Patent Application: US-67547908-A

Abstract:
the present invention provides methods for identifying whether or not a patient has , or is at risk of developing drug induced organ damage and methods of treating patients having drug induced organ damage . in particular , the invention relates to a method for identifying whether or not a patent has , or is at risk of developing paracetamol induced liver damage .

Description:
the present invention will now be described in detail with reference to the following figures which show : fig1 a and 1b : protocols for the isolation of microparticles from blood ( a ) and exosomes from urine ( b ). fig2 : representative graphs of flow cytometry analysis of circulating microparticles in plasma from normal healthy subjects . a - d circulating mps and calibrator beads ( 2 . 5 μm ) are represented on forward scatter / side scatter dot plot histograms for unstained control , single stained fitc control , single stained pe control and double stained sorting population , respectively . e - h shows 2 parameter histograms with fitc fluorescence plotted on the x - axis and pe fluorescence on the y axis for unstained control , single stained fitc control , single stained pe control and double stained sorting population , respectively . white dots represent negative mp population ; pink : single positive fitc population ( cd31 +/ emps ); blue : single positive pe population ( cd42b +); purple : double positive population ( cd31 + cd42b +/ pmps ). it shows the numbers of events and the percentage of each of the mp populations in the double stained sorting sample . fig3 : microparticle numbers in healthy individual samples . the numbers of emps and pmps / ml blood recovered by flow cytometry are shown on log 10 graphs and the exact numbers of emps and pmps for each individual are shown above each bar . there is large variability between individual samples in the numbers of mps . mean emps = 1507567 ( sem 837934 ); mean pmps = 285704 ( sem 88864 ); n = 6 . fig4 : gata - 2 expression in emps ( endothelial microparticles ) and pmps ( platelet microparticles ). the top panel shows the western blot on the ultracentrifugation pellet whilst the bottom panel shows gata2 (− 50 kda in size ) present in the ultracentrifugation supernatant after facs . lane1 - 3 : emps lanes 4 - 6 : pmps . lanes 1 & amp ; 4 ; lanes 2 & amp ; 5 ; lanes 3 & amp ; 6 : emps and pmps from the same individual . fig5 : western blot for c - jun in urine exosomes from normal subjects and paracetamol overdose patients with and without liver injury . a : protein concentration of exosomes in normal subjects ( red ), paracetamol overdose patients without organ injury ( blue ) and with organ injury ( orange ) 4 hours and 24 hours after overdose . b : samples from 3 normal healthy subjects showing the presence of c - jun (− 78 kda ) in the top panel and the negative control showing no c - jun in the bottom panel . c : pooled samples from 3 paracetamol overdose patients 4 and 24 hours after overdose . − no liver injury ; + with liver injury . fig6 : normal urine exosomal protein gel . m = molecular weight markers . lanes 1 - 5 all contain ˜ 20 μg normal urine exosome protein from the same individual . dotted lines represent where the gel was sliced based on molecular weight markers to give five samples ( a - e ) for lc - ms / ms analysis . fig7 : immunoblot for c - jun . the amount of protein is increased in the urinary microparticles of patients with liver injury due to paracetamol overdose or sepsis . fig8 : western blot for cypa in human urine . urine ( 10 μl ) is from a healthy subject ( a ), mild liver injury secondary to apap ( b ), moderate liver injury secondary to apap ( c ), sever liver injury secondary to apap ( d ) and liver and kidney injury secondary to apap ( e ). fig9 : western blot for cypa in human urine ( 10 μl per lane ). significant apap - induced liver injury is indicated by +. no liver injury is indicated by −. a , b , c and d indicate age and sex matched subjects . all chemicals were obtained from sigma ( poole , uk ) unless otherwise stated . healthy , male volunteers ( aged 23 - 40 , mrec ethics approval number 06 / mre00 / 67 ) were recruited from the queen &# 39 ; s medical research institute , university of edinburgh . 12 ml ( 4 × 3 ml citrate tubes ) of human blood was collected from healthy individuals . the blood was centrifuged at 4000 × g for 20 minutes to separate cells from plasma . 500 μl from the top layer of the centrifuged plasma was extracted from each tube and centrifuged at 100 000 rpm ( optima ™ tlx ultracentrifuge , beckman coulter , inc ., usa ) at 4 ° c . for 1 hour . the supernatant was poured off and the pellet washed twice with 1 ml saline ( braun ). the pellet was resuspended in 200 μl saline and stored at 4 ° c . until flow cytometry analysis ( see fig1 a ). flourescein isothiocyanate ( fitc )- labelled anti - human cd31 and phycoerythrin ( pe )- labelled anti - human cd42b antibody markers ( bd biosciences , san jose , usa ) ( 20 μl antibody / 100 μl mp sample ) were added to the mp pellet and incubated at room temperature for 30 minutes with regular shaking . fluorescence activated cell sorting ( facs ) analysis was then performed on a facs vantage with diva option ( bd , san jose , usa ) in the flow cytometry core facility , qmri , university of edinburgh . events were identified in forward - scatter and side - scatter intensity dot representation , gated as mps and then plotted on one or two colour fluorescence histograms . emps were defined as cd31 + cd42b − whilst pmps were cd31 + cd42b +. six normal male volunteers ( aged 23 - 40 , mrec ethics approval number 06 / mre00 / 67 ) provided urine samples in sterile 50 ml plastic containers . to each urine sample a protease inhibitor was added ( 50 : 1 of 1 mm leupeptin ). urine samples from patients who had taken an overdose of paracetamol at 4 hours and 24 hours after overdose were also analysed . 3 out of 6 of these patients had elevated serum alanine transaminase ( alt ) 24 hours after admission indicating significant liver injury . the samples were centrifuged at 15000 × g for 15 minutes at 4 ° c . to pellet the urinary sediment . the ‘ 15000 × g supernatant ’ was then centrifuged at 100 000 rpm for 1 hour at 4 ° c . to obtain low density urinary exosome pellets . the 100 000 rpm supernatant was decanted and replaced with an additional ‘ 15 000 × g supernatant ’ and ultracentrifuged again . the ultracentrifugation step was repeated 4 - 6 more times to harvest the exosome pellets from 18 - 24 ml of 15 000 × g supernatant . pellets were resuspended in 50 μl isolation solution ( 10 mm triethanolamine / 250 mm sucrose ( ph 7 . 6 )). as there was only 3 ml of urine from the paracetamol overdose patients the protocol was altered so that 3 ml of 15 000 × g supernatant was ultracentrifuged for 4 hours at 100 000 rpm to maximise the amount of urinary exosomes obtained ( see fig1 b ). the amount of urine and mp protein was determined using the bca ™ protein assay kit ( pierce , usa ) and following the manufacturer &# 39 ; s instructions . 20 μg of normal urine exosome samples were loaded per well . loading amounts for each of the paracetemol overdose samples were normalised for urinary creatinine to account for differences in urine concentration . an equal amount of laemmli sample buffer with 0 . 2m dtt ( bio - rad ) was added to the protein samples and the samples were heated at 95 ° c . for 5 minutes . protein samples were separated by 1d sds / polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis on a 12 % tris - hcl gel ( bio - rad ) and run alongside molecular weight markers ( bio - rad ) at 25 ma per gel for 1 hour with migration buffer ( 25 mm tris ( fisher scientific ), 192 mm glycine and 0 . 1 % sds ). proteins were transferred from the gels to polyvinylidine difluoride membranes ( invitrogen ) at 200 ma for 1 hour using cold transfer buffer ( 25 mm tris , 192 mm glycine and 20 % methanol ( bdh analr ®)). after blocking the membranes for 1 hour in 5 % skimmed instant dried milk ( sainsbury &# 39 ; s ) in tbst ( 25 mm tris - hcl , ph 8 . 0 , 125 mm sodium chloride , 0 . 1 % tween 20 ) they were incubated overnight at 4 ° c . with polyclonal antibodies to gata 2 ( 1 : 200 ) and c - jun ( 1 : 200 ) after 3 × 5 minute washes in tbst the membranes were incubated with horseradish peroxidase - conjugated secondary antibody ( 1 : 5000 ) for 90 minutes at room temperature . all antibodies for western blots were obtained from santa cruz biotechnology , california , usa . ecl plus western blotting detection system ( amersham biosciences , new jersey , usa ) and light - sensitive film ( kodak ) was used to visualise the antibody - antigen reactions . volumes ( 20 μg ) of protein was loaded per well of the gel so the gel contained 100 μg protein in total and was run as before . the gel was then fixed for 1 hour in 7 % glacial acetic acid and 40 % methanol . the gel was stained with colloidal coomassie blue for 1 hour and destained for 30 seconds in 10 % glacial acetic acid and 25 % methanol . the gel was rinsed with 25 % methanol before being destained for 1 hour in the same solution . the gel was sliced ( as shown in fig6 ) and then sliced into smaller pieces and stored at − 80 ° c . until the protein extraction step . all incubations were carried out at room temperature ( 22 ° c .) with continuous shaking . the gel pieces were incubated in distilled water for 15 minutes . the water was removed and replaced by 50 % acetonitrile ( acn ) and incubated for 15 minutes . the acn incubation step was repeated and the acn was then removed and replaced with 100 mm ammonium bicarbonate ( ambic ) and incubated for 5 minutes . the same volume of acn was added to the gel pieces and incubated for a further 15 minutes . the solution was removed and the gel pieces were completely dehydrated in a speed vacuum at 60 ° c . the samples were then incubated with 10 mm dtt / 100 mm ambic at 56 ° c . for 45 minutes . the solution was removed and replaced by 55 mm iodoacetamide / 100 mm ambic and incubated at 30 ° c . at room temperature in the dark . the gel pieces were washed ( in 100 mm ambic ) and then incubated with acn for 15 minutes . the gel pieces were completely dehydrated in a speed vacuum . 0 . 1 μg / μl sequencing grade trypsin ( pierce , usa ) in 1 m calcium chloride and 1 m ambic buffer solution was added to the gel pieces and incubated at 4 ° c . for 45 minutes . the solution was removed and replaced with the same buffer solution but without trypsin and incubated at 37 ° c . overnight . the supernatant was removed and stored at 4 ° c . the gel pieces were incubated with 25 mm ambic for 15 minutes and acn was added and incubated for a further 15 minutes . the supernatant was removed and added to the overnight supernatant . the peptides were then further eluted in 5 % formic acid and acn . 10 mm dtt was added to the pooled supernatant to give a final concentration of 1 mm dtt and the supernatant dried in a speed vacuum . the samples were sent to the chemistry department at the king &# 39 ; s buildings to be analysed by lc - ms / ms . around 50 ml of urine was collected from patients who presented to the royal infirmary of edinburgh following an apap overdose . urine was collected and stored at − 80 ° c . prior to measurement of cypa levels . the urinary concentration of cypa was determined by western blotting as previously described 8 . the primary antibody was rabbit anti - human cyclophilin a ( usbiological , swampscott , mass ., usa ), 1 : 150 dilution . 100 of urine was loaded per gel lane . fig2 shows the side scatter / forward scatter dot plot histograms of the samples that were sorted using facs . the highlighted 2 . 5 μm calibration beads gave an indication of the size of the mps and all the populations of mps were below 2 . 5 μm in size consistent with past studies on mps . emps , shown in fig2 ( b and f ) were slightly smaller in size than pmps , shown in fig2 ( c and d ) as they were located below the pmp population . singly stained mps , either stained with cd31 or cd42b served as controls to identify the location of those populations and a sample without either cell surface marker served as a negative control and provided the number of non - endothelial - and platelet - derived mps . the majority of mps were negative for cd31 and cd42b and these were from differing origins and other cell types . this negative group of mps formed a distinct population and made up 72 . 6 % of the samples . both emps and pmps were identified as distinct populations of particles with differing size . panels d and h show the doubly stained samples used for sorting emps and pmps . there were no single positive cd42b mps and the cd31 + emps made up 17 % whilst the cd31 + cd42b + pmps made up 10 . 3 % of the total mps . the less fitc - labelled the mps were the more likely the mps would be endothelial in origin and only cd31 + whereas the more cd31 + the mps were the more likely they were to also be cd42 + as well and , therefore , be platelet in origin . the numbers of emps and pmps isolated from 6 healthy individuals showed a large amount of variability between individuals . fig3 shows the log 10 graphs of the numbers of emps ( a ) and pmps ( b ) isolated during facs . the numbers were very large and , therefore , the log 10 gave a better graphical representation . the mean number of emps isolated was 1507567 ( sem 837934 ) whilst the mean number of pmps isolated was 285704 ( sem 88864 ). the microparticles were investigated for the presence of the transcription factor gata - 2 by western blot . after the emp and pmp populations were sorted the samples were ultracentrifuged to pellet the mps . both the pellet and supernatants after ultracentrifugation were kept and a western blot carried out to detect the presence of gata - 2 . fig4 shows the results of the western blot that indicated that gata - 2 was found in the supernatant and only one emp ultracentrifuged pellet contained gata - 2 . the emp and pmp sample from individual 1 ( lanes 1 and 4 , respectively ) had higher levels of gata - 2 than any of the other mp samples . this is consistent with the numbers of emps and pmps isolated from that individual ( 5516089 and 380548 , respectively ; sample 4 in fig3 ). the exosomal protein concentration of urine in paracetamol overdose patients , both with and without organ injury was compared to normal urine . a mean of 3 . 54 ± 1 . 22 μg protein / ml urine was found in the 6 normal urine exosomal samples . 4 hours after paracetamol overdose the pooled samples from the 3 patients that did not show organ injury had an about 7 - fold increase in protein compared to normal healthy individuals . there was an ˜ 37 - fold increase in exosomal proteinuria in the pooled sample from the 3 patients with organ injury 4 hours after paracetamol overdose . 24 hours after overdose there was a decrease in the amount of exosomal protein found in the pooled urine samples for both the patients with and without organ injury to about the same levels ( 1 . 5 - 2 times the normal levels ). in order to find if the protein c - jun could be detected in normal urine samples and if the level of c - jun is altered in paracetamol overdose patients a western blot was carried out . in the individual normal samples c - jun was detected at the correct molecular weight of ˜ 78 kda . in addition , it was found that the urinary microparticle concentration of c - jun protein increased following paracetamol - induced liver injury in humans ( fig7 ) in order to perform pilot proteomics on normal urine samples ˜ 100 μg of normal exosomes was loaded on a gel and stained with colloidal coomassie blue to show the presence of any proteins present . fig6 shows the stained gel and provides evidence that there were differing sizes of proteins in the exosomal samples . there is a protein band that appears to be the most abundant protein in the samples in section b of the gel and this is thought to be thp . the dotted lines were where the gel was cut to prepare different samples for proteomic analysis by lc - ms / ms . this study sought to determine whether mps in blood and exosomes in urine could be used as a source of potential disease biomarkers . the main findings were that whilst emps ( endothelial microparticles ) could be isolated by flow cytometry , the numbers that were isolated were highly variable between individuals ( as illustrated in fig3 a ) and the amount of protein that could be isolated was too low to be detected using standard protein assays . the isolation of mps is also time - consuming and would not be an efficient method for a large clinical trial . one potential solution would be to perform in vitro studies on cultured endothelial cells and isolate mps from these cultured cells . this has been carried out successfully by other groups ( combes et al ., 1999 ). candidate proteins could then be decided upon and their levels determined . once potential candidate proteins had been found an in vivo study could be undertaken to determine if there were changes in the expression of these proteins in patients with organ dysfunction . gata - 2 belongs to the gata transcription factor family . gata - 2 plays an important role in hematopoietic development . primitive hematopoietic cells express gata - 2 at high levels but during maturation of the cells into different types of blood cells the levels decline ( tsai et al ., 1994 ). in adult endothelial cells gata - 2 is expressed and is important for the transcriptional regulation of endothelial - specific genes ( zhang et al ., 1995 ). there are several phosphorylated forms of gata - 2 ( towatari et al ., 1995 ) and fig4 shows that there were several forms of gata - 2 in both emps and pmps . however , these results need to be validated in vitro using human umbilical vein endothelial cells ( huvecs ) and checking whether the same forms of gata - 2 can be detected . it is interesting observing gata - 2 in mps as gata - 2 is a transcription factor and this raises the possibility of using transcription factors as in vivo biomarkers for gene expression . fig5 a shows that there was an increase in exosomal proteinuria in paracetamol overdose patients 4 hours after the overdose . the proteinuria was much higher in those patients that had suffered organ injury (˜ 37 times as much compared to normal ). the protein levels in the ultracentrifuged supernatants of overdose patients ( data not shown ) showed variability within the same urine samples using the same assay . this could be as a result of the presence of paracetamol metabolites in the urine as evidence exists that shows paracetamol ( acetaminophen ) and its metabolites can interfere with protein assays such as the bsa assay used in this study ( marshall and williams , 1991 ). the exact nature of how this proteinuria occurs remains to be elucidated . it is unknown whether exosomes are released from the kidney or if the circulating mps are passed into the urine via the glomerulus . also whether the drug is having an effect on the kidney or the blood vessels remains to be determined . it is interesting that the proteinuria levels fall to only 1 . 5 times normal levels 24 hours after drug overdose but this could be explained by clinical intervention to reduce liver damage or reduced blood paracetamol concentration . cypa concentration was raised in the urine of patients with apap - induced organ injury . fig8 represents a western blot comparing urine from a healthy subject ( a ) with urine from patients with mild ( b ), moderate ( c ) and severe liver injury ( d ) and severe liver and kidney injury ( e ). fig9 compares urine from patients with and without apap - induced liver injury . all the patients presented to hospital with history of apap overdose and had apap detectable on blood tests . the patients with liver injury are age and sex matched to a patient without injury . cypa was raised in the urine of the patients with liver injury compared with urine from age - and sex - matched patients without injury . paracetamol overdose is the leading cause of acute hepatic failure in both the united kingdom and the united states ( larson et al ., 2005 ). the pathways linking paracetamol metabolism and liver injury have yet to be completely determined . during the early response to paracetamol overdose cytokines and chemokines are involved in both injury ( ishida et al ., 2002 ) and repair ( hogaboam et al ., 1999 ). the transcription factor , c - jun , is the major component of the ap - 1 transcription factor ( bohmann et al ., 1987 ) and a wide range of stimuli , including cellular stress , are known to induce the activity of ap - 1 . exposure of cells to cytokines and environmental stresses results in the activation of the jnk group which are also known as the stress - activated proteins . apoptosis is considered a cellular stress and , therefore , it is thought that c - jun could be activated or up - regulated in response to apoptosis . it has been shown that jnk and c - jun may mediate liver injury ( liu et al ., 2002 ). for this reason in the present study the exosomal samples obtained from paracetamol overdose patients , with and without acute liver injury , were tested for the presence of c - jun . as a control c - jun was detected in the samples from normal , healthy individuals and it was hypothesised that the levels of c - jun would increase in overdose patients especially those with liver injury as they would have higher levels of apoptosis and increased c - jun activation . it has been shown that cypa is elevated in the urine of patients with liver injury secondary to apap overdose . accordingly , cypa is a potential biomarker of apap - induced liver injury . cypa is elevated to such an extent that no normalization is required for urinary concentration and this makes it a strong potential biomarker that could be easily measured without correction for urinary creatinine . in the results presented cypa is easily detectable in only 10 μl of urine . cypa is an intracellular protein that is released into the extracellular fluid in a variety of diseases in humans and animal models 5 9 - 11 . the mechanism of release of cypa in apap toxicity is unclear but , as apap causes marked cellular necrosis , we hypothesize that leakage from injured cells is the most likely source . as extracellular cypa is proinflammatory it may mediate the organ - injury seen in apap toxicity . cypa could be a valuable clinical biomarker as it may be able to detect organ injury at a time when current markers are not yet elevated . proteomics in the study of diseases is a useful tool and can be used for the identification of proteins in samples from diseased and non - diseased individuals . however , proteomics is not without its problems . in the present study 3 of the 5 gel slices samples that were sent for lc - ms / ms analysis could not be analysed as they contained too much colloidal coomassie blue stain . the equipment used in proteomics is highly sensitive and could be damaged by excess stain . the 2 samples that could be analysed did not appear to have any peptide fragments which is unusual . these problems can be rectified and the experiments repeated by slightly altering the protocol . the main problem of proteomics is that the highly abundant proteins , such as albumin in plasma and thp in urine , can interfere with the detection of less abundant proteins unless they are removed from the samples before proteomic analysis . thp can be removed by treating the samples with reducing agents such as dtt and re - ultracentrifugation of the samples . the thp remains in the supernatant and the pellet can be analysed for low abundance proteins ( pisitkun et al ., 2004 ). albumin can be removed using commercially available kits such as the swellgel albumin removal kit from pierce , rockford , usa . an alternative is to use trichloroacetic acid and acetone to remove serum albumin ( chen et al ., 2005 ). by removing these high abundance proteins before proteomic analysis of samples there is increased chances to identify lower abundance proteins that could provide a better idea of the body &# 39 ; s state of health and the pathogenesis of some diseases . there have been reports of successful protein identification in mps and exosomes . smalley et al ., ( 2007 ) were able to identify 21 proteins that were in plasma mps and not platelet mps and zhou et al ., ( 2006 ) identified a possible biomarker for detecting acute kidney injury . in conclusion , the findings of this study support the idea that mps from blood and exosomes from urine can be a potential source of disease biomarkers . only small amounts of urine are required to obtain exosomes and this could be clinically relevant when diagnosing disease . clinical markers that have the unique ability to indicate the onset and progression of a disease could reduce morbidity and mortality for a wide range of diseases and proteomics has an important role to play in the clinical diagnosis of diseases . amabile , n ., guerin , a . p ., leroyer , a ., mallat , z ., nguyen , c ., boddaert , j ., london , g . m ., tedgui , a . and boulanger , c . m . 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