). The results demonstrated that Hp was downregulated in females with endometriosis, and it therefore, may be a useful diagnostic tool as a biomarker of endometriosis.

Decreased expression and increased oxidation of plasma haptoglobin in Alzheimer disease: Insights from redox proteomics

Alzheimer disease (AD) is one of the most disabling disorders of the elderly and the number of people worldwide facing dementia is expected to dramatically increase in the near future. Thus, one of the major concerns of modern society is to identify putative biomarkers that serve as a valuable early diagnostic tool to identify a subset of patients with increased risk to develop AD. An ideal biomarker should be present in blood before dementia is clinically confirmed, have high sensitivity and specificity, and be reproducible. Proteomics platforms offer a powerful strategy to reach these goals and recently have been demonstrated to be promising approaches. However, the high variability of technologies and studied populations has led to contrasting results. To increase specificity, we analyzed both protein expression profiles and oxidative modifications (carbonylation) of plasma proteins in mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and AD subjects compared with age-matched controls. Most of the proteins found to have differential levels in MCI and AD confirmed results already obtained in other cohort studies. Interestingly, we applied for the first time in MCI a redox proteomics approach to specifically identify oxidized proteins. Among them, haptoglobin, one of the most abundantly secreted glycoproteins with chaperone function, was found to be either increasingly downregulated or increasingly oxidized in AD and MCI compared with controls. We also demonstrated that in vitro oxidation of haptoglobin affects the formation of amyloid-β fibrils, thus suggesting that oxidized haptoglobin is not able to act as an extracellular chaperone to prevent or slow formation of amyloid-β aggregates. Another chaperone protein, α2-macroglobulin, was found to be selectively oxidized in AD patients compared with controls. Our findings suggest that alterations in proteins acting as extracellular chaperones may contribute to exacerbating amyloid-β toxicity in the peripheral system and may be considered a putative marker of disease progression.

Cellular and plasma oxidative stress biomarkers are raised in adults with bronchiectasis

BACKGROUND & AIMS

Oxidative stress is believed to play an important role in the pathophysiology of bronchiectasis. The aims of this study were to evaluate the oxidative stress status in bronchiectasis patients.

METHODS

This cross-sectional study included 90 clinically stable adults with bronchiectasis of any aetiology (36 with cystic fibrosis [CF] and 54 without CF) plus 50 healthy controls. Plasma and serum oxidative stress biomarkers were measured using commercial kits. Cellular oxidative stress biomarkers in white blood cells (mitochondrial membrane potential, intracellular glutathione, superoxide anion and hydrogen peroxide) were analyzed by flow cytometry.

RESULTS

Compared with the control group, the catalase activity and lipid peroxidation (TBARs and 8-isoprostanes) were significantly increased in the patient group and the total antioxidant capacity and the activity of superoxide dismutase were decreased. Intracellular superoxide anion and hydrogen peroxide were significantly elevated in the patients versus the controls in total leukocytes, lymphocytes, monocytes and neutrophils. Compared to the controls, the mitochondrial membrane potential was significantly lower in neutrophils and intracellular glutathione in monocytes. No significant differences were observed between CF and non-CF bronchiectasis patients in the oxidative stress biomarkers studied.

CONCLUSIONS

Biomarkers of oxidative stress, both in plasma and intracellular were raised in patients with bronchiectasis compared with controls. No differences were seen in the CF patients compared with the others.