Introduction: Development of delayed graft function is more prevalent in patients receiving a kidney allograft from brain-dead than living donors. This study aimed to evaluate the association between urine neutrophil gelatinase-associated lipocalin (NGAL) levels in brain-dead donors and subsequent allograft function.Materials and Methods: Urine NGAL concentration was measured in urine samples obtained from 24 brain-dead kidney allograft donors before organ retrieval. The 24 kidney recipients were followed for 6 months. The immunosuppressive therapy was similar for all of the recipients. Following transplantation, plasma creatinine was recorded daily during the recipient’s stay in the hospital and then at 1, 3, and 6 months after transplantation. Delayed graft function was defined as the need for dialysis in the first 7 days after transplantation.Results: The mean age of the donors was 28.7 ± 11.2 years and 70.8% were men. Their median urine NGAL level was 7.4 ng/ml (range, 2 ng/mL to 45 ng/mL). Urine NGAL levels were only associated with the need for cardiopulmonary resuscitation (P=.007). On the 1st day after transplantation, 16.7% of the recipients developed delayed graft function, which was declined to 12.5% on the 2nd day and to 8.3% during the 3rd day and the following days. No significant association was observed between the donor’s urine NGAL levels and graft function (P=.86).Conclusions: Our results did not show any association between urine NGAL levels and outcome of allograft function obtained from brain-dead donors. Larger studies are required to confirm this finding.

Background: Because of some insult to kidney during transplantation, assessment of kidney function after the procedure is essential. It would be ideal to find a marker better than creatinine to early predict the acute kidney injury.Objective: To compare with creatinine the predictive value of serum neutrophil gelatinase-associated lipocalin (NGAL) in detecting kidney recovery after renal transplantation.Methods: We studied 33 patients who received kidney transplantation (deceased [n=20] and live [n=13]) during a 6-month period in 2010. Serum NGAL and creatinine, hemoglobin, and blood glucose were measured at 0, 12, 24, 48, and 72 hours after transplantation. The need for dialysis and kidney function in one week were studied.Results: There were 16 men and 17 women with the mean±SD age of 36.3±12.2 (range: 14–58) years. Of the studied patients, 6 had delayed graft function (DGF; hemodialysis within the first week of transplant); 9 had slow graft function (SGF; serum creatinine reduction from transplantation to day 7 <70%), and 23 had immediate graft function (IGF; reduction in serum creatinine³70%). At any time, serum NGAL, and creatinine levels were significantly higher among patients with DGF (p=0.024) and SGF (p=0.026) compared with those with IGF. However, in those who got IGF vs non-IGF, serum creatinine levels were not significantly different (p=0.59) but serum NGAL levels differed significantly (p=0.020). Receiver-operating characteristic (ROC) curve and area under curves (AUCs) of serum NGAL and serum creatinine levels on the first post-transplantation day had similar significance in predicting the patient’s need to dialysis in the first week. However, using AUC of serum creatinine was not helpful in predicting non-IGF, compared to serum NGAL. The AUCs of the serum NGAL were 0.70 (95% CI: 0.52–0.89) and 0.76 (95% CI: 0.59–0.93) after 12 and 24 hours, respectively (p<0.05). The highest AUC (0.82) was attributed to serum NGAL of 24 hour (p=0.002).Conclusion: Serum NGAL level especially 24 hours post-transplantation, seems to be an early accurate predictor of both the need to dialysis and slow graft function within the first week of kidney transplantation.

Objective: Neutrophil gelatinase-associated lipocalin (NGAL), comprise a group of small extracellular proteins with a common b-sheet-dominated 3-dimensional structure. In the past, the predominant role of LIPOCALINS was assumed to be to act as transport proteins and, for several members, this is likely to be an important function. Recently it is suggested that LCN2 has role in ROS scavangering. It is proved that Electromagnetic field could produce ROS in different tissues. Expression of LCN2 in such condition in testis tissue and its role in reproduction was investigated in this study.Materials and Methods: In this study, 10 bulb/c mice were exposed to 3MT EMF for 2 months, 4 hours/day. After 2 months, the mice were sacrificed by cervical dislocation and testis removed. This tissue was fixed by formalin 10% and tissue passage processing is performed. Slides were stained by hematoxiline-Eosin (H&E). Number of leydic and primary spermatocyte cells and diameter of basal lamina were measured by light microscope. For Real-time RT-PCR, Total RNA from testis tissues was extracted by Trizol reagent the quantity and quality of RNA were determined by spectrophotometry and electrophoresis, respectively. Reverse transcription was performed by SuperScript III reverse transcriptase with 1mg of total RNA followed by DNaseI treatment and heat inactivation. Expression of Lcn2 was determined by semi quantative and real time-PCR.Results: The light microscopic study of seminiferous tubules showed that basal lamina was thickend. Number of Primary spermatocytes was increased compared to control group. Study on interestitial space showed that number of leydic cells increased. Real-Time PCR result showed that Lcn2 was down- regulated in both semiquantative and real time-PCR.Conclusion: Testis is one of the organs that express Lcn2 in high level. It is also one of the sensitive organs in exposure to electromagnetic filed. Taken together, down regulation of Lcn2 might account for some consequences of electromagnetic exposure including infertility. However, further and complementary studies are required in this regards.