Ulcerative colitis, Crohn’s disease, and irritable bowel syndrome have different profiles of extracellular matrix turnover, which also reflects disease activity in Crohn’s disease.

January 1, 2017

PLoS One

Abstract BACKGROUND Increased protease activity is a key pathological feature of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). However, the differences in extracellular matrix remodelling (ECM) in Crohn’s disease (CD) and ulcerative colitis (UC) are not well described. An increased understanding of the inflammatory processes may provide optimized disease monitoring and diagnostics. We investigated the tissue remodelling in […]

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Objective Cognitive Impairment and Progression to Dementia in Women: The Prospective Epidemiological Risk Factor Study.

January 1, 2017

J Prev Alzheimers Dis

Abstract BACKGROUND Identification of subjects with a progressive disease phenotype is an urgent need in the pharmaceutical industry where most of the recent clinical trials in Alzheimer’s disease have failed. OBJECTIVES The objective of this study was to identify subgroups of individuals with objective cognitive impairment (OCI), who were most likely to progress to dementia […]

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Systemic Biomarkers of Collagen and Elastin Turnover Are Associated With Clinically Relevant Outcomes in COPD.

January 1, 2017

Chest

Abstract BACKGROUND Extracellular matrix (ECM) remodeling of the lung tissue releases protein fragments into the blood, where they may be detected as serologic surrogate markers of disease activity in COPD. Our goal was to assess the association of ECM turnover with severity and outcome of COPD. METHODS In a prospective, observational, multicenter study including 506 […]

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Serum endotrophin identifies optimal responders to PPARγ agonists in type 2 diabetes.

January 1, 2017

Diabetologia

Abstract AIMS/HYPOTHESIS The treatment of type 2 diabetes with full peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor gamma (PPARγ) agonists improves insulin sensitivity, but is associated with weight gain, heart failure, peripheral oedema and bone loss. Endotrophin, the C-terminal fragment of the α3 chain of procollagen type VI (also called Pro-C6), is involved in both adipose tissue matrix remodelling […]

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High resolution molecular and histological analysis of renal disease progression in ZSF1 fa/faCP rats, a model of type 2 diabetic nephropathy.

January 1, 2017

PLoS One

Abstract ZSF1 rats exhibit spontaneous nephropathy secondary to obesity, hypertension, and diabetes, and have gained interest as a model system with potentially high translational value to progressive human disease. To thoroughly characterize this model, and to better understand how closely it recapitulates human disease, we performed a high resolution longitudinal analysis of renal disease progression […]

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Serum endotrophin, a type VI collagen cleavage product, is associated with increased mortality in chronic kidney disease.

January 1, 2017

PLoS One

Abstract BACKGROUND Patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD) are at increased risk of end-stage renal disease (ESRD) and early mortality. The underlying pathophysiological processes are not entirely understood but may include dysregulation of extracellular matrix formation with accelerated systemic and renal fibrosis. We assessed the relationship between endotrophin (ETP), a marker of collagen type VI […]

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Preventive effects of kudzu root on bone loss and cartilage degradation in ovariectomized rats [corrected].

January 1, 2017

Am J Transl Res

Abstract The clinical utility of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) herbs/roots extracts in osteoporosis (OP) and osteoarthritis (OA) has been described in multiple reports, but there have been few studies of TCM for preventing bone loss and cartilage degradation simultaneously. Six-month-old female Sprague-Dawley rats each were subjected to ovariectomized (OVX) or sham surgery and treated orally […]

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Non-invasive quantification of collagen turnover in renal transplant recipients.

January 1, 2017

PLoS One

Abstract Kidney allograft failure due to chronic injury/rejection remains the main cause of graft loss in renal transplant recipients (RTR). Here, we investigated whether specific biomarkers of extracellular matrix (ECM) turnover are associated with allograft function and chronic kidney disease (CKD) stage in RTR. Seventy-eight patients who attended the University Medical Center Groningen for a […]

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