ArticleFrontiers in endocrinology2025
Discovery and serological validation of DAMP-derived B-cell epitopes as diagnostic biomarkers for diabetic nephropathy.
Article in Frontiers in endocrinology, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
0 citing papers in PubMed.
No citing paper in PubMed yet.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
5 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Background: Diabetic nephropathy (DN), a severe complication of diabetes and a leading cause of end-stage renal disease, is strongly associated with chronic inflammation triggered by damage-associated molecular patterns (DAMPs), such as high-mobility group box 1 (HMGB1), S100A8, and S100A9. This study aimed to identify and validate conserved B-cell epitopes from these DAMPs to develop peptide-based serological markers for DN diagnosis. Methods: Canonical sequences of HMGB1 (NP_002119.2), S100A8 (NP_002955.1), and S100A9 (NP_002956.2) were retrieved from NCBI RefSeq. Evolutionary conservation was assessed using MAFFT v7.520 and ConSurf. Linear epitopes were predicted with BepiPred 2.0 (threshold = 0.5) and ABCpred (threshold = 0.51), while conformational epitopes were mapped using ElliPro (score ≥ 0.5, distance ≤ 6Å) on crystallographic structures (PDB: 2YRQ, 1XK4). Candidate epitopes were evaluated for antigenicity (VaxiJen v2.0, threshold = 0.5), surface accessibility (DSSP > 20%), and cross-reactivity (BLASTp against UniProtKB/Swiss-Prot 2024_03). Top peptides were synthesized via Fmoc-SPPS (≥ 95% purity, confirmed by HPLC/MS) and validated using indirect enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) on sera from DN patients ( Results: Three highly immunogenic and evolutionarily conserved linear B-cell epitopes were identified: HMGB1 (GSSGMGKGDPKKPRGK, VaxiJen = 1.60), S100A8 (NSIIDVYHKYSLIKGN, 1.20), and S100A9 (SVKLGHPDTLNQGEFK, 0.70). These epitopes overlapped with predicted conformational regions and were confirmed to be surface-exposed through structural modeling. ELISA analysis revealed significantly elevated IgG responses in DN patient sera versus controls ( Conclusion: This study successfully identified and validated three novel DAMP-derived B-cell epitopes with significant diagnostic potential for diabetic nephropathy. The peptides exhibited high immunogenicity, strong specificity, and consistent performance in ELISA-based serological assays. These findings pave the way for the development of noninvasive, peptide-based diagnostic tools for early DN detection. Future efforts will focus on multicenter validation and integration into multiplex serological panels.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What Socratic holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the Socratic graph.