Secreted Peptides for Diagnostic Trajectory Assessments in Brain Injury Rehabilitation.

Background: Rehabilitation following traumatic brain injury (TBI) significantly improves outcomes; yet TBI heterogeneity raises the need for molecular evidence of brain recovery processes to better track patient progress, evaluate therapeutic efficacy, and provide prognostication.

Objective: Here, we assessed whether the trajectory of TBI-responsive peptides secreted into urine can produce a predictive model of functional recovery during TBI rehabilitation.

Methods: The multivariate urinary peptidome of 12 individuals with TBI was examined using quantitative peptidomics.

Microglial priming through the lung-brain axis: the role of air pollution-induced circulating factors.

Air pollution is implicated in neurodegenerative disease risk and progression and in microglial activation, but the mechanisms are unknown. In this study, microglia remained activated 24 h after ozone (O3) exposure in rats, suggesting a persistent signal from lung to brain. Ex vivo analysis of serum from O3-treated rats revealed an augmented microglial proinflammatory response and β-amyloid 42 (Aβ42) neurotoxicity independent of traditional circulating cytokines, where macrophage-1 antigen-mediated microglia proinflammatory priming.

MMP-9-Dependent Serum-Borne Bioactivity Caused by Multiwalled Carbon Nanotube Exposure Induces Vascular Dysfunction via the CD36 Scavenger Receptor.

Inhalation of multiwalled carbon nanotubes (MWCNT) causes systemic effects including vascular inflammation, endothelial dysfunction, and acute phase protein expression. MWCNTs translocate only minimally beyond the lungs, thus cardiovascular effects thereof may be caused by generation of secondary biomolecular factors from MWCNT-pulmonary interactions that spill over into the systemic circulation. Therefore, we hypothesized that induced matrix metalloproteinase-9 (MMP-9) is a generator of factors that, in turn, drive vascular effects through ligand-receptor interactions with the multiligand pattern recognition receptor, CD36.

Post-acute brain injury urinary signature: a new resource for molecular diagnostics.

Heterogeneity within brain injury presents a challenge to the development of informative molecular diagnostics. Recent studies show progress, particularly in cerebrospinal fluid, with biomarker assays targeting one or a few structural proteins. Protein-based assays in peripheral fluids, however, have been more challenging to develop, in part because of restricted and intermittent barrier access.

Exposure of rats to environmental tobacco smoke during cerebellar development alters behavior and perturbs mitochondrial energetics.

Background: Environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) exposure is linked to developmental deficits and disorders with known cerebellar involvement. However, direct biological effects and underlying neurochemical mechanisms remain unclear.

Objectives: We sought to identify and evaluate underlying neurochemical change in the rat cerebellum with ETS exposure during critical period development.