Publications by authors named "Hieu Vu"

Metabolic requirements vary during development, and our understanding of how metabolic activity influences cell specialization is incomplete. Here, we describe a switch from glutamine catabolism to synthesis required for erythroid cell maturation. Glutamine synthetase (GS), one of the oldest functioning genes in evolution, is activated during erythroid maturation to detoxify ammonium generated from heme biosynthesis, which is up-regulated to support hemoglobin production.

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Continuously monitoring human airway conditions is crucial for timely interventions, especially when airway stents are implanted to alleviate central airway obstruction in lung cancer and other diseases. Mucus conditions, in particular, are important biomarkers for indicating inflammation and stent patency but remain challenging to monitor. Current methods, reliant on computational tomography imaging and bronchoscope inspection, pose risks due to radiation and lack the ability to provide continuous real-time feedback outside of hospitals.

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  • Cobalamin C defect, caused by pathogenic variants in the MMACHC gene, disrupts vitamin B12 metabolism, leading to high homocysteine and low methionine levels in patients.
  • A study at AKUH analyzed 33 Pakistani patients, revealing a median age of symptom onset at 300 days and common issues like cognitive impairment and seizures.
  • Gene analysis showed a predominant pathogenic variant, highlighting late diagnoses and the need for better awareness and diagnostic resources in Pakistan.
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  • Researchers developed a small, flexible capsule for sampling liquids in tight spaces, which could help monitor health and detect diseases early.
  • The capsule uses innovative features like magnetic valves and superabsorbent materials, allowing it to collect fluids without invasive techniques and be controlled remotely.
  • Demonstrations showed the capsules effectively navigate and sample body fluids in a lab setting using ultrasound and X-ray imaging, paving the way for advanced diagnostic technologies.
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Myopathy is a common manifestation in mitochondrial disorders, but the pathomechanisms are still insufficiently studied in children. Here, we report a severe, progressive mitochondrial myopathy in a four-year-old child, who died at eight years. He developed progressive loss of muscle strength with nocturnal hypoventilation and dilated cardiomyopathy.

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Most kidney cancers are metabolically dysfunctional, but how this dysfunction affects cancer progression in humans is unknown. We infused C-labelled nutrients in over 80 patients with kidney cancer during surgical tumour resection. Labelling from [U-C]glucose varies across subtypes, indicating that the kidney environment alone cannot account for all tumour metabolic reprogramming.

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This was a cross-sectional study on the availability of laboratory infrastructure and capacity for the diagnosis of invasive fungal diseases in 24 public hospitals in Vietnam in 2023. Among the hospitals surveyed, 66.7% (14/21) had specialized personnel assigned for mycology testing, and 95.

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Background: This study aimed to measure the preferences for mental health support among health professionals, their willingness to support the mental health of colleagues and associated factors.

Method: A descriptive cross-sectional study was performed from August to October 2022 within five hospitals located in Hanoi, Vietnam. A total of 244 health professionals participated in the study.

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  • Mitochondria play a key role in metabolic processes necessary for cell health and growth.
  • Researchers studied how human cells react to mitochondrial dysfunction by examining metabolomics in fibroblasts from patients with mitochondrial disorders and cancer cells with disrupted electron transport chains (ETC).
  • The findings showed that ETC defects lower de novo purine synthesis while increasing purine salvage, highlighting a shift in metabolism, particularly in lung cancer cells expressing high levels of the enzyme HPRT1, which is crucial for purine salvage.
  • Targeting HPRT1 makes cancer cells more sensitive to ETC inhibition, revealing a new potential weakness in tumors with low oxidative metabolism.
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Purine nucleotides are vital for RNA and DNA synthesis, signaling, metabolism, and energy homeostasis. To synthesize purines, cells use two principal routes: the de novo and salvage pathways. Traditionally, it is believed that proliferating cells predominantly rely on de novo synthesis, whereas differentiated tissues favor the salvage pathway.

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The idea of using quadriceps tendon autograft (QT) anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction first came into being in the 1990s; it was, however, not widely recognized and has resurfaced only in recent times. Because sufficient technological supports have not been developed to enable an optimal artificial graft, autologous grafts are still the most dependable option. The major reason for choosing QT instead of hamstring or patellar tendon to get autologous grafts is that it seems to cause the fewest donor site problems.

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  • * This study analyzed plasma from 474 individuals and fibroblasts from 67 subjects, including healthy controls and patients with 65 different monogenic diseases, alongside an undiagnosed group.
  • * A new web application has been developed for users to easily explore and analyze the metabolomics database, allowing for in-depth reviews of metabolic changes related to IEMs and comparisons of different biological samples.
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Dimethyl fumarate is an ester from the Krebs cycle intermediate fumarate. This drug is approved and currently used for the treatment of psoriasis and multiple sclerosis, and its anti-angiogenic activity was reported some years ago. Due to the current clinical relevance of this compound and the recently manifested importance of endothelial cell metabolism on the angiogenic switch, we wanted to elucidate whether dimethyl fumarate has an effect on energetic metabolism of endothelial cells.

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In the tumor microenvironment, adipocytes function as an alternate fuel source for cancer cells. However, whether adipocytes influence macromolecular biosynthesis in cancer cells is unknown. Here we systematically characterized the bidirectional interaction between primary human adipocytes and ovarian cancer (OvCa) cells using multi-platform metabolomics, imaging mass spectrometry, isotope tracing and gene expression analysis.

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  • Stable isotopes help assess metabolism, and the new MS method can identify all isotopomers of aspartate and glutamate using less than 1% of the sample required for NMR.
  • This method improves the specificity in distinguishing between metabolic pathways that yield the same count of carbon labels in these amino acids.
  • The approach reveals metabolic differences in human tumors and the role of fumarate hydratase deficiency in renal cancers, enhancing in vivo isotope-labeling studies.
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  • The study identifies fragmented mitochondria in latent brain metastatic cells as crucial for utilizing fatty acids, which helps these cells maintain energy and balance oxidative stress.
  • Disruption of mitochondrial flexibility through the depletion of DRP1 increases lipid accumulation and hinders fatty acid oxidation, subsequently reducing metastasis.
  • The research suggests that targeting mitochondrial plasticity could be an effective therapeutic strategy to prevent the recurrence of metastasis by focusing on metabolic adaptations in cancer cells.
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Cancer cells reprogram their metabolism to support cell growth and proliferation in harsh environments. While many studies have documented the importance of mitochondrial oxidative phosphorylation (OXPHOS) in tumor growth, some cancer cells experience conditions of reduced OXPHOS in vivo and induce alternative metabolic pathways to compensate. To assess how human cells respond to mitochondrial dysfunction, we performed metabolomics in fibroblasts and plasma from patients with inborn errors of mitochondrial metabolism, and in cancer cells subjected to inhibition of the electron transport chain (ETC).

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Unlabelled: L-2-hydroxyglutaric aciduria (L2HGA) is an autosomal recessive, slowly progressive neurodegenerative disease characterized by psychomotor delay and cerebellar dysfunction. The biochemical hallmark is increased concentrations of L2HG in body fluids. Brain MRI exhibits characteristic centripetal extension of the white matter involvement that differentiates it from other leukodystrophies.

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  • Diarrheagenic Escherichia coli (DEC) is a group of harmful bacteria causing severe diarrhea in kids in developing countries, especially Vietnam, with limited understanding of their characteristics.
  • In a study of 61 isolates from infants, researchers identified 57 different strains of DEC, with the majority being enteroaggregative E. coli (54.1%) and enteropathogenic E. coli (32.8%), along with some strains of Escherichia albertii.
  • Many of these DEC strains showed genetic traits linked to antibiotic resistance, posing treatment challenges, as up to 65.6% were resistant to ciprofloxacin and 41% to ceftriaxone, indicating the need for ongoing research and
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Malonyl-CoA-acyl carrier protein transacylase (MCAT) is an enzyme involved in mitochondrial fatty acid synthesis (mtFAS) and catalyzes the transfer of the malonyl moiety of malonyl-CoA to the mitochondrial acyl carrier protein (ACP). Previously, we showed that loss-of-function of mtFAS genes, including , is associated with severe loss of electron transport chain (ETC) complexes in mouse immortalized skeletal myoblasts (Nowinski et al., 2020).

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Most kidney cancers display evidence of metabolic dysfunction but how this relates to cancer progression in humans is unknown. We used a multidisciplinary approach to infuse C-labeled nutrients during surgical tumour resection in over 70 patients with kidney cancer. Labeling from [U-C]glucose varies across cancer subtypes, indicating that the kidney environment alone cannot account for all metabolic reprogramming in these tumours.

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