Changes in zinc status and zinc transporters expression in whole blood of patients with Systemic Inflammatory Response Syndrome (SIRS)

• Published in: Journal of trace elements in medicine and biology 2018-09, Vol.49, p.202-209
• Main Authors: Florea, Daniela, Molina-López, Jorge, Hogstrand, Christer, Lengyel, Imre, de la Cruz, Antonio Pérez, Rodríguez-Elvira, Manuel, Planells, Elena
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Critically ill patients; Severity; Systemic inflammatory response syndrome (SIRS); Zinc level; Zinc transporters
• ISSN: 0946-672X; 1878-3252
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jtemb.2017.11.013

•Critical ill patients are deficient in plasma and cellular zinc.•Down-regulation of zinc transporters linked to critical illness.•New zinc transporters as biomarker candidates for severity and inflammation in critical ill patients. Critically ill patients develop severe stress, inflammation and a clinical state that may raise the utilization and metabolic replacement of many nutrients and especially zinc, depleting their body reserves. This study was designed to assess the zinc status in critical care patients with systemic inflammatory response syndrome (SIRS), comparing them with a group of healthy people, and studying the association with expression of zinc transporters. This investigation was a prospective, multicentre, comparative, observational and analytic study. Twelve critically ill patients from different hospitals and 12 healthy subjects from Granada, Spain, all with informed consent were recruited. Data on daily nutritional assessment, ICU severity scores, inflammation, clinical and nutritional parameters, plasma and blood cell zinc concentrations, and levels of transcripts for zinc transporters in whole blood were taken at admission and at the seventh day of the ICU stay. Zinc levels on critical ill patient are diminish comparing with the healthy control (HS: 0.94 ± 0.19; CIPF: 0.67 ± 0.16 mg/dL). The 58% of critical ill patients showed zinc plasma deficiency at beginning of study while 50.0% of critical ill after 7 days of ICU stay. ZnT7, ZIP4 and ZIP9 were the zinc transporters with highest expression in whole blood. In general, all zinc transporters were significantly down-regulated (P