Publications by authors named "Alexander G Haslberger"

The importance of diet and lifestyle in maintaining overall health has long been recognised. MicroRNAs (miRNAs) have emerged as key players in the intricate interplay between health and disease. This study, including 305 participants, examined the role of miRNAs from capillary blood as indicators of individual physiological characteristics, diet, and lifestyle influences.

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Background: Psychological stress, as an important cofactor in the development of many acute and chronic diseases, is crucial for general health or well-being, and improved markers are needed to distinguish situations of progressive pathological development, such as depression, anxiety, or burnout, to be recognized at an early stage. Epigenetic biomarkers play an important role in the early detection and treatment of complex diseases such as cancer, and metabolic or mental disorders. Therefore, this study aimed to identify so-called miRNAs, which would be suitable as stress-related biomarkers.

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Article Synopsis
  • Dysregulation of epigenetic mechanisms, particularly related to miRNA expression, plays a significant role in cancer development, with noticeable differences between sexes.
  • A study analyzed cell-free DNA methylation and miRNAs in plasma samples from healthy individuals and cancer patients, revealing several miRNAs that showed opposing expression patterns between males and females across various cancer types, including colorectal and stomach cancers.
  • The findings underscore the importance of considering sex-specific differences in epigenetic regulation in cancer research, as the same miRNAs may have different impacts depending on the patient's sex and health status.
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Background: Regular, especially sustained exercise plays an important role in the prevention and treatment of multiple chronic diseases. Some of the underlying molecular and cellular mechanisms behind the adaptive response to physical activity are still unclear, but recent findings suggest a possible role of epigenetic mechanisms, especially miRNAs, in the progression and management of exercise-related changes. Due to the combination of the analysis of epigenetic biomarkers (miRNAs), the intake of food and supplements, and genetic dispositions, a "fitness score" was evaluated to assess the individual response to nutrition, exercise, and metabolic influence.

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Healthy mitochondria and their epigenetic control are essential to maintaining health, extending life expectancy, and improving cardiovascular performance. Strategies to maintain functional mitochondria during aging include training; cardiovascular exercise has been suggested as the best method, but strength training has also been identified as essential to health and healthy aging. We therefore investigated the effects of concurrent exercise training and dietary habits on epigenetic mechanisms involved in mitochondrial (mt) functions and biogenesis.

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Liquid biopsy-based tests emerge progressively as an important tool for cancer diagnostics and management. Currently, researchers focus on a single biomarker type and one tumor entity. This study aimed to create a multi-analyte liquid biopsy test for the simultaneous detection of several solid cancers.

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Aging and the emergence of age-associated illnesses are one of the major challenges of our present society. Alzheimer's disease (AD) is closely associated with aging and is defined by increasing memory loss and severe dementia. Currently, there are no therapy options available that halt AD progression.

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Obesity- or diabetes-induced oxidative stress is discussed as a major risk factor for DNA damage. Vitamin E and many polyphenols exhibit antioxidative activities with consequences on epigenetic regulation of inflammation and DNA repair. The present study investigated the counteraction of oxidative stress by vitamin E in the colorectal cancer cell line Caco-2 under normal (1 g/l) and high (4.

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Obesity as a multifactorial disorder involves low-grade inflammation, increased reactive oxygen species incidence, gut microbiota aberrations, and epigenetic consequences. Thus, prevention and therapies with epigenetic active antioxidants, (-)-Epigallocatechin-3-gallate (EGCG), are of increasing interest. DNA damage, DNA methylation and gene expression of , , and were analyzed in C57BL/6J male mice fed a high-fat diet (HFD) or a control diet (CD) with and without EGCG supplementation.

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Dietary habits, lifestyle, medication, and food additives affect the composition and functions of the GI microbiota. Metabolic syndrome is already known to be associated with an aberrant gut microbiota affecting systemic low-grade inflammation, which is also outlined by differing epigenetic patterns. Thus, structural changes and compositional evaluation of gut microbial differences affecting epigenetic patterns in metabolic syndrome are of research interest.

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Background: Beside the influence of nutritional habits and reduced physical activity, metabolic syndrome is associated with alterations in the structure of gut microbiota influencing the inflammatory immune responses. Gut microbiota and microbial metabolic activities are known to affect the lipid and glucose metabolism, satiety and chronic low-grade inflammation in the metabolic syndrome. The aim of the study was to identify genera or even species affecting host metabolism in obesity and type 2 diabetes beside the common used indicator: Firmicutes/ Bacteroidetes ratio.

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This work were aimed to (a) determination of minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) and minimum bactericidal concentration (MBC) of Carum copticum essential oil (EO) against Escherichia. coli O157:H7 in vitro Trypticase Soy Broth, (TSB) and in ground beef; (b) evaluation of the effect of sub-inhibitory concentrations (sub-MICs) of EO on the growth of bacterium in TSB over 72 h (at 35 °C) and ground beef over 9 days (at 4 °C); and (c) investigation of gene expression involved in Shiga toxins production using relative quantitative real-time PCR method. The MIC in broth and ground beef medium were determined as 0.

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To ensure quality management during the production processes of probiotics and for efficacy testing in vivo, accurate tools are needed for the identification and quantification of probiotic strains. In this study, a strain-specific qPCR assay based on Suppression Subtractive Hybridisation (SSH) for identifying unique sequences, was developed to quantify the strain Bifidobacterium animalis BAN in broiler feed. Seventy potential BAN specific sequences were obtained after SSH of the BAN genome, with a pool of closely related strain genomes and subsequent differential screening by dot blot hybridisation.

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Background/aims: Diabetes mellitus type 2 (DMT2) is accompanied by systemic low-grade inflammation with elevated levels of interleukin-6 (IL-6), which is encoded by a gene (IL-6) previously shown to be regulated by DNA methylation. We investigated seven CpG sites in IL-6 in individuals with DMT2, obese individuals and lean controls. Further, the DMT2 group received the glucagon-like peptide 1 agonist liraglutide.

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Genetic and environmental factors, especially nutrition and lifestyle, have been discussed in the literature for their relevance to epidemic obesity. Gene-environment interactions may need to be understood for an improved understanding of the causes of obesity, and epigenetic mechanisms are of special importance. Consequences of epigenetic mechanisms seem to be particularly important during certain periods of life: prenatal, postnatal and intergenerational, transgenerational inheritance are discussed with relevance to obesity.

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Purpose Of Review: Nutrients or even diets affect the epigenome by lifelong remodeling. Nutritional imbalances are associated with noncommunicable diseases. Thus, nutriepigenomics is a promising field in the treatment of complex human diseases.

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Genetic mutations must be avoided during the production and use of seeds. In the European Union (EU), Directive 2001/18/EC requires any DNA construct introduced via transformation to be stable. Establishing genetic stability is critical for the approval of genetically modified organisms (GMOs).

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Type-2 diabetes is associated with a chronic low-grade systemic inflammation accompanied by an increased production of adipokines/cytokines by obese adipose tissue. The search for new antidiabetic drugs with different mechanisms of action, such as insulin sensitizers, insulin secretagogues and α-glucosidase inhibitors, has directed the focus on the potential use of flavonoids in the management of type-2 diabetes. Thirty six diabetic male C57BL/6J db/db mice were fed a standard diet and randomly assigned into four experimental groups: non-treated control, (n = 8); acarbose (5 mg per kg bw, n = 8); helichrysum (1 g per kg bw, n = 10) and grapefruit (0.

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The human gut microbiota and microbial influences on lipid and glucose metabolism, satiety, and chronic low-grade inflammation are known to be involved in metabolic syndrome. Fermentation end products, especially short chain fatty acids, are believed to engage the epigenetic regulation of inflammatory reactions via FFARs (free fatty acid receptor) and other short chain fatty acid receptors. We studied a potential interaction of the microbiota with epigenetic regulation in obese and type 2 diabetes patients compared to a lean control group over a four month intervention period.

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Background: Oxidative stress may lead to an increased level of unrepaired cellular DNA damage, which is discussed as one risk for tumor initiation. Mismatch repair (MMR) enzymes act as proofreading complexes that maintain the genomic integrity and MMR-deficient cells show an increased mutation rate. One important gene in the MMR complex is the MutL homolog 1 (MLH1) gene.

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Background: We investigated whether chemotherapy with the presence or absence of antibiotics against different kinds of cancer changed the gastrointestinal microbiota.

Methodology/principal Findings: Feces of 17 ambulant patients receiving chemotherapy with or without concomitant antibiotics were analyzed before and after the chemotherapy cycle at four time points in comparison to 17 gender-, age- and lifestyle-matched healthy controls. We targeted 16S rRNA genes of all bacteria, Bacteroides, bifidobacteria, Clostridium cluster IV and XIVa as well as C.

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The gastrointestinal microbiota produces short-chain fatty acids, especially butyrate, which affect colonic health, immune function and epigenetic regulation. To assess the effects of nutrition and aging on the production of butyrate, the butyryl-CoA:acetate CoA-transferase gene and population shifts of Clostridium clusters lV and XlVa, the main butyrate producers, were analysed. Faecal samples of young healthy omnivores (24 ± 2.

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Background: The tumor suppressor genes p15(INK)⁴(b) and p16(INK)⁴(a) as well as the estrogen receptor-α (ESR1) gene are abnormally methylated and expressed in colon cancer. The cancer-preventative abilities of several bioactive food components have been linked to their estrogenic and epigenetic activities.

Methods: The effect of folic acid, zebularine, resveratrol, genistein and epigallocatechin-3-gallate (EGCG) on tumor cell growth, promoter methylation of ESR1, p15(INK)⁴(b) and p16(INK)⁴(a) and gene expression of ESR1 and ESR2 was analyzed in Caco-2 cells.

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Background/aims: This study aimed to investigate the quantitative and qualitative changes of bacteria, Bacteroides, Bifidobacterium and Clostridium cluster IV in faecal microbiota associated with a vegetarian diet.

Methods: Bacterial abundances were measured in faecal samples of 15 vegetarians and 14 omnivores using quantitative PCR. Diversity was assessed with PCR-DGGE fingerprinting, principal component analysis (PCA) and Shannon diversity index.

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