New Conversion Formula Between B-Type Natriuretic Peptide and N-Terminal-Pro-B-Type Natriuretic Peptide - Analysis From a Multicenter Study

BACKGROUND

Although B-type natriuretic peptide (BNP) and N-terminal (NT)-proBNP are commonly used markers of heart failure, a simple conversion formula between these peptides has not yet been developed for clinical use.Methods and Results: A total of 9,394 samples were obtained from Nara Medical University, Jichi Medical University, and Osaka University. We randomly selected 70% for a derivation set to investigate a conversion formula from BNP to NT-proBNP using estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR) and body mass index (BMI); the remaining 30% was used as the internal validation set and we used a cohort study from Nara Medical University as an external validation set. Multivariate linear regression analysis revealed a new conversion formula: log NT-proBNP = 1.21 + 1.03 × log BNP - 0.009 × BMI - 0.007 × eGFR (r²=0.900, P<0.0001). The correlation coefficients between the actual and converted values of log NT-proBNP in the internal and external validation sets were 0.942 (P<0.0001) and 0.891 (P<0.0001), respectively. We applied this formula to samples obtained from patients administered with sacubitril/valsartan. After treatment initiation, NT-proBNP levels decreased and actual BNP levels increased. However, the calculated BNP levels decreased roughly parallel to the NT-proBNP levels.

CONCLUSIONS

This new and simple conversion formula of BNP and NT-proBNP with eGFR and BMI is potentially useful in clinical practice.

Diagnostic performance of Elecsys immunoassays for cerebrospinal fluid Alzheimer's disease biomarkers in a nonacademic, multicenter memory clinic cohort: The ABIDE project

Introduction

We compared the automated Elecsys and manual Innotest immunoassays for cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) Alzheimer's disease biomarkers in a multicenter diagnostic setting.

Methods

We collected CSF samples from 137 participants in eight local memory clinics. Amyloid β(1–42) (Aβ42), total tau (t-tau), and phosphorylated tau (p-tau) were centrally analyzed with Innotest and Elecsys assays. Concordances between methods were assessed.

Results

Biomarker results strongly correlated between assays with Spearman's ρ 0.94 for Aβ42, 0.98 for t-tau, and 0.98 for p-tau. Using Gaussian mixture modeling, cohort-specific cut-points were estimated at 1092 pg/mL for Aβ42, 235 pg/mL for t-tau, and 24 pg/mL for p-tau. We found an excellent concordance of biomarker abnormality between assays of 97% for Aβ42 and 96% for both t-tau and p-tau.

Discussion

The high concordances between Elecsys and Innotest in this nonacademic, multicenter cohort support the use of Elecsys for CSF Alzheimer's disease diagnostics and allow conversion of results between methods.

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Method comparison of 137 CSF samples collected in eight nonacademic memory clinics.

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Innotest and Elecsys strongly correlated: ρ = 0.94 Aβ42; 0.98 t-tau; 0.98 p-tau.

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Concordances of biomarker abnormalities: 97% Aβ42; 96% t-tau and p-tau.

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Concordance of NIA-AA–based Alzheimer's disease profile (Aβ42 decreased and p-tau increased): 89%.

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Preanalytical protocol deviations did not show effects on biomarker correlations.

Direct optical density determination of bacterial cultures in microplates for high-throughput screening applications

A convenient and most abundantly applied method to determine the growth state of a bacterial cell culture is to determine the optical density (OD) spectrophotometrically. Dilution of the samples, which is necessary to measure within the linear range of the spectrophotometer, is time-consuming and not compatible with high-throughput applications. Here we present a direct approach to estimate the OD at 578 nm (OD₅₇₈) of bacterial cultures in microplates without the need for sample dilution. This could be advantageous for high-throughput analysis of bacterial cells in microplates for example when optimizing growth conditions, screening for new substrates of a bacterial strain or monitoring enzymatic activity after enzyme evolution. Pseudomonas putida cells were grown in shake flasks. The OD₅₇₈ was determined in parallel in a microplate directly without dilution and in a spectrophotometer cuvette after dilution. The resulting data set was used to identify a conversion formula, which enables direct and reliable transformation of OD measurements of undiluted samples into the corrected OD values as would have been obtained for diluted samples measured in a standard spectrophotometer. Subsequently we could show that just a few OD calibration points are required to adjust this conversion formula and make it suitable for other suspensions or cultures of bacterial strains different than P. putida. The OD calibration points can be obtained by any combination of microplate reader and cuvette spectrophotometer. For this purpose, conversion formulas for a formazine standard suspension and a suspension of Escherichia coli BL21(DE3) cells were successfully generated. The OD values calculated by both conversion formulas turned out to be identical with the values as obtained by the control measurements in the spectrophotometer. This indicates the general applicability of the conversion formula as described.