Differentiating between chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) patients with normal (PiMM) or deficient (PiZZ) genetic variants of alpha-1 antitrypsin (A1AT) is important not only for understanding the pathobiology of disease progression but also for improving personalized therapies. This pilot study aimed to investigate whether urinary peptides reflect the A1AT-related phenotypes of COPD...

The human serine protease high temperature requirement A1 (HTRA1) is highly expressed in the placental tissue, especially in the last trimester of gestation. This suggests that HTRA1 is involved in placental formation and function. With the aim of a better understanding of the role of HTRA1 in the placenta, candidate substrates were screened in a placenta protein extract using a gel-based mass ...

Protein-losing gastroenteropathy (PLGE) is a rare extraglandular manifestation of Sjögren's syndrome, reported in fewer than 10 cases. We report a 58-year-old white woman with Sjögren's syndrome, type 1 renal tubular acidosis, and PLGE, who presented with cachexia and 100-pound weight loss. The diagnosis was made based on hypoalbuminemia in the absence of significant proteinuria, low levels of ...

Alpha one antitrypsin protein (A1AT), is encoded on the SERPINA1 (serpin peptidase inhibitor, claude A, member 1 gene), (OMIM 107400), located on chromosome 14q32.1 and functions as inhibitor of the enzyme neutrophil elastase. People with a low serum level of this protein are described as having the alpha-1-antrypsin deficiency (A1ATD), (OMIM #613490), one of the most common heritable disorders...

BACKGROUND Papillary thyroid cancer (PTC) is mainly diagnosed using fine-needle aspiration biopsy. This most common form of well-differentiated thyroid cancer occurs with or without a background of benign thyroid goiter (BTG). METHODS In the present study, a gel-based proteomics analysis was performed to analyse the expression of proteins in tissue and serum samples of PTC patients with (PTCb...

Introduction Alpha1-antitrypsin is a member of the serpin (serine protease inhibitor) family of proteins . It controls the breakdown of elastic tissue in the lung by inhibiting human neutrophil elastase. It does so by the remarkable serpin mechanism forming a covalent complex with the enzyme and undergoing a dramatic, stabilising conformational change in order to fully disable it . However this...

Respiratory medicine is facing formidable challenges in the 21st century. Indeed, most respiratory medical research is becoming interconnected, translational and transnational, all embedded within so-called “planetary health” [1]. However, renewing estimates and trends from classical, descriptive epidemiology, including how many patients of a given condition are around, and how many are expecte...