Objective To estimate the predictive value of neutrophil gelatinase-associated lipocalin in urine (uNGAL) for detection of acute kidney injury (AKI) in the intensive care unit (ICU) critically ill patients.Methods A total of 110 patients from the ICU of three general hospitals were enrolled in the study.The patients were adults more than 18 years of age.After admitted to ICU,the patients were continuously observed for 72 hours.According to the RIFLE criteria for diagnosis of AKI,the patients were classified as AKI group (33 cases) or non-AKI (77 cases).According to the sepsis diagnostic criteria,the patients were classified as sepsis (79 cases) or non-sepsis (31 cases).Exclusion criteria of patients were chronic renal insufficiency,malignant tumor,death after admitted to ICU 24 hours.Serum creatinine and uNGAL of the patients were analyzed daily.The difference of uNGAL between sepsis and non-sepsis patients,AKI and non-AKI patients,sepsis non-AKI and sepsis AKI patients was compared.Moreover,the difference of serum creatinine and uNGAL between AKI and non-AKI patients into ICU 24 h was compared,and the sensitivity and specificity of uNGAL and serum creatinine for diagnosis of AKI in the ICU patients were evaluated using ROC curve.Results The uNGAL levels were all significantly different between sepsis and non-septis patients,AKI and non-AKI patients,sepsis concomitant AKI and sepsis without AKI patients.The uNGAL levels were significantly different between AKI and non-AKI patients in ICU for the first 24 h,while the difference of serum creatinine were not significant.The area under receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve of uNGAL and serum creatinine of patients in ICU for the first 24 h were 0.828 (95％ CI:O.742-0.914) and 0.583 (95％ CI:0.471-0.695),respectively.The cutoff value of uNGAL was 170 ng/ml,and the sensitivity and specificity were 0.778 and 0.784,respectively.The sensitivity was superior to serum creatinine.Conclusions uNGAL was superior to serum creatinine in the diagnosis of AKI,and could be used as a marker of the early diagnosis of AKI.

Objective:To construct GST-tagged human NRP-1 fusion protein expression vector and induce its expression in Escherichia coli ( E.coli) ,then carry on inclusion body refolding and purification so as to obtain GST-NRP-1 fusion protein.Methods:NRP-1 gene was amplified by RT-PCR and inserted into pCR-blunt vector.Then the reconstructed plasmid was inserted into prokaryotic expression vector pGEX-4T-1.The constructed pGEX-4T-1-NRP-1 expression vector was transformed into BL21 cells and induced by i-sopropyl-β-D-thiogalactoside ( IPTG).Bacterial bodies were disrupted by sonication.Then the soluble fraction of fusion proteins were verified by Western blot and purified by Glutathione Sepharose 4B after inclusion body refolding.Results: The NRP-1 gene fragment was amplified by RT-PCR and inserted into pCR-blunt vector.Fusion protein expression vector pGEX-4T-1-NRP-1 was constructed suc-cessfully.After transformation, GST-NRP-1 expression vector was detected in BL21 cells and obtained purifying protein after refolding.Conclusion:The plasmid GST-NRP-1 was constructed successfully and laid basis for subsequent studies.

Objective To compare the clinical features of drug induced hepatitis caused by traditional Chinese medicines (TCM) and western medicines. Methods A total of 181 patients hospitalized with drug in-duced hepatitis between January and December 2015 were enrolled. Among the patients ,75 cases were in TCM group,66 cases in western medicine group and 40 cases in combined group(accepted both TCM and western medi-cine treatment). Liver biopsies were performed and Roussed Uclaf Causality Assessment Method (RUCAM) scores showed that all patients were with scores higher than 3. The data including gender,age,clinical manifesta-tions,physical signs,laboratory tests and image characteristics were analyzed individually. Results There was no significant difference in age,the pattern of liver injury,and the course of liver damage among the three groups (P>0.05). Anorexia was common symptom in all the three groups without any significant difference(P>0.05). Jaundice was most frequently observed in TCM group while fever was most commonly found in western medicine group,which both had significant difference(P< 0.05). The results of routine coagulation tests and serum albu-min values were normal in 3 group with increasing level of aminotransferase observed ,and there was no significant differences among 3 groups(P>0.05). Compared with western medicine group ,the patients in TCM group had a higher level of platelet counts ,serum levels of total bilirubin ,total bile acids(TBA)and serum iron(P<0.05), and less proportion of eosinophils and lower level alkaline phosphatase(P< 0.05). Conclusions The age,the pattern of liver injury,the course of liver damage and aminotransferase levels in patients with drug induced hepati-tis caused by TCM and western medicines were similar;however,western medicines were more likely to cause al-lergic responses and hyperbilirubinemia occurred more frequently in patients with drug induced hepatitis caused by TCM.

Objective To investigate the effect of combined application of cervical perivascular sympathectomy (CPVS) and selective posterior rhizotomy (SPR) on spasticity of cerebral palsy. Methods The data on 11 children with cerebral palsy following spasm who were treated by CPVS and SPR were retrospectively analyzed. Results Spasm of most children relieved significantly 1 month after surgery and limb movement function got notable improvement. The effect was confirmed stable and durable 4 months after surgery. Conclusion CPVS and SPR are effective surgical methods for treating spasticity of cerebral palsy.

Along with the develoipment of high-throughput sequencing technologies, both sample size and SNP number are increasing rapidly in genome-wide association studies (GWAS), and the associated computation is more challenging than ever. Here, we present a memory-efficient, visualization-enhanced, and parallel-accelerated R package called"rMVP"to address the need for improved GWAS computation. rMVP can 1) effectively process large GWAS data, 2) rapidly evaluate population structure, 3) efficiently estimate variance components by Efficient Mixed-Model Association eX-pedited (EMMAX), Factored Spectrally Transformed Linear Mixed Models (FaST-LMM), and Haseman-Elston (HE) regression algorithms, 4) implement parallel-accelerated association tests of markers using general linear model (GLM), mixed linear model (MLM), and fixed and random model circulating probability unification (FarmCPU) methods, 5) compute fast with a globally efficient design in the GWAS processes, and 6) generate various visualizations of GWAS-related information. Accelerated by block matrix multiplication strategy and multiple threads, the association test methods embedded in rMVP are significantly faster than PLINK, GEMMA, and FarmCPU_pkg. rMVP is freely available at https://github.com/xiaolei-lab/rMVP.