TY - JOUR A1 - Wirsching, Jan A1 - Grassmann, Sophie A1 - Eichelmann, Fabian A1 - Harms, Laura Malin A1 - Schenk, Matthew A1 - Barth, Eva A1 - Berndzen, Alide A1 - Olalekan, Moses A1 - Sarmini, Leen A1 - Zuberer, Hedwig A1 - Aleksandrova, Krasimira T1 - Development and reliability assessment of a new quality appraisal tool for cross-sectional studies using biomarker data (BIOCROSS) JF - BMC Medical Research Methodology N2 - Background Biomarker-based analyses are commonly reported in observational epidemiological studies; however currently there are no specific study quality assessment tools to assist evaluation of conducted research. Accounting for study design and biomarker measurement would be important for deriving valid conclusions when conducting systematic data evaluation. Methods We developed a study quality assessment tool designed specifically to assess biomarker-based cross-sectional studies (BIOCROSS) and evaluated its inter-rater reliability. The tool includes 10-items covering 5 domains: ‘Study rational’, ‘Design/Methods’, ‘Data analysis’, ‘Data interpretation’ and ‘Biomarker measurement’, aiming to assess different quality features of biomarker cross-sectional studies. To evaluate the inter-rater reliability, 30 studies were distributed among 5 raters and intraclass correlation coefficients (ICC-s) were derived from respective ratings. Results The estimated overall ICC between the 5 raters was 0.57 (95% Confidence Interval (CI): 0.38–0.74) indicating a good inter-rater reliability. The ICC-s ranged from 0.11 (95% CI: 0.01–0.27) for the domain ‘Study rational’ to 0.56 (95% CI: 0.40–0.72) for the domain ‘Data interpretation’. Conclusion BIOCROSS is a new study quality assessment tool suitable for evaluation of reporting quality from cross-sectional epidemiological studies employing biomarker data. The tool proved to be reliable for use by biomedical scientists with diverse backgrounds and could facilitate comprehensive review of biomarker studies in human research. KW - BIOCROSS KW - Quality appraisal KW - Evaluation tool KW - Cross-sectional studies Y1 - 2018 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1186/s12874-018-0583-x SN - 1471-2288 VL - 18 PB - BMC CY - London ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Schenk, Matthew A1 - Eichelmann, Fabian A1 - Schulze, Matthias Bernd A1 - Rudovich, Natalia A1 - Pfeiffer, Andreas F. H. A1 - di Giuseppe, Romina A1 - Böing, Heiner A1 - Aleksandrova, Krasimira T1 - Reproducibility of novel immune-inflammatory biomarkers over 4 months BT - an analysis with repeated measures design JF - Biomarkers in medicine N2 - Aim: Assessment of the feasibility and reliability of immune-inflammatory biomarker measurements. Methods: The following biomarkers were assessed in 207 predominantly healthy participants at baseline and after 4 months: MMF, TGF-beta, suPAR and clusterin. Results: Intraclass correlation coefficients (95% CIs) ranged from good for TGF-beta (0.75 [95% CI: 0.33-0.90]) to excellent for MMF (0.81 [95% CI: 0.64-0.90]), clusterin (0.83 [95% CI: 0.78-0.87]) and suPAR (0.91 [95% CI: 0.88-0.93]). Measurement of TGF-beta was challenged by the large number of values below the detection limit. Conclusion: Single measurements of suPAR, clusterin and MMF could serve as feasible and reliable biomarkers of immune-inflammatory pathways in biomedical research. KW - clusterin KW - immune-inflammatory biomarkers KW - MMF KW - repeated measures design KW - reproducibility KW - suPAR KW - TGF-beta Y1 - 2019 U6 - https://doi.org/10.2217/bmm-2018-0351 SN - 1752-0363 SN - 1752-0371 VL - 13 IS - 8 SP - 639 EP - 648 PB - Future Medicine CY - London ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Eichelmann, Fabian A1 - Schulze, Matthias Bernd A1 - Wittenbecher, Clemens A1 - Menzel, Juliane A1 - Weikert, Cornelia A1 - di Giuseppe, Romina A1 - Biemann, Ronald A1 - Isermann, Berend A1 - Fritsche, Andreas A1 - Boeing, Heiner A1 - Aleksandrova, Krasimira T1 - Association of Chemerin Plasma Concentration With Risk of Colorectal Cancer JF - JAMA network open N2 - IMPORTANCE Inflammatory processes have been suggested to have an important role in colorectal cancer (CRC) etiology. Chemerin is a recently discovered inflammatory biomarker thought to exert chemotactic, adipogenic, and angiogenic functions. However, its potential link with CRC has not been sufficiently explored. OBJECTIVE To evaluate the prospective association of circulating plasma chemerin concentrations with incident CRC. DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS Prospective case-cohort study based on 27 548 initially healthy participants from the European Prospective Investigation Into Cancer and Nutrition (EPIC)-Potsdam cohort who were followed for up to 16 years. Baseline study information and samples were collected between August 23, 1994, and September 25, 1998. Recruitment was according to random registry sampling from the geographical area of Potsdam, Germany, and surrounding municipalities. The last date of study follow-up was May 10, 2010. Statistical analysis was conducted in 2018. MAIN OUTCOMES AND MEASURES Incident CRC, colon cancer, and rectal cancer. Baseline chemerin plasma concentrations were measured by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE This study found that the association between chemerin concentration and the risk of incident CRC was linear and independent of established CRC risk factors. Further studies are warranted to evaluate chemerin as a novel immune-inflammatory agent in colorectal carcinogenesis. Y1 - 2019 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2019.0896 SN - 2574-3805 VL - 2 IS - 3 PB - American Veterinary Medical Association CY - Chicago ER - TY - THES A1 - Eichelmann, Fabian T1 - Novel adipokines as inflammatory biomarkers of chronic disease risk Y1 - 2019 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Birukov, Anna A1 - Cuadrat, Rafael R. C. A1 - Polemiti, Elli A1 - Eichelmann, Fabian A1 - Schulze, Matthias Bernd T1 - Advanced glycation end-products, measured as skin autofluorescence, associate with vascular stiffness in diabetic, pre-diabetic and normoglycemic individuals BT - a cross-sectional study JF - Cardiovascular diabetology N2 - Background Advanced glycation end-products are proteins that become glycated after contact with sugars and are implicated in endothelial dysfunction and arterial stiffening. We aimed to investigate the relationships between advanced glycation end-products, measured as skin autofluorescence, and vascular stiffness in various glycemic strata. Methods We performed a cross-sectional analysis within the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition (EPIC)-Potsdam cohort, comprising n = 3535 participants (median age 67 years, 60% women). Advanced glycation end-products were measured as skin autofluorescence with AGE-Reader (TM), vascular stiffness was measured as pulse wave velocity, augmentation index and ankle-brachial index with Vascular Explorer (TM). A subset of 1348 participants underwent an oral glucose tolerance test. Participants were sub-phenotyped into normoglycemic, prediabetes and diabetes groups. Associations between skin autofluorescence and various indices of vascular stiffness were assessed by multivariable regression analyses and were adjusted for age, sex, measures of adiposity and lifestyle, blood pressure, prevalent conditions, medication use and blood biomarkers. Results Skin autofluorescence associated with pulse wave velocity, augmentation index and ankle-brachial index, adjusted beta coefficients (95% CI) per unit skin autofluorescence increase: 0.38 (0.21; 0.55) for carotid-femoral pulse wave velocity, 0.25 (0.14; 0.37) for aortic pulse wave velocity, 1.00 (0.29; 1.70) for aortic augmentation index, 4.12 (2.24; 6.00) for brachial augmentation index and - 0.04 (- 0.05; - 0.02) for ankle-brachial index. The associations were strongest in men, younger individuals and were consistent across all glycemic strata: for carotid-femoral pulse wave velocity 0.36 (0.12; 0.60) in normoglycemic, 0.33 (- 0.01; 0.67) in prediabetes and 0.45 (0.09; 0.80) in diabetes groups; with similar estimates for aortic pulse wave velocity. Augmentation index was associated with skin autofluorescence only in normoglycemic and diabetes groups. Ankle-brachial index inversely associated with skin autofluorescence across all sex, age and glycemic strata. Conclusions Our findings indicate that advanced glycation end-products measured as skin autofluorescence might be involved in vascular stiffening independent of age and other cardiometabolic risk factors not only in individuals with diabetes but also in normoglycemic and prediabetic conditions. Skin autofluorescence might prove as a rapid and non-invasive method for assessment of macrovascular disease progression across all glycemic strata. KW - Advanced glycation end-products KW - AGE KW - Ankle-brachial index KW - Augmentation KW - index KW - Prediabetes KW - Glycemia KW - Pulse wave velocity KW - Skin KW - autofluorescence KW - Vascular stiffness Y1 - 2021 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1186/s12933-021-01296-5 SN - 1475-2840 VL - 20 IS - 1 PB - BioMed Central CY - London ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Eichelmann, Fabian A1 - Sellem, Laury A1 - Wittenbecher, Clemens A1 - Jäger, Susanne A1 - Kuxhaus, Olga A1 - Prada, Marcela A1 - Cuadrat, Rafael A1 - Jackson, Kim G. A1 - Lovegrove, Julie A. A1 - Schulze, Matthias Bernd T1 - Deep lipidomics in human plasma: cardiometabolic disease risk and effect of dietary fat modulation JF - Circulation N2 - Background: In blood and tissues, dietary and endogenously generated fatty acids (FAs) occur in free form or as part of complex lipid molecules that collectively represent the lipidome of the respective tissue. We assessed associations of plasma lipids derived from high-resolution lipidomics with incident cardiometabolic diseases and subsequently tested if the identified risk-associated lipids were sensitive to dietary fat modification. Methods: The EPIC Potsdam cohort study (European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition) comprises 27 548 participants recruited within an age range of 35 to 65 years from the general population around Potsdam, Germany. We generated 2 disease-specific case cohorts on the basis of a fixed random subsample (n=1262) and all respective cohort-wide identified incident primary cardiovascular disease (composite of fatal and nonfatal myocardial infarction and stroke; n=551) and type 2 diabetes (n=775) cases. We estimated the associations of baseline plasma concentrations of 282 class-specific FA abundances (calculated from 940 distinct molecular species across 15 lipid classes) with the outcomes in multivariable-adjusted Cox models. We tested the effect of an isoenergetic dietary fat modification on risk-associated lipids in the DIVAS randomized controlled trial (Dietary Intervention and Vascular Function; n=113). Participants consumed either a diet rich in saturated FAs (control), monounsaturated FAs, or a mixture of monounsaturated and n-6 polyunsaturated FAs for 16 weeks. Results: Sixty-nine lipids associated (false discovery rate<0.05) with at least 1 outcome (both, 8; only cardiovascular disease, 49; only type 2 diabetes, 12). In brief, several monoacylglycerols and FA16:0 and FA18:0 in diacylglycerols were associated with both outcomes; cholesteryl esters, free fatty acids, and sphingolipids were largely cardiovascular disease specific; and several (glycero)phospholipids were type 2 diabetes specific. In addition, 19 risk-associated lipids were affected (false discovery rate<0.05) by the diets rich in unsaturated dietary FAs compared with the saturated fat diet (17 in a direction consistent with a potential beneficial effect on long-term cardiometabolic risk). For example, the monounsaturated FA-rich diet decreased diacylglycerol(FA16:0) by 0.4 (95% CI, 0.5-0.3) SD units and increased triacylglycerol(FA22:1) by 0.5 (95% CI, 0.4-0.7) SD units. Conclusions: We identified several lipids associated with cardiometabolic disease risk. A subset was beneficially altered by a dietary fat intervention that supports the substitution of dietary saturated FAs with unsaturated FAs as a potential tool for primary disease prevention. KW - cardiovascular diseases KW - cholesterol KW - diabetes mellitus KW - type 2 KW - diet KW - food KW - and nutrition KW - epidemiology KW - lipids Y1 - 2022 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1161/CIRCULATIONAHA.121.056805 SN - 0009-7322 SN - 1524-4539 VL - 146 IS - 1 SP - 21 EP - 35 PB - Lippincott Williams & Wilkins CY - Philadelphia ER -