10th Anniversary of Biomedicines—Advances in Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD)

A special issue of Biomedicines (ISSN 2227-9059). This special issue belongs to the section "Molecular and Translational Medicine".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 April 2023) | Viewed by 9489

Special Issue Editor


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Guest Editor
Centre for Translational Inflammation Research, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, UK
Interests: chronic obstructive pulmonary disease; Alpha 1 antitrypsin deficiency; clinical trials
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Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues, 

The year 2023 marks the 10th anniversary of Biomedicines, a peer-reviewed, open access journal in the biomedical field. So far, Biomedicines has published more than 2700 papers from more than 17,000 authors. We appreciate each author, reviewer, and academic editor whose support has brought us to where we are today. To celebrate this significant milestone, we aim to publish a Special Issue entitled “10th Anniversary of Biomedicines—Advances in Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD)”.

This Special Issue focuses on recent advances in diagnostics and therapeutics for COPD, which represents an increasing medical and economic burden worldwide. Understanding is now growing about public health reasons for this, such as air pollution and occupation, as well as the commonly known risk factor of cigarette smoking. Furthermore, knowledge of treatment has advanced from the generic to the specific, with newer treatments targeting pathophysiological endotypes of COPD rather than the generic management of airflow obstruction. We also understand the range of co-morbidities that COPD patients exhibit, and we are beginning to delineate shared pathophysiology and routes to therapy. Nevertheless, there remain many unanswered questions in COPD, from how to address etiological risk factors or generic treatments, particularly in resource-poor environments, to patient selection for high-cost targeted therapies, such as monoclonal antibodies. We invite the submission of research articles that will improve our knowledge on these topics, either through original research or reviews. We particularly welcome manuscripts that focus on the treatment of COPD, either from trials or real-life cohort studies.

Prof. Dr. Alice M Turner
Guest Editor

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Published Papers (5 papers)

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Research

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12 pages, 862 KiB  
Article
Predicting Lung Function Using Biomarkers in Alpha-1 Antitrypsin Deficiency
by Daniella A. Spittle, Alison Mansfield, Anita Pye, Alice M. Turner and Michael Newnham
Biomedicines 2023, 11(7), 2001; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/biomedicines11072001 - 15 Jul 2023
Viewed by 1127
Abstract
Lung disease progression in alpha-1 antitrypsin deficiency (AATD) is heterogenous and manifests in different ways. Blood biomarkers are an attractive method of monitoring diseases as they are easy to obtain and repeatable. In non-AATD COPD, blood biomarker panels have predicted disease severity, progression, [...] Read more.
Lung disease progression in alpha-1 antitrypsin deficiency (AATD) is heterogenous and manifests in different ways. Blood biomarkers are an attractive method of monitoring diseases as they are easy to obtain and repeatable. In non-AATD COPD, blood biomarker panels have predicted disease severity, progression, and mortality. We measured a panel of seven serum biomarkers in 200 AATD patients and compared levels between those with COPD and those without. We assessed whether biomarkers were associated with baseline lung function parameters (FEV1 and TLco) or absolute change in these parameters. In total, 111 patients with a severely deficient genotype of AATD (PiZZ) and COPD were included in the analyses. Pearson’s correlation coefficient was measured for biomarker correlations and models were compared using ANOVA. CRP and CCL18 were significantly higher in the serum of AATD COPD versus AATD with no COPD. Biomarkers were not predictive of cross-sectional lung function measurements, however, CC16 was significantly associated with an absolute change in TLco (p = 0.018). An addition of biomarkers to the predictive model for TLco added significant value over covariates alone (R2 0.13 vs. 0.02, p = 0.028). Our findings suggest that CC16 is predictive of emphysema progression in AATD COPD. Proteomics data may reveal alternative candidate biomarkers and further work should include the use of longitudinal biomarker measurements. Full article
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10 pages, 1038 KiB  
Article
Identification of COPD Inflammatory Endotypes Using Repeated Sputum Eosinophil Counts
by Augusta Beech, Natalie Jackson and Dave Singh
Biomedicines 2022, 10(10), 2611; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/biomedicines10102611 - 18 Oct 2022
Cited by 3 | Viewed by 1376
Abstract
Higher blood and sputum eosinophil counts are associated with a greater response to corticosteroids in COPD. Low blood eosinophil counts exhibit greater stability over time whereas higher counts demonstrate more variability. Stability of airway eosinophil levels is less well understood. We have studied [...] Read more.
Higher blood and sputum eosinophil counts are associated with a greater response to corticosteroids in COPD. Low blood eosinophil counts exhibit greater stability over time whereas higher counts demonstrate more variability. Stability of airway eosinophil levels is less well understood. We have studied the stability of sputum eosinophil counts. Differential cell count data for COPD patients (n = 100) were analysed. Subjects with two sputum eosinophil counts, 6 months apart, were included in the analysis. Patients were stratified based on baseline sputum eosinophil count into ‘low’, ‘intermediate’ and ‘high’ groups: eosinophilLOW (<1%), eosinophilINT (1–3%) and eosinophilHIGH (≥3%). Sputum eosinophil counts showed good stability (rho = 0.61, p < 0.0001, ICC of 0.77), with 67.4% of eosinophilLOW patients remaining in the same category on repeat sampling. Bland–Altman analysis of the whole cohort (median difference between measurements = 0.00%, 90th percentile = −1.4 and 4.7%) showed greater variation at higher counts. This was confirmed by the wider 90th centiles in the eosinophilINT (−1.50 to 5.65) and eosinophilHIGH groups (−5.33 to 9.80) compared to the eosinophilLOW group (−0.40 to 1.40). The repeatability of sputum eosinophil counts was related to the baseline eosinophil count; sputum eosinophilLOW COPD patients were relatively stable over time, while the eosinophilHIGH group showed greater variability. These results can facilitate the identification of COPD endotypes with differential responses to treatment. Full article
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11 pages, 2707 KiB  
Communication
lnc-IL7R Expression Reflects Physiological Pulmonary Function and Its Aberration Is a Putative Indicator of COPD
by Oluwaseun Adebayo Bamodu, Sheng-Ming Wu, Po-Hao Feng, Wei-Lun Sun, Cheng-Wei Lin, Hsiao-Chi Chuang, Shu-Chuan Ho, Kuan-Yuan Chen, Tzu-Tao Chen, Chien-Hua Tseng, Wen-Te Liu and Kang-Yun Lee
Biomedicines 2022, 10(4), 786; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/biomedicines10040786 - 28 Mar 2022
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 2031
Abstract
Despite rapidly evolving pathobiological mechanistic demystification, coupled with advances in diagnostic and therapeutic modalities, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) remains a major healthcare and clinical challenge, globally. Further compounded by the dearth of available curative anti-COPD therapy, it is posited that this challenge [...] Read more.
Despite rapidly evolving pathobiological mechanistic demystification, coupled with advances in diagnostic and therapeutic modalities, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) remains a major healthcare and clinical challenge, globally. Further compounded by the dearth of available curative anti-COPD therapy, it is posited that this challenge may not be dissociated from the current lack of actionable COPD pathognomonic molecular biomarkers. There is accruing evidence of the involvement of protracted ‘smoldering’ inflammation, repeated lung injury, and accelerated lung aging in enhanced predisposition to or progression of COPD. The relatively novel uncharacterized human long noncoding RNA lnc-IL7R (otherwise called LOC100506406) is increasingly designated a negative modulator of inflammation and regulator of cellular stress responses; however, its role in pulmonary physiology and COPD pathogenesis remains largely unclear and underexplored. Our previous work suggested that upregulated lnc-IL7R expression attenuates inflammation following the activation of the toll-like receptor (TLR)-dependent innate immune system, and that the upregulated lnc-IL7R is anti-correlated with concomitant high PM2.5, PM10, and SO2 levels, which is pathognomonic for exacerbated/aggravated COPD in Taiwan. In the present study, our quantitative analysis of lnc-IL7R expression in our COPD cohort (n = 125) showed that the lnc-IL7R level was significantly correlated with physiological pulmonary function and exhibited COPD-based stratification implications (area under the curve, AUC = 0.86, p < 0.001). We found that the lnc-IL7R level correctly identified patients with COPD (sensitivity = 0.83, specificity = 0.83), precisely discriminated those without emphysematous phenotype (sensitivity = 0.48, specificity = 0.89), and its differential expression reflected disease course based on its correlation with the COPD GOLD stage (r = −0.59, p < 0.001), %LAA-950insp (r = −0.30, p = 0.002), total LAA (r = −0.35, p < 0.001), FEV1(%) (r = 0.52, p < 0.001), FVC (%) (r = 0.45, p < 0.001), and post-bronchodilator FEV1/FVC (r = 0.41, p < 0.001). Consistent with other data, our bioinformatics-aided dose–response plot showed that the probability of COPD decreased as lnc-IL7R expression increased, thus, corroborating our posited anti-COPD therapeutic potential of lnc-IL7R. In conclusion, reduced lnc-IL7R expression not only is associated with inflammation in the airway epithelial cells but is indicative of impaired pulmonary function, pathognomonic of COPD, and predictive of an exacerbated/ aggravated COPD phenotype. These data provide new mechanistic insights into the ailing lung and COPD progression, as well as suggest a novel actionable molecular factor that may be exploited as an efficacious therapeutic strategy in patients with COPD. Full article
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Review

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21 pages, 1415 KiB  
Review
The Overlap Syndrome of Obstructive Sleep Apnea and Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease: A Systematic Review
by Katarzyna Czerwaty, Karolina Dżaman, Krystyna Maria Sobczyk and Katarzyna Irmina Sikorska
Biomedicines 2023, 11(1), 16; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/biomedicines11010016 - 21 Dec 2022
Cited by 7 | Viewed by 2371
Abstract
Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) are common diseases that strongly impact the quality and length of life. Their coexistence is determined by overlap syndrome (OS). This systematic review aims to define the significance of these comorbidities according to [...] Read more.
Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) are common diseases that strongly impact the quality and length of life. Their coexistence is determined by overlap syndrome (OS). This systematic review aims to define the significance of these comorbidities according to the current state of knowledge. For this systematic review, we searched PubMed, Scopus, and Cochrane for studies published between 2018 and 26 October 2022, to find original, observational, human studies published in English, where the diagnosis of COPD was according to the Global Initiative for Obstructive Lung Disease guidelines and the diagnosis of OSA was based on polysomnography. The quality of studies was assessed using the Newcastle–Ottawa quality assessment tool for cohort and case–control studies, as well as its modification for cross-sectional studies. Of the 1548 records identified, 38 were eligible and included in this systematic review. The included studies covered a total population of 27,064 participants. This paper summarizes the most important, up-to-date information regarding OS, including the prevalence, meaning of age/gender/body mass index, polysomnography findings, pulmonary function, comorbidities, predicting OSA among COPD patients, and treatment of this syndrome. Full article
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Other

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19 pages, 1301 KiB  
Systematic Review
Singing for People with Advance Chronic Respiratory Diseases: A Qualitative Meta-Synthesis
by Lena Ly, Jennifer Philip, Peter Hudson and Natasha Smallwood
Biomedicines 2022, 10(9), 2086; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/biomedicines10092086 - 26 Aug 2022
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1684
Abstract
Rationale: Although there remains insufficient evidence regarding singing programs as effective strategies for achieving clinically significant health outcomes, this non-pharmacological intervention appears to be subjectively low-risk and well-tolerated by people with advanced chronic respiratory diseases (CRD). Objective: This study sought to examine and [...] Read more.
Rationale: Although there remains insufficient evidence regarding singing programs as effective strategies for achieving clinically significant health outcomes, this non-pharmacological intervention appears to be subjectively low-risk and well-tolerated by people with advanced chronic respiratory diseases (CRD). Objective: This study sought to examine and synthesize the current qualitative evidence regarding the experiences of participating in singing for breathing programs by people with advanced CRD. Methods: A meta-synthesis of qualitative data was conducted. Electronic databases (Medline, CINAHL, PsycINFO, and EMBASE) were searched for published qualitative studies reporting the effects of singing programs for adults with advanced CRD and their carers. Primary qualitative data were extracted and analysed, which generated descriptive and analytical themes. Results: Themes identified from seven included studies were: anticipation and reluctance to participate; physical and psychological benefits; new sense of purpose and enjoyment; social connection and achievement; and broad views regarding program structure and content. The themes highlighted changing perspectives before, during and after engaging in the singing program, as participants transitioned from initial anxiety to mastery of their chronic condition as the singing program progressed. Participants, however, raised concerns regarding several singing technicalities, the lack of ongoing support after the singing programs’ conclusion and the social impacts of transitioning the sessions online during the COVID-19 pandemic. Conclusions: This meta-synthesis highlights the positive experiences of people with CRD who participate in singing for breathing programs. Further research, including longitudinal qualitative studies, can provide insight into the acceptability and feasibility of singing programs and inform the broader implementation of the intervention. Full article
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