Renal involvement in Systemic Lupus Erythematous (SLE) patients is one of the leading causes of morbidity and a significant contributor to mortality. It’s estimated that nearly 50% of SLE individuals develop kidney disease in the first year of the diagnosis. Class IV lupus nephritis (LN-IV) is the class of lupus nephritis most common in Colombian patients with SLE. Altered miRNAs expression levels have been reported in human autoimmune diseases including lupus. Variations in the expression pattern of peripheral blood circulating miRNAs specific for this class of lupus nephritis could be correlated with the pathophysiological status of this group of individuals. The aim of this study was to evaluate the relative abundance of circulating microRNAs in peripheral blood from Colombian patients with LN-IV. Circulating miRNAs in plasma of patients with diagnosis of LN-IV were compared with individuals without renal involvement (LNN group) and healthy individuals (CTL group). Total RNA was extracted from 10 ml of venous blood and subsequently sequenced using Illumina. The sequences were processed and these were analyzed using miRBase and Ensembl databases. Differential gene expression analysis was carried out with edgeR and functional analysis were done with DIANA-miRPath. Analysis was carried out using as variables of selection fold change (≥2 o ≤-2) and false discovery rate (0.05). We identified 24 circulating microRNAs with differential abundance between LN-IV and CTL groups, fourteen of these microRNAs are described for the first time to lupus nephritis (hsa-miR-589-3p, hsa-miR-1260b, hsa-miR-4511, hsa-miR-485-5p, hsa-miR-584-5p, hsa-miR-543, hsa-miR-153-3p, hsa-miR-6087, hsa-miR-3942-5p, hsa-miR-7977, hsa-miR-323b-3p, hsa-miR-4732-3p and hsa-miR-6741-3p). These changes in the abundance of miRNAs could be interpreted as alterations in the miRNAs-mRNA regulatory network in the pathogenesis of LN, preceding the clinical onset of the disease. The findings thus contribute to understanding the disease process and are likely to pave the way towards identifying disease biomarkers for early diagnosis of LN.

Helicobacter pylori (H. pylori) is classified by the World Health Organization (WHO) as a group I carcinogen and is one of the most efficient human pathogens with over half of the world's population colonized by this gram-negative spiral bacterium. H. pylori can cause a chronic infection in the stomach during early childhood that persists throughout life due to diverse mechanisms of immune response evasion. H. pylori has several factors strongly associated with increased risk of disease such as toxins, adhesins, and chemoattractants, some of which are highly polymorphic, phase variable, and have different functions. Conventional treatments involve the use of antibiotics. However, treatment frequently fails due to the resistance H. pylori has progressively developed to antibiotics. This creates the need for different treatments made possible by identifying new therapeutic targets in the pathogen’s genome.The purpose of this study was an in silico prediction of T- and B- epitopes in H. pylori proteins. Twenty-two external membrane proteins from H. pylori Strain 26695 (accession number NC_000915) were identified using the web tool Vaxign (http://www.violinet.org/vaxign/). A total of one-hundred epitopes (60 class I epitopes and 40 class II epitopes) that could be used to develop novel non-antibiotics drugs for an H. pylori infection were predicted.

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OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the immunosuppressive treatment response to modified Ponticelli regimen (MPR) and oral corticosteroid (OC) plus tacrolimus (TAC) in patients with primary membranous nephropathy (PMN). METHODS: Retrospective cohort analytical study. Adults patients (>18 years old) with diagnosis of refractory PMN (>50% increase in serum creatinine or a level >1.5mg/dl or proteinuria refractory to 6 months of supportive treatment), proved by renal biopsy and immunofluorescence between 2008 and 2016 from the Nephropathy Registry of Colombia (NEFRORED©) were included. Immunosuppressive treatment response was evaluated from baseline to 6 months after the start of therapy. RESULTS: 128 patients with PMN were included, of which 74 (57%) were female. The most frequent syndromic diagnosis was nephrotic syndrome 90 (70%), followed by asymptomatic urinary disorders 31 (25%). Chronic kidney disease manifested concomitantly in 7 (5%) patients. At the end of 6 months, 86 (67%) cases achieved some degree of remission: 23 (18%) complete response (CR) and 63 (49%) cases with partial response (PR), while 42 (33%) cases did not achieved remission. In the TAC+OC group, CR and PR were seen in 14 (20%) and 33 (47%) patients, respectively; and 9 (16%) and 30 (51%) patients in the MPR group, respectively. No statistically significant differences were found when comparing the immunosuppressive treatment response rate with both treatment groups (p > 0.05). CONCLUSIONS: In the PMN, both immunosuppressive treatments (TAC+OC vs MPR) are comparable. We suggest a clinical follow-up of the anti-PLA2R/THSD7A titres at 6/12 months to be correlated with renal function in subsequent studies.

El impacto de la educación en ciencias biológicas en pacientes con enfermedad renal en...