Results: The major molecular form of HNL/NGAL secreted by neutrophils is dimeric, whereas the major form secreted by HK-2 cells is monomeric. This was reflected by a predominance of the monomeric form in urine from patients with AKI and the dimeric form in patients with UTIs. The epitope specificities of the antibody used in the ELISAs had a profound effect on assay performance and paralleled differences of the antibodies to identify the different forms of urine HNL/NGAL.Conclusions: The monomeric form is the predominant form secreted by tubular epithelial cells, and the dimeric form is the predominant form secreted by neutrophils. The development of molecular form-specific assays for HNL/NGAL may be a means to identify the origin of HNL/NGAL in urine and construct more specific tools for the diagnosis of AKI.

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pNGAL is raised in patients with SIRS, severe sepsis, and septic shock and should be used with caution as a marker of AKI in ICU patients with septic shock. uNGAL is more useful in predicting AKI as the levels are not elevated in septic patients without AKI.

Evidence for the contribution of neutrophils to the pathogenesis of pulmonary emphysema is not convincing. We evaluated neutrophil involvement in subclinical pulmonary emphysema by measuring human neutrophil lipocalin (HNL) and two matrix metalloproteinases, gelatinase B (MMP-9) and neutrophil collagenase (MMP-8), in bronchoalveolar lavage fluid (BALF) from 65 community-based older volunteers. HNL is a recently isolated 24-kD protein secreted from secondary granules of activated neutrophils. Despite no appreciable increase in the number of neutrophils, the level of HNL was significantly increased in BALF from subjects with emphysema evidenced by computed tomography regardless of current smoking, as compared with smokers without emphysema. The levels of MMP-9 and MMP-8 were also significantly higher in current smokers with emphysema than in those without emphysema. The appearance of a 130-kD HNL/MMP-9 complex on gelatin zymography and HNL immunoblot indicated neutrophils to be a significant source of MMP-9 in the subjects' BALF. In a 24-h culture medium of alveolar macrophages, only a latent form of MMP-9 was detected, and there was no difference in the level of MMP-9 between the groups. These data provide further evidence for neutrophil involvement in subclinical pulmonary emphysema.

In this paper we introduce the concept of cone metric spaces with Banach algebras, replacing Banach spaces by Banach algebras as the underlying spaces of cone metric spaces. With this modification, we shall prove some fixed point theorems of generalized Lipschitz mappings with weaker conditions on generalized Lipschitz constants. An example shows that our main results concerning the fixed point theorems in the setting of cone metric spaces with Banach algebras are more useful than the standard results in cone metric spaces presented in the literature. MSC: 54H25; 47H10

A 45 kDa-protein was purified from the granules of human neutrophils. The protein consists of two apparently identical subunits. The isoelectric point was pH 8.40, and the molecular weight 45 kDa (unreduced) or 24 kDa (reduced). Treatment of the protein with Endoglucosidase F resulted in a reduction in the molecular weight to 20 kDa, indicating the presence of N-linked carbohydrate. The extinction coeffient was E1%,1cm = 13.76 at 280 nm. The 60 amino acid sequence revealed up to 65% sequence homology with rat alpha 2-microglobulin-related protein, which belongs to the lipocalin family. The protein co-sedimented with secondary (specific) granule marker proteins and correlated to the neutrophil content of Lactoferrin (r = 0.81, p < 0.001) and was estimated to be 0.59 microgram 10(-6) cells. Release studies showed that the neutrophils released 51.4 +/- 9.0% of the total cellular content of the protein when they were exposed to serum-opsonized particles, which was much higher than the release of Myeloperoxidase (12.7 +/- 3.5%) and Lactoferrin (22.9 +/- 4.7%). The N-terminal and four tryptic fragment amino acid sequence of the protein was identical with an N-formyl peptide binding 24 kDa protein and gelatinase associated protein of human neutrophils. In conclusion, we have purified and characterized a protein, human neutrophil lipocalin (HNL), from the secondary granules of human neutrophils and shown that it is readily mobilized from the neutrophils upon stimulation.

Human neutrophil lipocalin (HNL) is a recently identified protein from human neutrophil granules. The concentrations of HNL in the circulation were measured, in a group of patients with acute infections, using a radioimmunoassay. The concentrations of HNL in patients infected by viruses and bacteria were 93.78 +/- 45.30 micrograms l-1 (SD), 404.14 +/- 355.02 micrograms l-1 (SD) in serum, and 47.81 +/- 18.18 micrograms l-1 (SD), 145.46 +/- 194.32 micrograms l-1 (SD) in plasma, respectively. The differences between the two patient groups were highly significant. There was a significant correlation between serum HNL and plasma HNL levels in bacterial infections (r = 0.73, p < 0.0001). The HNL serum levels also correlated with those of C-reactive protein (CRP) (r = 0.59, p < 0.0001). Determination of HNL in serum was more specific and sensitive than CRP in the distinction between viral and bacterial infections. At a cut-off of 155 micrograms l-1 (HNL in serum), the positive and negative predictive values for the diagnosis of bacterial infections were 92 and 96%, respectively, which were superior to the optimal predictive values of CRP. Thus, the determination of HNL level is useful in the diagnosis of acute bacterial infections.

In this paper, we first present some elementary results concerning cone metric spaces over Banach algebras. Next, by using these results and the related ones about c-sequence on cone metric spaces we obtain some new fixed point theorems for the generalized Lipschitz mappings on cone metric spaces over Banach algebras without the assumption of normality. As a consequence, our main results improve and generalize the corresponding results in the recent paper by Liu and Xu (Fixed Point Theory Appl. 2013:320, 2013). MSC: 54H25; 47H10