Rationale: Current clinical prediction scores for acute lung injury (ALI) have limited positive predictive value. No studies have evaluated predictive plasma biomarkers in a broad population of critically ill patients or as an adjunct to clinical prediction scores. Objectives: To determine whether plasma angiopoietin-2 (Ang-2), von Willebrand factor (vWF), interleukin-8 (IL-8), and/or receptor for advanced glycation end products (sRAGE) predict ALI in critically ill patients. Methods: Plasma samples were drawn from critically ill patients (n ¼ 230) identified in the emergency department. Patients who had ALI at baseline or in the subsequent 6 hours were excluded, and the remaining patients were followed for development of ALI. Measurements and Main Results: Nineteen patients developed ALI at least 6 hours after the sample draw. Higher levels of Ang-2 and IL-8 were significantly associated with increased development of ALI (P ¼ 0.0008, 0.004, respectively). The association between Ang-2 and subsequent development of ALI was robust to adjustment for sepsis and vasopressor use. Ang-2 and the Lung Injury Prediction Score each independently discriminated well between those who developed ALI and those who did not (area under the receiver operating characteristic curve, 0.74 for each), and using the two together improved the area under the curve to 0.84 (vs. 0.74, P ¼ 0.05). In contrast, plasma levels of sRAGE and vWF were not predictive of ALI. Conclusions: Plasma biomarkers such as Ang-2 can improve clinical prediction scores and identify patients at high risk for ALI. In addition, the early rise of Ang-2 emphasizes the importance of endothelial injury in the early pathogenesis of ALI.
Human endogenous retroviruses (HERVs) are remnants of ancient infectious agents that have integrated into the human genome. Under normal circumstances, HERVs are functionally defective or controlled by host factors. In HIV-1-infected individuals, intracellular defense mechanisms are compromised. We hypothesized that HIV-1 infection would remove or alter controls on HERV activity. Expression of HERV could potentially stimulate a T cell response to HERV antigens, and in regions of HIV-1/HERV similarity, these T cells could be cross-reactive. We determined that the levels of HERV production in HIV-1-positive individuals exceed those of HIV-1-negative controls. To investigate the impact of HERV activity on specific immunity, we examined T cell responses to HERV peptides in 29 HIV-1-positive and 13 HIV-1-negative study participants. We report T cell responses to peptides derived from regions of HERV detected by ELISPOT analysis in the HIV-1-positive study participants. We show an inverse correlation between anti-HERV T cell responses and HIV-1 plasma viral load. In HIV-1-positive individuals, we demonstrate that HERV-specific T cells are capable of killing cells presenting their cognate peptide. These data indicate that HIV-1 infection leads to HERV expression and stimulation of a HERV-specific CD8+ T cell response. HERV-specific CD8+ T cells have characteristics consistent with an important role in the response to HIV-1 infection: a phenotype similar to that of T cells responding to an effectively controlled virus (cytomegalovirus), an inverse correlation with HIV-1 plasma viral load, and the ability to lyse cells presenting their target peptide. These characteristics suggest that elicitation of anti-HERV-specific immune responses is a novel approach to immunotherapeutic vaccination. As endogenous retroviral sequences are fixed in the human genome, they provide a stable target, and HERV-specific T cells could recognize a cell infected by any HIV-1 viral variant. HERV-specific immunity is an important new avenue for investigation in HIV-1 pathogenesis and vaccine design.
Plasma and bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL) biomarkers related to the pathogenesis of acute lung injury (ALI) have previously been associated with poorer clinical outcomes and increased disease severity among patients with ALI. Whether these biomarkers have predictive value in a less severely ill population that excludes septic patients with high APACHE II scores is currently unknown. We tested the association of plasma and BAL biomarkers with physiological markers of ALI severity or clinically relevant outcomes in a secondary analysis of a clinical trial of activated protein C for the treatment of ALI. Plasma plasminogen activator inhibitor-1 (PAI-1) and mini-BAL protein were both significantly associated with increased oxygenation index (P = 0.02 and 0.01, respectively), whereas there was a trend toward an association between IL-6 and oxygenation index (P = 0.057). High plasma IL-6, thrombomodulin, and mini-BAL protein were all significantly associated with fewer ventilator-free days (VFDs) (P = 0.01, 0.01, and 0.05, respectively); no markers were associated with mortality, but we hypothesized that this was due to the small size of our cohort and the low death rate. To confirm these associations in a larger sample, we identified a restricted cohort of patients from the ARDS Network ALVEOLI study with similar baseline characteristics. We retested the associations of the significant biomarkers with markers of severity and clinical outcomes and studied IL-8 as an additional biomarker given its important predictive value in prior studies. In this restricted cohort, IL-6 was significantly associated with oxygenation index (P = 0.02). Both IL-6 and IL-8 were associated with decreased VFDs and increased 28-day mortality. Future studies should be focused on examining larger numbers of patients with less severe ALI to further test the relative predictive value of plasma and mini-BAL biomarkers for clinically relevant outcomes, including VFDs and mortality, and for their prospective utility in risk stratification for future clinical trials.
Objective-To compare the association between perinatal events and the pattern and extent of brain injury on early MRI in newborns with and without therapeutic hypothermia for hypoxicischemic encephalopathy (HIE).Study design-We performed a cohort study of 35 treated and 25 non-treated neonates who underwent MRI. The injury patterns were defined a priori as: normal (N), watershed (WS) or basal ganglia/thalamus (BG/T) predominant, as well as a dichotomous outcome of moderate-tosevere versus mild-no injury.Results-Neonates with hypothermia had less extensive WS and BG/T injuries, and a greater proportion had normal imaging. Therapeutic hypothermia was associated with a decreased risk of both BG/T injury (RR 0.29, 95% CI 0.10-0.81, p = 0.01) and moderate-severe injury. Neonates with sentinel events showed a decrease in BG/T predominant injury and increase in normal imaging. All neonates with decreased fetal movements had injury, predominantly WS, regardless of therapeutic hypothermia.Conclusion-These results validate reports of reduced brain injury following therapeutic hypothermia, and suggest that perinatal factors are important indicators of response to treatment. Search termsNeonatal; MRI; Hypoxia-ischemia; Hypothermia therapy Hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy (HIE) occurs in 1-600/1000 live births, and often results in significant morbidity and mortality [1]. Randomized control trials of therapeutic hypothermia for HIE have demonstrated a reduction in death or severe disability, with a © 2010 Mosby, Inc. All rights reserved. * Address Correspondence to: Sonia L. Bonifacio MD, Division of Neonatology, University of California San Francisco, School of Medicine, 533 Parnassus Ave, U585, BOX 0748, San Francisco, Telephone: (415) Fax: (415) 502-5821, bonifacios@peds.ucsf.edu. The authors declare no conflicts of interest.Publisher's Disclaimer: This is a PDF file of an unedited manuscript that has been accepted for publication. As a service to our customers we are providing this early version of the manuscript. The manuscript will undergo copyediting, typesetting, and review of the resulting proof before it is published in its final citable form. Please note that during the production process errors may be discovered which could affect the content, and all legal disclaimers that apply to the journal pertain. Several studies show less severe cortical and deep gray nuclear injury on MRI in neonates who had therapeutic hypothermia [11,14,15]. Imaging from a sub-cohort of the TOBY trial showed reduced injury on conventional MRI (T1 and T2 weighted imaging) at a median age of 8 days (range of 2-30 days) in treated subjects. Therapeutic hypothermia was associated with a reduction of lesions in the basal ganglia or thalamus and, compared with non-cooled infants, treated subjects were more likely to have normal scans. Findings on MRI were predictive of later neuromotor abnormalities [11]. The relationships between antenatal factors and imaging findings following hypothermia were not assessed, although in the prehyp...
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