Pulmonary fibrosis (PF) is a life-threatening disorder that severely disrupts normal lung architecture and function, resulting in severe respiratory failure and death. It has no definite treatment. Empagliflozin (EMPA), a sodium-glucose cotransporter 2 (SGLT2) inhibitor, has protective potential in PF. However, the mechanisms underlying these effects require further elucidation. Therefore, this study aimed to evaluate the ameliorative effect of EMPA against bleomycin (BLM)-induced PF and the potential mechanisms. Twenty-four male Wister rats were randomly divided into four groups: control, BLM treated, EMPA treated, and EMPA+BLM treated. EMPA significantly improved the histopathological injuries illustrated by both hematoxylin and eosin and Masson’s trichrome-stained lung tissue sections, as confirmed by electron microscopic examination. It significantly reduced the lung index, hydroxyproline content, and transforming growth factor β1 levels in the BLM rat model. It had an anti-inflammatory effect, as evidenced by a decrease in the inflammatory cytokines’ tumor necrosis factor alpha and high mobility group box 1, inflammatory cell infiltration into the bronchoalveolar lavage fluid, and the CD68 immunoreaction. Furthermore, EMPA mitigated oxidative stress, DNA fragmentation, ferroptosis, and endoplasmic reticulum stress, as evidenced by the up-regulation of nuclear factor erythroid 2-related factor expression, heme oxygenase-1 activity, glutathione peroxidase 4 levels, and a decrease in C/EBP homologous protein levels. This protective potential could be explained on the basis of autophagy induction via up-regulating lung sestrin2 expression and the LC3 II immunoreaction observed in this study. Our findings indicated that EMPA protected against BLM-induced PF-associated cellular stress by enhancing autophagy and modulating sestrin2/adenosine monophosphate-activated protein kinase/nuclear factor erythroid 2-related factor 2/heme oxygenase 1 signaling.

Background: Octamer-binding transcription factor 4 (Oct4) is a transcription factor that has an important role in stem cell differentiation and self-renewal. Oct4 has also been implicated in tumorigenicity of different cancers. This study aimed to analyze Oct4 expression in gastric carcinoma (GC) and to evaluate the relation between Oct4 expression and clinicopathologic parameters, tumor proliferation, and angiogenesis in addition to patient survival. Results: Oct4 mRNA was detected by quantitative reverse transcription PCR (qRT-PCR) in 45 GC specimens and adjacent non-cancerous tissues. We found a significant difference in Oct4 mRNA relative expression levels in GC tissue compared with adjacent non-cancerous tissues (p < 0.001). Furthermore, immunohistochemistry (IHC) was performed to study the Oct4 expression in GC cases. High Oct4 immunostaining was detected in 62.2% of GC specimens. High Oct4 expression both by mRNA relative quantitation and IHC were significantly related to poorly differentiated tumors, nodal metastasis, and stage III tumors. Moreover, high Oct4 IHC expression was also associated with cases positive for Ki-67 and VEGF expressions (p < 0.001 and 0.021, respectively). Oct4 expression identified by both mRNA relative quantitation and IHC was significantly related (p < 0.001). As regards patient survival, high Oct4 expression was significantly related to poor overall survival (OS) and disease-free survival (DFS) (p = 0.029 and 0.031, respectively). Conclusion: Oct4 plays a valuable role in the progression and prognosis of GC. High Oct4 expression is associated with high tumor grade, nodal metastasis, stage III tumors, and poor OS and DFS. High Oct4 is also significantly associated with Ki-67 and VGEF expression, thus enhancing tumor proliferation and angiogenesis.

Background: Globally, all medical laboratories seeking accreditation should meet international quality standards to perform certain specific tests. Quality management program provides disciplines targeted to ensure that quality standards have been implemented by a laboratory in order to generate correct results. The hallmark of the accreditation process is method verification and quality assurance. Before introducing a new method in your laboratory, it is important to assess certain performance characteristics that reflect the concept of method verification. Methods: In this review, we illustrated how to verify the performance characteristics of a new method according to the recent guidelines. It includes an assessment of precision, trueness, analytical sensitivity, detection limits, analytical specificity, interference, measuring range, linearity, and measurement uncertainty. Conclusions: Although the presence of several updated guidelines used to determine the performance characteristics of new methods in clinical chemistry laboratories, the real practice raised several concerns with the application of these guidelines which in need for further consideration in the upcoming updates of these guidelines.