Hereditary spherocytosis (HS) is the most common, nonimmune, hereditary, chronic hemolytic anemia after hemoglobinopathies. The genetic defects in membrane function causing HS lead to perturbation of the RBC metabolome, with altered glycolysis. In mice genetically lacking protein 4.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFEvidence shows that individuals infected by SARS-CoV-2 experience an altered metabolic state in multiple organs. Metabolic activities are directly involved in modulating immune responses against infectious diseases, yet our understanding of how host metabolism relates to inflammatory responses remains limited. To better elucidate the underlying biochemistry of the leukocyte response, we focused our analysis on possible relationships between SARS-CoV-2 post-infection stages and distinct metabolic pathways.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFExposure to heavy metals represents one of the most important risk factors for the health of incinerator workers. Indeed, heavy metals can determine increased generation of reactive oxygen species (ROS). In this work, we introduced the use of transcription profiling of detoxifying genes, involved in redox balance and genome integrity, as a highly sensitive assay of heavy metal exposure and subsequent oxidative stress.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe placenta is a crucial interface between the fetus and the maternal environment. It allows for nutrient absorption, thermal regulation, waste elimination, and gas exchange through the mother's blood supply. Furthermore, the placenta determines important adjustments and epigenetic modifications that can change the phenotypic expression of the individual even long after birth.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAutism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) encompasses a clinical spectrum of neurodevelopmental conditions that display significant heterogeneity in etiology, symptomatology, and severity. We previously compared 30 young children with idiopathic ASD and 30 unrelated typically-developing controls, detecting an imbalance in several compounds belonging mainly to the metabolism of purines, tryptophan and other amino acids, as well as compounds derived from the intestinal flora, and reduced levels of vitamins B6, B12 and folic acid. The present study describes significant urinary metabolomic differences within 14 pairs, including one child with idiopathic ASD and his/her typically-developing sibling, tightly matched by sex and age to minimize confounding factors, allowing a more reliable identification of the metabolic fingerprint related to ASD.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe identification of traces of life beyond Earth (e.g., Mars, icy moons) is a challenging task because terrestrial chemical-based molecules may be destroyed by the harsh conditions experienced on extraterrestrial planetary surfaces.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFCryptoendolithic communities are almost the sole life form in the ice-free areas of the Antarctic desert, encompassing among the most extreme-tolerant organisms known on Earth that still assure ecosystems functioning, regulating nutrient and biogeochemical cycles under conditions accounted as incompatible with active life. If high-throughput sequencing based studies are unravelling prokaryotic and eukaryotic diversity, they are not yet characterized in terms of stress adaptations and responses, despite their paramount ecological importance. In this study, we compared the responses of Antarctic endolithic communities, with special focus on fungi, both under dry conditions (i.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIn recent years, extracellular vesicles (EVs), cell-derived micro and nano-sized structures enclosed in a double-layer membrane, have been in the spotlight for their high potential in diagnostic and therapeutic applications. Indeed, they act as signal mediators between cells and/or tissues through different mechanisms involving their complex cargo and exert a number of biological effects depending upon EVs subtype and cell source. Being produced by almost all cell types, they are found in every biological fluid including milk.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIn recent years, some studies have described metabolic changes during human childbirth labor. Metabolomics today is recognized as a powerful approach in a prenatal research context, since it can provide detailed information during pregnancy and it may enable the identification of biomarkers with potential diagnostic or predictive. This is an observational, longitudinal, prospective cohort study of a total of 51 serial urine samples from 15 healthy pregnant women, aged 29-40 years, which were collected before the onset of labor (out of labor, OL).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBiochim Biophys Acta Mol Basis Dis
October 2020
Since recently metabolic abnormalities in autistic children have been associated with ASD disturbs, the aim of this study is to determine the neurotransmitter levels in urine samples of autistic children and to analyse the altered metabolic pathway involved in their production. Thus, ASD-specific urinary metabolomic patterns were explored in 40 ASD children and 40 matched controls using untargeted metabolomics through UHPLC-mass spectrometry (Q-exactive analyser), and by using XCMS Metlin software for data interpretation. Through this new advanced technique, a more considerable number of urinary altered metabolites were recorded in autistic children, than in the previous investigations, which allowed us to collect metabolites involved in neurotransmitter production.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAntarctic cryptoendolithic communities are self-supporting borderline ecosystems spreading across the extreme conditions of the Antarctic desert and represent the predominant life-form in the ice-free areas of McMurdo Dry Valleys, accounted as the closest terrestrial Martian analogue. Components of these communities are highly adapted extremophiles and extreme-tolerant microorganisms, among the most resistant known to date. Recently, studies investigated biodiversity and community composition in these ecosystems but the metabolic activity of the metacommunity has never been investigated.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPrompted by recent changes in climate trends, cropping areas, and management practices, head blight (FHB), a threatening disease of cereals worldwide, is also spreading in unusual environments, where bread wheat (BW) and durum wheat (DW) are largely cultivated. The scarcity of efficient resistance sources within adapted germplasm is particularly alarming for DW, mainly utilized for human consumption, which is therefore at high risk of kernel contamination by health-dangerous mycotoxins (e.g.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAutism spectrum disorder (ASD) is characterized by severe and persistent difficulties in social communication and social interaction at multiple levels. Recently, metabolic disorders have been associated with most cases of patients with ASD. The aim of this study was to investigate, through a new and more sophisticated mass technique, such as UHPLC-mass spectrometry (Q-exactive analyzer), alteration in metabolisms analyzing ASD children urine samples from children showing simultaneous vitamin B6, B9 and B12 deficiencies.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFUntargeted metabolomics is a useful approach for the simultaneous analysis of a vast array of compounds from a single extract. Metabolomic profiling is the relative multi-parallel quantification of a mixture of low molecular weight compounds, or classes of compounds, and it is most often performed by using ultra performance liquid chromatography (UPLC) coupled with mass spectrometry (MS). Being an extension of the classical targeted methods, this approach allows a broader view of the main biochemical events within a particular sample.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFdiseases, including Fusarium head blight (FHB) and Fusarium crown rot (FCR), reduce crop yield and grain quality and are major agricultural problems worldwide. These diseases also affect food safety through fungal production of hazardous mycotoxins. Among these, deoxynivalenol (DON) acts as a virulence factor during pathogenesis on wheat.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFMale hypogonadism associated with insulin resistance (IR) very often leads to metabolic syndrome, at variance with hypogonadism in its first stadium of insulin sensitivity (IS). A plasma metabolomic investigation of these patients can provide useful information in comparison with the values of IS patients. To this aim plasma from insulin-resistant males with hypogonadism were analysed by using ultra high-performance liquid chromatography (UHPLC) and high-resolution mass spectrometry (HRMS).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFMale hypogonadism is a disorder characterised by low levels of the hormone testosterone. At beginning subjects with low levels of testosterone do not show insulin resistance (insulin-sensitive patients), which develops over time (insulin-resistance patients). To analyse the metabolic alterations mainly related to decreased testosterone, we performed metabolomics investigations on the plasma of males with hypogonadism who showed normal insulin levels.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjective: Transfusion of fresh frozen plasma (FFP) helps in maintaining the coagulation parameters in patients with acquired multiple coagulation factor deficiencies and severe bleeding. However, along with coagulation factors and procoagulant extracellular vesicles (EVs), numerous bioactive and probably donor-related factors (metabolites, oxidized components, etc.) are also carried to the recipient.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFArginase 1 (Arg1) and indoleamine 2,3-dioxygenase 1 (IDO1) are immunoregulatory enzymes catalyzing the degradation of l-arginine and l-tryptophan, respectively, resulting in local amino acid deprivation. In addition, unlike Arg1, IDO1 is also endowed with non-enzymatic signaling activity in dendritic cells (DCs). Despite considerable knowledge of their individual biology, no integrated functions of Arg1 and IDO1 have been reported yet.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFRecent evidence has shown the cardioprotective effect of PDE5 inhibition in myocardial ischemia/reperfusion injury, heart failure and cardiac hypertrophy. To investigate the biochemical changes that occur during PDE5 inhibition in cardiac cells, this study assessed the metabolic profile of the HL1 cell line, a murine atrial cell line with adult cardiomyocyte properties. After one hour of treatment with sildenafil, glycolysis was moderately but selectively stimulated, unlike the pentose phosphate pathway and the Krebs cycle.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is still diagnosed through behavioral observation, due to a lack of laboratory biomarkers, which could greatly aid clinicians in providing earlier and more reliable diagnoses. Metabolomics on human biofluids provides a sensitive tool to identify metabolite profiles potentially usable as biomarkers for ASD. Initial metabolomic studies, analyzing urines and plasma of ASD and control individuals, suggested that autistic patients may share some metabolic abnormalities, despite several inconsistencies stemming from differences in technology, ethnicity, age range, and definition of "control" status.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFDuring their passage through the circulation, red blood cells (RBCs) encounter severe physiological conditions consisting of mechanical stress, oxidative damage and fast changes in ionic and osmotic conditions. In order to survive for 120 days, RBCs adapt to their surroundings by subtle regulation of membrane organization and metabolism. RBC homeostasis depends on interactions between the integral membrane protein band 3 with other membrane and cytoskeletal proteins, and with key enzymes of various metabolic pathways.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFRecent physiological reports have documented how Cakile maritima Scop. Sea Rocket could accumulate high doses of Cd without altering its physiological parameters. In the present study, we performed an integrated proteomics (2DE) and metabolomics (HPLC-MS) investigation to determine the molecular mechanisms underlying cadmium (Cd) tolerance of this halophyte.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF