Krebs von den Lungen-6 (KL-6) as a diagnostic marker for pulmonary fibrosis: A systematic review and meta-analysis.

BACKGROUND: Pulmonary fibrosis (PF) is a respiratory disease with end-stage pathological changes of interstitial lung disease that severely affects the survival of patients. Among the many biomarkers that have been identified, serum Krebs von den Lungen-6 (KL-6) is by far the most frequent marker for detecting pulmonary fibrosis. METHODS: We searched Medline (Pubmed), Embase, Web of science, and Cochrane databases for articles published between inception and August 2022 in order to explore the association between KL-6 and pulmonary fibrosis. Characteristics of patients and studies included in the articles were extracted by two independent investigators according to the inclusion and exclusion criteria. We reflected the accuracy of KL-6 in distinguishing between PF and non-PF by calculating sensitivity, specificity, positive likelihood ratio, negative likelihood ratio, and area under the curve by SROC curves. The presence of heterogeneity was reflected by I2 in the forest plot, and then the source of heterogeneity was investigated by meta-regression. RESULTS: We searched for 939 research papers, of which 16 met the inclusion criteria. Meta-analysis showed a sensitivity of 0.87 (95 % CI: 0.78-0.92), specificity of 0.91 (95 % CI: 0.86-0.95), positive likelihood ratio of 10.2 (95 % CI: 6.1, 17.0) and negative likelihood ratio of 0.14 (95 % CI: 0.08, 0.25) for KL-6 in diagnosing pulmonary fibrosis. The area under the receiver operating characteristic curve was 0.95 (95 % CI: 0.93-0.97). The results showed significant heterogeneity in both sensitivity and specificity (I2 = 94.55 and 91.52, respectively). Meta-regression analysis identified race as the cause of sensitivity heterogeneity and assay methodology as the cause of specificity heterogeneity. CONCLUSIONS: The analysis of this study suggests that serum KL-6 is a better tool for the diagnosis of pulmonary fibrosis when factors such as disease cause and control group category are not specifically considered.

Room-temperature ferromagnetism in Co doped MoS2 sheets.

Via the hydrothermal method, we synthesized MoS2 nanosheets with varying Co dopant concentrations of 0%, 3%, 7%, using cobaltous acetate as a promoter, and marked as A, B, and C, respectively. We found that the thickness and flatness of the nanosheets increased with the increase of the Co dopant concentrations. Meanwhile, the BET surface area of samples (A, B, and C) decreased with the increase of the Co dopant concentrations. Optical absorption spectroscopy showed that, compared to sample A, the A1 and B1 excitons of samples B and C were 10 and 23 meV redshifted, respectively. Then, we performed magnetization measurement to investigate the effect of Co-doping; the unique result implied that the values of the magnetic moment decreased with the increase of the Co dopant concentrations. We performed DFT computations to address the above magnetic result. The computational result indicated that the value of the magnetic moment decreased with the increase of the Co dopant concentrations, which is in agreement with the results of the experiments described above.

Butyrate protects rat liver against total hepatic ischemia reperfusion injury with bowel congestion.

Hepatic ischemia/reperfusion (I/R) injury is an unavoidable consequence of major liver surgery, especially in liver transplantation with bowel congestion, during which endotoxemia is often evident. The inflammatory response aggravated by endotoxin after I/R contributes to liver dysfunction and failure. The purpose of the present study was to investigate the protective effect of butyrate, a naturally occurring four-carbon fatty acid in the body and a dietary component of foods such as cheese and butter, on hepatic injury complicated by enterogenous endotoxin, as well as to examine the underlying mechanisms involved. SD rats were subjected to a total hepatic ischemia for 30 min after pretreatment with either vehicle or butyrate, followed by 6 h and 24 h of reperfusion. Butyrate preconditioning markedly improved hepatic function and histology, as indicated by reduced transaminase levels and ameliorated tissue pathological changes. The inflammatory factors levels, macrophages activation, TLR4 expression, and neutrophil infiltration in live were attenuated by butyrate. Butyrate also maintained the intestinal barrier structures, reversed the aberrant expression of ZO-1, and decreased the endotoxin translocation. We conclude that butyrate inhibition of endotoxin translocation, macrophages activation, inflammatory factors production, and neutrophil infiltration is involved in the alleviation of total hepatic I/R liver injury in rats. This suggests that butyrate should potentially be utilized in liver transplantation.

[Effect of Chinese herbal medicine with Supplement Qi and Activating Blood Circulation on tubular reabsorption function of diabetic nephropathy rats].

OBJECTIVE: To investigate the effect of Chinese herbal medicine with Supplement Qi and Activating Blood Circulation (huangqi and danshen) on urinary protein, kidney function and tubular reabsorption of diabetic nephropathy rats. METHODS: SD rats were randomly divided into a nondiabetic control group (normal group) and three groups in which diabetes were induced by a single intraperitoneal injection of freshly prepared streptozotocin( STZ,55 mg/kg body weight). Then the diabetes rats were randomly assigned to three groups: diabetic model group, Supplement Qi and Activating Blood Circulation traditional Chinese medicine group (huangqi and danshen group) and Gliquidone group (as a reference hypoglycemic drug). Each group was treated with corresponding drugs for 6 weeks. At the end of the study, the rats from each group were injected with FITC-labeled BSA through tail vein. The 24 h urinary protein excretion were measured and blood was collected for measuring plasma glucose levels, serum creatinine (Cr), blood urea nitrogen (BUN), triglyceride (TG) and total cholesterol (T-CHO). Renal tissue was used to measure the level of LPO,SOD,GSH-Px and AGEs and Paraffin-embedded sections were stained with HE, PAS and immunohistochemistry. RESULTS: The plasma glucose, the 24 h urinary protein excretion, the levels of serum Cr, BUN, TG and T-CHO in STZ-induced diabetic rats were higher than those of nondiabetic rats. Diabetic rats showed significantly increase in LPO and AGEs (P < 0.01) and decrease in antioxidant enzyme activity (both GSH-Px and SOD) (P < 0.05) as compared with non-diabetic control rats. Treatment with the Supplement Qi and Activating Blood Circulation traditional Chinese medicine for 6 weeks in diabetic rats significantly reduced the 24 h urinary protein excretion compared with model control (P < 0.01), and markedly decreased the levels of serum Cr,BUN,TG and T-CHO as compared with those of diabetic rat (P < 0.05). The levels of LPO and AGEs were decreased and the activity of GSH-Px was increased by Supplement Qi and Activating Blood Circulation treatment. The kidney proximal tubule lesions were improved and the reabsorption of FITC-BSA in tubular was increased in diabetic rats treated by huangqi and danshen, and the expression of megalin in proximal tubular was enhanced as compared with diabetic rats. CONCLUSION: Diabetic nephropathy rats treated with traditional Chinese medicine therapeutic principles "Supplement Qi and Activating Blood Circulation" can reduce the 24 h urinary protein excretion and improve the function of tubular reabsorption. These protect effects may be in correlation with enhancement the renal tissue activity of antioxidant and up-regulation the expression of megalin in renal tubular epithelial cells in diabetic rats.

[The compensatory light for car plate recognition].

In the intelligent traffic system, the automatic recognition system of the car plate is an important development field. This system must satisfy the requirement of all-day long inspection. In the course of inspection, the lack of natural light(such as at night, in rainy day...) could be a problem, that is to say there could be backlighting problem, and this problem can be solved by using compensatory light. By now, the high-power floodlight has been adopted. Because of its own characteristics of the floodlight, the satisfied result cannot be obtained. In the present thesis, how to select the right light is analyzed, including car lights' spectra and visual response, and so on. The results of the practices are very satisfied.