BACKGROUND: Cardiovascular morbidity and mortality are higher among patients with type 2 diabetes, particularly those with concomitant cardiovascular diseases, than in most other populations. We assessed the effects of lixisenatide, a glucagon-like peptide 1-receptor agonist, on cardiovascular outcomes in patients with type 2 diabetes who had had a recent acute coronary event. METHODS: We randomly assigned patients with type 2 diabetes who had had a myocardial infarction or who had been hospitalized for unstable angina within the previous 180 days to receive lixisenatide or placebo in addition to locally determined standards of care. The trial was designed with adequate statistical power to assess whether lixisenatide was noninferior as well as superior to placebo, as defined by an upper boundary of the 95% confidence interval for the hazard ratio of less than 1.3 and 1.0, respectively, for the primary composite end point of cardiovascular death, myocardial infarction, stroke, or hospitalization for unstable angina. RESULTS: The 6068 patients who underwent randomization were followed for a median of 25 months. A primary end-point event occurred in 406 patients (13.4%) in the lixisenatide group and in 399 (13.2%) in the placebo group (hazard ratio, 1.02; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.89 to 1.17), which showed the noninferiority of lixisenatide to placebo (P<0.001) but did not show superiority (P=0.81). There were no significant between-group differences in the rate of hospitalization for heart failure (hazard ratio in the lixisenatide group, 0.96; 95% CI, 0.75 to 1.23) or the rate of death (hazard ratio, 0.94; 95% CI, 0.78 to 1.13). Lixisenatide was not associated with a higher rate of serious adverse events or severe hypoglycemia, pancreatitis, pancreatic neoplasms, or allergic reactions than was placebo. CONCLUSIONS: In patients with type 2 diabetes and a recent acute coronary syndrome, the addition of lixisenatide to usual care did not significantly alter the rate of major cardiovascular events or other serious adverse events. (Funded by Sanofi; ELIXA ClinicalTrials.gov number, NCT01147250.). Jean-Claude (2015). Lixisenatide in patients with type 2 diabetes and acute coronary syndrome.

OBJECTIVETo examine the efficacy and safety of adding the once-daily glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonist (GLP-1RA) lixisenatide to established basal insulin therapy alone or together with metformin, in people with type 2 diabetes and elevated glycated hemoglobin (HbA1c).RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODSWe conducted a double-blind, parallel-group, placebo-controlled trial. Patients (n = 495) with established basal insulin therapy but inadequate glycemic control were randomized to add lixisenatide 20 μg or placebo for 24 weeks. Basal insulin dosage was unchanged except to limit hypoglycemia. HbA1c reduction from baseline was the primary end point.RESULTSMean duration of diabetes was 12.5 years, duration of insulin use was 3.1 years, insulin dosage was 55 units/day, and baseline HbA1c was 8.4%. With lixisenatide, the placebo-corrected change of HbA1c from baseline was –0.4% (95% CI –0.6 to –0.2; P = 0.0002), and mean HbA1c at end point was 7.8%. HbA1c <7.0% (53 mmol/mol) was attained by more lixisenatide (28%) than placebo (12%; P < 0.0001) participants. Lixisenatide reduced plasma glucose levels after a standardized breakfast (placebo-corrected reduction, –3.8 mmol/L; P < 0.0001); seven-point glucose profiles showed a reduction persisting through the day. Reductions in body weight (placebo corrected, –1.3 kg; P < 0.0001) and insulin dosage (–3.7 units/day; P = 0.012) were greater with lixisenatide. Main adverse events (AEs) with lixisenatide were gastrointestinal. Symptomatic hypoglycemia was 28% for lixisenatide and 22% for placebo; 4 of 328 subjects (1.2%) had severe hypoglycemia with lixisenatide vs. 0 of 167 with placebo.CONCLUSIONSBy improving HbA1c and postprandial hyperglycemia without weight gain in type 2 diabetes with inadequate glycemic control despite stable basal insulin, lixisenatide may provide an alternative to rapid-acting insulin or other treatment options.

OBJECTIVEWhen oral therapy for type 2 diabetes is ineffective, adding basal insulin improves glycemic control. However, when glycated hemoglobin (HbA1c) remains elevated because of postprandial hyperglycemia, the next therapeutic step is controversial. We examined the efficacy and safety of lixisenatide in patients with HbA1c still elevated after initiation of insulin glargine.RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODSThis double-blind, parallel-group trial enrolled patients with HbA1c 7–10% despite oral therapy. Insulin glargine was added and systematically titrated during a 12-week run-in, after which candidates with fasting glucose ≤7.8 mmol/L and HbA1c 7–9% were randomized to lixisenatide 20 µg or placebo for 24 weeks while insulin titration continued. The primary end point was HbA1c change after randomization.RESULTSThe randomized population (n = 446) had mean diabetes duration of 9.2 years, BMI 31.8 kg/m2, and daily glargine dosage of 44 units. HbA1c had decreased during run-in from 8.6 to 7.6%; adding lixisenatide further reduced HbA1c by 0.71 vs. 0.40% with placebo (least squares mean difference, –0.32%; 95% CI, –0.46 to –0.17; P < 0.0001). More participants attained HbA1c <7% with lixisenatide (56 vs. 39%; P < 0.0001). Lixisenatide reduced plasma glucose 2 h after a standardized breakfast (difference vs. placebo –3.2 mmol/L; P < 0.0001) and had a favorable effect on body weight (difference vs. placebo –0.89 kg; P = 0.0012). Nausea, vomiting, and symptomatic hypoglycemia <3.3 mmol/L were more common with lixisenatide.CONCLUSIONSAdding lixisenatide to insulin glargine improved overall and postprandial hyperglycemia and deserves consideration as an alternative to prandial insulin for patients not reaching HbA1c goals with recently initiated basal insulin.

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Pulmonary fibrosis (PF) is a lethal fibrotic lung disease. The role of lncRNAs in multiple diseases has been confirmed, but the role and mechanism of lncRNA zinc finger antisense 1 (ZFAS1) in the progression of PF need to be elucidated further. Here, we found that lncRNA ZFAS1 was upregulated in bleomycin (BLM)-induced PF rats lung tissues and transforming growth factor-β1 (TGF-β1)-treated HFL1 cells, and positively correlated with the expression of solute carrier family 38 member 1 (SLC38A1), which is an important regulator of lipid peroxidation. Moreover, knockdown of lncRNA ZFAS1 significantly alleviated TGF-β1-induced fibroblast activation, inflammation and lipid peroxidation. In vivo experiments showed that inhibition of lncRNA ZFAS1 abolished BLM-induced lipid peroxidation and PF development. Mechanistically, silencing of lncRNA ZFAS1 attenuated ferroptosis and PF progression by lncRNA ZFAS1 acting as a competing endogenous RNA (ceRNA) and sponging miR-150-5p to downregulate SLC38A1 expression. Collectively, our studies demonstrated the role of the lncRNA ZFAS1/miR-150-5p/SLC38A1 axis in the progression of PF, and may provide a new biomarker for the treatment of PF patients.

Known as one of the hallmarks of cancer (Hanahan and Weinberg in Cell 100:57-70, 2000) cancer cell invasion of human body tissue is a complicated spatio-temporal multiscale process which enables a localised solid tumour to transform into a systemic, metastatic and fatal disease. This process explores and takes advantage of the reciprocal relation that solid tumours establish with the extracellular matrix (ECM) components and other multiple distinct cell types from the surrounding microenvironment. Through the secretion of various proteolytic enzymes such as matrix metalloproteinases or the urokinase plasminogen activator (uPA), the cancer cell population alters the configuration of the surrounding ECM composition and overcomes the physical barriers to ultimately achieve local cancer spread into the surrounding tissue. The active interplay between the tissue-scale tumour dynamics and the molecular mechanics of the involved proteolytic enzymes at the cell scale underlines the biologically multiscale character of invasion and raises the challenge of modelling this process with an appropriate multiscale approach. In this paper, we present a new two-scale moving boundary model of cancer invasion that explores the tissue-scale tumour dynamics in conjunction with the molecular dynamics of the urokinase plasminogen activation system. Building on the multiscale moving boundary method proposed in Trucu et al. (Multiscale Model Simul 11(1):309-335, 2013), the modelling that we propose here allows us to study the changes in tissue-scale tumour morphology caused by the cell-scale uPA microdynamics occurring along the invasive edge of the tumour. Our computational simulation results demonstrate a range of heterogeneous dynamics which are qualitatively similar to the invasive growth patterns observed in a number of different types of cancer, such as the tumour infiltrative growth patterns discussed in Ito et al. (J Gastroenterol 47:1279-1289, 2012).

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Sox2 expression is necessary for cell proliferation and evasion of apoptosis in prostate cancer cells and TGF-α could regulate Sox2 and survivin expression by activating the EGFR/PI3K/AKT pathway.