Correlation between serum urea nitrogen, cystatin C, homocysteine, and chronic heart failure.

OBJECTIVE: To explore the correlation between uric acid (UA), cystatin C (Cys-C), homocysteine (Hcy), and chronic heart failure (CHF). METHODS: 45 patients with CHF were selected as the research group; 45 healthy people were selected as the control group. The levels of serum UA, Cys-C and Hcy were detected. RESULTS: The in The research group had much higher levels of serum UA, Cys-C and Hcy than the control group (all P<0.05). The levels of above indexes also increased with an increase in cardiac function classification. Patients with major adverse cardiovascular events (MACE) had much higher levels of serum UA, Cys-C, and Hcy than those without MACE in the research group (all P<0.05). In addition, the levels of these above indexes in the research group were all positively correlated with the left ventricular end diastolic diameter (LVEDD) (all P<0.05), and all negatively correlated with the f left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF) (P<0.05). What is more, the levels of these above indexes in the research group were all positively correlated with New York Heart Association (NYHA) grade (all P<0.05). The diagnostic sensitivity of serum UA level, Cys-C level, and Hcy level in joint diagnosis of CHF patients was higher than that of any single index diagnosis (P<0.05), and the specificity of combined diagnosis was lower than that of single index diagnosis (P<0.05). CONCLUSION: The levels of serum UA, Cys-C, and Hcy in CHF patients may be used as reference indexes for clinical screening of early CHF patients and could provide a certain reference for clinical evaluation.

Hsa_circ_0007534/miR-761/ZIC5 regulatory loop modulates the proliferation and migration of glioma cells.

Increasing evidences demonstrate the essential roles of circular RNAs (circRNAs) in human cancers. However, the study about the functions of circRNAs in glioma remains very limited. In the present study, we found that circRNA hsa_circ_0007534 was highly expressed in glioma tissues compared to normal brain tissues. Furthermore, we found that knockdown of hsa_circ_0007534 significantly inhibited the proliferation and migration of glioma cells. In mechanism, we showed that hsa_circ_0007534 could sponge miR-761 to repress its availability in glioma cells. We found that inhibition of miR-761 could rescue the suppressed proliferation and migration of glioma cells by hsa_circ_0007534 knockdown. Moreover, we explored the downstream mechanism and found that ZIC5 was a target of miR-761. We showed that hsa_circ_0007534 promoted the expression of ZIC5 by inhibiting miR-761 in glioma cells. And restoration of ZIC5 expression significantly reversed the effects of hsa_circ_0007534 knockdown on glioma cell proliferation and migration. In summary, our results demonstrated that hsa_circ_0007534 serves as an oncogene in glioma via promoting ZIC5 expression by repressing miR-761 availability. Our results suggested that hsa_circ_0007534/miR-761/ZIC5 regulatory loop might be a promising therapeutic target for glioma treatment.

sMICA as novel and early predictors for acute myocardial infarction.

BACKGROUND AND AIMS: MHC class I polypeptide-related chain A (MICA) molecule is induced in response to viral infection, various types of stress, such as endoplasmic reticulum stress, and ischemia or/and reperfusion, by which MICA was shed from the cell surface into the extracellular domain, generating a soluble form (sMICA). In the present study, we designed to investigate the serum sMICA level in patients with AMI and determine whether sMICA could be an early biomarker for diagnosis of AMI. METHODS: There were 103 patients who presented with first-time AMI that was assessed after the incident. The control group consisted of 103 healthy volunteers. Serum levels of sMICA and Troponin T were detected by the specific ELISA kits. RESULTS: Serum levels of sMICA reach the peaks [(1.34 ± .18 and 1.72 ± .20)n/l] at 6-12 h and serum levels of cTnT reach the peaks [(1.16 ± .28 and 1.14 ± .34)n/l] at 12-24 h. Both of them were significantly higher than the healthy controls [(.168 ± .014) n/l, p = .000] for sMICA and [(.13 ± .06) n/l, p = .000] for Troponin T (cTnT). sMICA is more sensitive in the early diagnosis of AMI than cTnT. The combined ROC analysis revealed an AUC value of .78 (95 % CI .69-.83) in discriminating AMI patients from healthy controls. CONCLUSIONS: We have detected high levels of sMICA in patients with AMI. Elevated serum sMICA may be a novel biomarker for the early detection of myocardial injury in humans.

[Correlation between left ventricular mass index and NADPH oxidase p22phox in patients with non-valvular chronic heart failure].

OBJECTIVE: To study the correlation between the expression levels of phagocytic NADPH oxidase p22phox subunit and left ventricular mass index (LVMI) in patients with non-valvular chronic heart failure and explore the role of oxidative stress caused by NADPH oxidase p22phox subunit in left ventricular remodeling. METHODS: Semi-quantitative RT-PCR was used to examine the expression levels of phagocytic NADPH oxidase p22phox in 59 patients with non-valvular chronic heart failure and 20 control subjects. All the subjects underwent ultrasonic cardiography to record their IVST, LVPWT, LVEDd, LVEDs, and EF. Based on the calculated LVMI, the patients were divided into heart failure without LV hypertrophy (LVH) group and heart failure with LVH group. RESULTS: The patients with heart failure showed significantly higher expression of phagocytic NADPH oxidase p22phox than the control subjects (0.91∓0.37 vs 0.68∓0.33, P=0.039), and the patients with LVH had significantly higher p22phox expression than those without LVH (1.58∓0.20 vs 0.71∓0.24, P=0.026). LVMI showed a positive correlation with the expression of p22phox in these patients (r=0.508, P<0.05). CONCLUSION: NADPH oxidase p22phox expression level is positively correlated with LVMI and can be indicative of the level of left ventricular remodeling in patients with non-valvular chronic heart failure.