title: DDRGK1 in urine indicative of tubular cell injury in intensive care patients with serious infections.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Acute kidney injury (AKI) is a life threatening condition. Despite intensive care treatment the occurrence cannot be predicted as very little indicators exist for direct measurement when tubular epithelial cell injury takes place. We therefore searched for novel peptide indicators expressed at intracellular level at the proximal kidney tubule for its appearance in urine samples.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  Establishing a test for urinary C20orf116 protein measurement.
  
  
  METHODS
  Generation of immunoreagents against C20orf116 also named DDRGK1. These were used to measure its presence in urine collected at 8-24 hours interval in a prospective study from 99 ICU patients at 4-6 time points. These patients received therapy because of serious infection and were categorized into 4 groups.
  
  
  RESULTS
  1) Ten tested highly for C20orf116 undergoing AKI graded Failure or Loss (3210 ± 4268 ng/mL) according to RIFLE criteria, all requiring renal replacement therapy (RRT) out of them 9 died. 2) Six patients with pre-existing kidney disease developed AKI and required RRT but had much lower C20orf116 levels of (33 ± 19), two of them died. 3) In contrast, out of 11 patients undergoing AKI grade Risk or Injury, four tested positive for C20orf116 but to much lower extent (66 ± 43) who recovered fully. 4) Out of 72 patients 25 tested positive (18 ± 12 ng/mL) not fulfilling criteria of AKI but with serum creatinine (sCr) rises of 1.2-1.4 (n = 52). Healthy donors (n = 48) showed no detectable C20orf116 at any time point.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  C20orf116 excretion was detectable more than 24 hours before sCr rise could be measured; high level seemed to indicate severity of organ failure.
authors.affiliation: Department of Internal Medicine III, Division of Nephrology and Dialysis, Medical University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria.
authors.forename: Dashurie
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Neziri
authors.affiliation: Department of Internal Medicine III, Division of Nephrology and Dialysis, Medical University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria.
authors.forename: Sahra
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Pajenda
authors.affiliation: Ugandan Christian University of Mbale, Mbale, Uganda.
authors.forename: Rebecca
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Amuge
authors.affiliation: Department of Internal Medicine III, Division of Nephrology and Dialysis, Medical University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria.
authors.forename: Aysegul
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Ilhan
authors.affiliation: Division of Intensive Care 13H1, Medical University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria.
authors.forename: Marlene
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Wewalka
authors.affiliation: Department of Laboratory Medicine, Medical University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria.
authors.forename: Gregor
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Hörmann
authors.affiliation: Division of Intensive Care 13H1, Medical University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria.
authors.forename: Christian
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Zauner
authors.affiliation: Department of Internal Medicine III, Division of Nephrology and Dialysis, Medical University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria.
authors.forename: Ludwig
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Wagner
keywords: Acute kidney injury; C20orf116; DDRGK1; Tubular cells