Publications by authors named "Craig Wheelock"

Background: There are important inter-relationships between miRNAs and metabolites: alterations in miRNA expression can be induced by various metabolic stimuli, and miRNAs play a regulatory role in numerous cellular processes, impacting metabolism. While both specific miRNAs and metabolites have been identified for their role in childhood asthma, there has been no global assessment of the combined effect of miRNAs and the metabolome in childhood asthma.

Methods: We performed miRNAome-metabolome-wide association studies ('miR-metabo-WAS') in two childhood cohorts of asthma to evaluate the contemporaneous and persistent miRNA-metabolite associations: 1) Genetic Epidemiology of Asthma in Costa Rica Study (GACRS) (N = 1121); 2) the Childhood Asthma Management Program (CAMP) (N = 312 and N = 454).

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The octadecanoids are a broad class of lipids consisting of the oxygenated products of 18-carbon fatty acids. Originally referring to production of the phytohormone jasmonic acid, the octadecanoid pathway has been expanded to include products of all 18-carbon fatty acids. Octadecanoids are formed biosynthetically in mammals via cyclooxygenase (COX), lipoxygenase (LOX), and cytochrome P450 (CYP) activity, as well as nonenzymatically by photo- and autoxidation mechanisms.

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Background: Acute lung injury (ALI) and acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) are important causes of morbidity and mortality in critically ill patients. Gastric contents aspiration is one of the most common causes of ALI/ARDS. To date, there are still no specific and effective pharmacological treatments for ALI/ARDS.

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The molecular mechanisms by which worm parasites evade host immunity are incompletely understood. In a mouse model of intestinal helminth infection using (), we show that helminthic glutamate dehydrogenase (heGDH) drives parasite chronicity by suppressing macrophage-mediated host defense. Combining RNA-seq, ChIP-seq, and targeted lipidomics, we identify prostaglandin E (PGE) as a major immune regulatory mechanism of heGDH.

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Background: The immunometabolic mechanisms underlying variable responses to oral immunotherapy (OIT) in patients with IgE-mediated food allergy are unknown.

Objective: To identify novel pathways associated with tolerance in food allergy, we used metabolomic profiling to find pathways important for food allergy in multiethnic cohorts and responses to OIT.

Methods: Untargeted plasma metabolomics data were generated from the VDAART healthy infant cohort (N = 384), a Costa Rican cohort of children with asthma (N = 1040), and a peanut OIT trial (N = 20) evaluating sustained unresponsiveness (SU, protection that lasts after therapy) versus transient desensitization (TD, protection that ends immediately afterward).

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Background: The ketogenic diet (KD) is a high fat, sufficient protein, and low carbohydrate dietary therapy for drug-resistant epilepsy. The underlying mechanisms of action of the KD remain unclear. In mice, the microbiota is necessary for the anti-seizure effect and specific microbes influence circulatory levels of metabolites that are linked to seizure reduction.

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Background: Few studies have investigated the influence of body mass index (BMI) trajectories on lung function covering the entire growth period.

Methods: We conducted a prospective study using data from the Swedish BAMSE birth cohort. Latent class mixture modelling was employed to examine the diversity in BMI z-scores from birth to 24 years of age.

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Article Synopsis
  • - Oxylipins are important signaling lipids formed from fatty acids, playing key roles in inflammatory diseases like asthma, but traditional measurement methods may overlook their spatial distribution in tissues.
  • - New mass spectrometry imaging (MSI) techniques, specifically desorption electrospray ionization coupled with triple quadrupole mass spectrometry (DESI-MRM), have improved the sensitivity needed to detect these low-abundance compounds in lung tissues.
  • - This research developed a targeted MSI workflow to map five oxylipins in guinea pig lung extracts, discovering distinct spatial distributions that enhance our understanding of lipid metabolism in respiratory tissues.
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Background: Lung quantitative computed tomography (qCT) severe asthma clusters have been reported, but their replication and underlying disease mechanisms are unknown. We identified and replicated qCT clusters of severe asthma in two independent asthma cohorts and determined their association with molecular pathways, using radiomultiomics, integrating qCT, multiomics and machine learning/artificial intelligence.

Methods: We used consensus clustering on qCT measurements of airway and lung CT scans, performed in 105 severe asthmatic adults from the U-BIOPRED cohort.

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Article Synopsis
  • Scientists from 34 labs in 19 countries worked together to measure certain fats (ceramides) in human blood using special techniques.
  • They used both standard methods and their own methods to get very accurate and consistent results.
  • The study helps improve future medical tests and treatments by providing reliable information about these fats in blood samples.
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Octadecanoids are a subset of oxylipins derived from 18-carbon fatty acids. These compounds have historically been understudied but have more recently attracted attention to their purported biological activity. One obstacle to the study of octadecanoids has been a lack of specific analytical methods for their measurement.

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Importance: Eicosanoids have a pathophysiological role in atopic dermatitis (AD), but it is unknown whether this is affected by prenatal ω-3 long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acid (n-3 LCPUFA; ie, fish oil) supplementation and genetic variations in the cyclooxygenase-1 (COX1) pathway.

Objective: To explore the association of n-3 LCPUFA supplementation during pregnancy with risk of childhood AD overall and by maternal COX1 genotype.

Design, Setting, And Participants: This prespecified secondary analysis of a randomized clinical trial included mother-child pairs from the Danish Copenhagen Prospective Studies on Asthma in Childhood 2010 birth cohort, with prospective follow-up until children were aged 10 years.

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Growing evidence suggests that air pollution exposure is a major risk factor in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) that is associated with an increased prothrombotic state and adverse cardiovascular outcomes. However, much of this work is based on observational data or human exposure studies involving younger participants. The biological causality and mechanism of air pollution-induced prothrombotic response in patients with COPD remain to be explored.

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Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) are a group of synthetic, highly fluorinated aliphatic compounds, commonly utilised in a wide variety of consumer products with diverse applications. Since the genesis of these compounds, a growing body of evidence has demonstrated adverse health effects associated with PFAS exposure. In a racially diverse cohort of 459 pregnant mothers, demographically weighted towards minority representation (black 44.

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Background: Bilirubin has antioxidant properties, and elevated levels within the normal range have been associated with improved lung function and decreased risk of asthma in adults, but studies of young children are scarce. Here, we investigate associations between bilirubin in early life and respiratory health endpoints during preschool age in two independent birth cohorts.

Methods: Bilirubin metabolites were assessed at ages 0.

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Background: There is limited evidence on biomarkers associated with response to the monoclonal antibodies currently approved for asthma treatment. We sought to identify circulatory metabolites associated with response to treatment with mepolizumab or omalizumab.

Methods: We conducted global metabolomic profiling of pre-treatment plasma samples from 100 patients with moderate-to-severe asthma who initiated mepolizumab (n=31) or omalizumab (n=69).

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Fungicides undergo rapid metabolism and are excreted in the urine. There are few methods for screening these ubiquitous compounds, which have a high potential for human exposure. High-resolution mass spectrometry (HRMS) is a suitable technique to assess fungicide exposures; however, there is a lack of spectral libraries for fungicide annotation and in particular for downstream metabolites.

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Pharmaceutical compounds have become one of the main contaminants of emerging concern (CECs) due to their high usage and increased release into the environment. This study aims to assess the effects caused by three widely consumed hepatotoxic pharmaceutical compounds: an antibiotic (amoxicillin), an antiepileptic (carbamazepine), and an antidepressant (trazodone), on human health when indirectly exposed to toxicologically relevant concentrations (30, 15, and 7.5 μM for amoxicillin and carbamazepine, and 4, 2, and 1 μM for trazodone).

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Maintenance of NAD pools is critical for neuronal survival. The capacity to maintain NAD pools declines in neurodegenerative disease. We identify that low NMNAT2, the critical neuronal NAD producing enzyme, drives retinal susceptibility to neurodegenerative insults.

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Tobacco smoking is the main etiological factor of lung cancer (LC), which can also cause metabolome disruption. This study aimed to investigate whether the observed metabolic shift in LC patients was also associated with their smoking status. Untargeted metabolomics profiling was applied for the initial screening of changes in serum metabolic profile between LC and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) patients, selected as a non-cancer group.

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Weight loss is often followed by weight regain. Characterizing endocrine alterations accompanying weight reduction and regain may disentangle the complex biology of weight-loss maintenance. Here, we profile energy-balance-regulating metabokines and sphingolipids in adults with obesity undergoing an initial low-calorie diet-induced weight loss and a subsequent weight-loss maintenance phase with exercise, glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) analog therapy, both combined, or placebo.

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Background: The immunometabolic mechanisms underlying variable responses to oral immunotherapy (OIT) in patients with IgE-mediated food allergy are unknown.

Objective: To identify novel pathways associated with tolerance in food allergy, we used metabolomic profiling to find pathways important for food allergy in multi-ethnic cohorts and responses to OIT.

Methods: Untargeted plasma metabolomics data were generated from the VDAART healthy infant cohort (N=384), a Costa Rican cohort of children with asthma (N=1040), and a peanut OIT trial (N=20) evaluating sustained unresponsiveness (SU, protection that lasts after therapy) versus transient desensitization (TD, protection that ends immediately afterwards).

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In recent years, instrumental improvements have enabled the spread of mass spectrometry-based lipidomics platforms in biomedical research. In mass spectrometry, the reliability of generated data varies for each compound, contingent on, among other factors, the availability of labeled internal standards. It is challenging to evaluate the data for lipids without specific labeled internal standards, especially when dozens to hundreds of lipids are measured simultaneously.

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Background: Eicosanoids are lipid mediators including thromboxanes (TXs), prostaglandins (PGs), and leukotrienes with a pathophysiological role in established atopic disease. However, their role in the inception of disease is unclear. This study aimed to investigate the association between urinary eicosanoids in early life and development of atopic disease.

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