Preclinical changes that precede the onset of symptoms and eventual diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) are a target for potential preventive interventions. A large body of evidence suggests that inflammation is closely associated with AD pathogenesis and may be a promising target pathway for such interventions. However, little is known about the association between systemic inflammation and preclinical AD pathophysiology. We first examined whether the acute-phase protein, alpha-2 macroglobulin (A2M), a major component of the innate immune system, was associated with cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) markers of neuronal injury in preclinical AD and risk of incident AD in the predictors of cognitive decline among normal individuals (BIOCARD) cohort. We find that A2M concentration in blood is significantly associated with CSF concentrations of the neuronal injury markers, tau and phosphorylated tau, and that higher baseline serum A2M concentration is associated with an almost threefold greater risk of progression to clinical symptoms of AD in men. These findings were replicated in the Alzheimer’s Disease Neuroimaging (ADNI) study. Then, utilizing a systems level approach combining large multi-tissue gene expression datasets with mass spectrometry-based proteomic analyses of brain tissue, we identified an A2M gene network that includes regulator of calcineurin (RCAN1), an inhibitor of calcineurin, a well-characterized tau phosphatase. A2M gene and protein expression in the brain were significantly associated with gene and protein expression levels of calcineurin. Collectively these novel findings suggest that A2M is associated with preclinical AD, reflects early neuronal injury in the disease course and may be responsive to tau phosphorylation in the brain through the RCAN1-calcineurin pathway.

The mortality rate of alveolar hemorrhage following allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation is greater than 60% with supportive care and high dose steroids. We performed a retrospective cohort analysis to assess the benefits and risks of rFVIIa as a therapeutic adjunct for alveolar hemorrhage. From 2005 to 2012, 57 episodes of alveolar hemorrhage occurred in 37 patients. Fourteen episodes (in 14 patients) were treated with steroids alone and 43 episodes (in 23 patients) were treated with steroids and rFVIIa. The median (interquartile range) steroid dose was 1.9 mg/kg/d (0.8 – 3.5; methylprednisolone equivalents) and did not differ statistically between the two groups. The median rFVIIa dose was 41 μg/kg (39-62) and a median of 3 doses (2-17) was administered per episode. Concurrent infection was diagnosed in 65% of the episodes. Patients had moderately severe hypoxia (median PaO2/FiO2, 193 [141-262]); 72% required mechanical ventilation and 42% survived to extubation. The addition of rFVIIa did not alter time to resolution of alveolar hemorrhage (p = 0.50), duration of mechanical ventilation (p = 0.89), duration of oxygen supplementation (p = 0.55), or hospital mortality (p = 0.27). Four possible thrombotic events (9% of 43 episodes) occurred with rFVIIa. rFVIIa when used in combination with corticosteroids did not confer clear clinical advantages compared to corticosteroids alone. In patients with AH following hematopoietic stem cell transplant, clinical factors (i.e. worsening infection, multiple organ failure or recrudescence of primary disease) may be more important than the benefit of enhanced hemostasis from rFVIIa.

Human cytomegalovirus (CMV) infection and disease remains a significant cause of morbidity and mortality for hematopoietic cell transplantation (HCT) recipients. Disruption of or weak reconstitution of virus-specific cellular immune function, such as with certain HCT approaches, poses significant risk for CMV-related complications. The incidence of and risk factors for CMV infection and the nature of CMV disease were evaluated retrospectively among 356 consecutive HCT recipients transplanted at the National Institutes of Health using all graft sources, including bone marrow, peripheral blood stem cell (PBSC), and umbilical cord blood (UCB), and a range of in vivo and ex vivo approaches for graft-versus-host disease (GVHD) prophylaxis. The cumulative incidence of CMV infection was higher for CMV-seropositive recipients at 33%, regardless of donor CMV serostatus. Patients transplanted with CMV-seropositive donors had a significantly shorter duration of antiviral therapy. Among graft sources UCB was associated with the highest cumulative incidence of CMV infection at 65% and significantly longer treatment duration at a median of 36 days, whereas PBSC HCT was associated with the lowest incidence at 26% and the shortest CMV treatment duration at a median of 21 days. There were significant differences in the cumulative incidence of CMV infection by T cell manipulation strategy when systemic steroids were included as a risk-modifying event. Over one-third of CMV infections occurred in the setting of systemic steroid administration. CMV disease occurred in 5% of HCT recipients, with 70% of cases in the setting of treatment for GVHD. Although factors related to serostatus, graft source, and GVHD prophylaxis were associated with varied CMV infection incidence, unplanned post-HCT corticosteroid therapy contributed greatly to the incidence of both CMV infection and disease across HCT approaches, highlighting this post-HCT intervention as a key time to potentially tailor the approach to monitoring, preemptive therapy, and even prophylaxis.

The US National Institutes of Health (NIH) has developed the Biomedical Translational Research Information System (BTRIS) to support researchers’ access to translational and clinical data. BTRIS includes a data repository, a set of programs for loading data from NIH electronic health records and research data management systems, an ontology for coding the disparate data with a single terminology, and a set of user interface tools that provide access to identified data from individual research studies and data across all studies from which individually identifiable data have been removed. This paper reports on unique design elements of the system, progress to date and user experience after five years of development and operation.

Introduction Healthy volunteers are crucial for biomedical research. Inadvertent inclusion of subjects with non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) as controls can compromise study validity and subject safety. Given the rising prevalence of NAFLD in the general population, we sought to identify its prevalence and potential impact in volunteers for clinical trials. Methods Cross-sectional study of subjects with “Healthy Volunteer” diagnosis between 2011-2015 and no known liver disease. Subjects were defined presumed NAFLD (pNF, ALT≥20 for women or ≥31 for men and BMI>25), healthy non-NAFLD controls (HC, normal ALT and BMI), or indeterminate. Results 3160 subjects participated as healthy volunteers in 149 clinical trials, (1-29 trials per subject). 1732 (55%) had BMI > 25 kg/m2 and 1382 (44%) had abnormal ALT. pNF was present in 881 subjects (27.9%) and these subjects were older than HC, and had higher triglycerides, LDL-C, and HbA1c and lower HDL-C (p<0.001 for all) . The 149 trials included 101 non-interventional, 33 interventional and 15 vaccine trials. The impact on study validity of recruiting NAFLD subjects as controls was estimated as likely, probable and unlikely in 10, 41 and 98 trials, respectively. The proportion of pNF subjects (28-29%) did not differ by impact. Only 14% of trials used both BMI and ALT for screening. ALT cut-offs for screening were based on local reference values. Grade 3-4 ALT elevations during the study period were rare but more common in pNF subjects than HC (4 vs. 1). Conclusion NAFLD is common and often overlooked in volunteers for clinical trials, despite its potential impact on subject safety and validity of study findings. Increased awareness of NAFLD prevalence and stricter ALT cut-offs may ameliorate this problem.