Microbe-produced molecules (xenometabolites) found in foods or produced by gut microbiota are increasingly implicated in microbe-microbe and microbe-host communication. Xenolipids, in particular, are a class of metabolites for which the full catalog remains to be elaborated in mammalian systems. We and others have observed that cis-3,4-methylene-heptanoylcarnitine is a lipid derivative that is one of the most abundant medium-chain acylcarnitines in human blood, hypothesized to be a product of incomplete β-oxidation of one or more "odd-chain" long-chain cyclopropane fatty acids (CpFAs).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Maternal obesity is an important determinant of offspring obesity risk, which may be mediated via changes in the infant microbiome.
Objectives: We examined infant faecal microbiome, short-chain fatty acids (SCFA), and maternal human milk oligosaccharides (HMO) in mothers with overweight/obese body mass index (BMI) (OW) compared with normal weight (NW) (Clinicaltrials.gov NCT01131117).
Regular exercise has profound metabolic influence on the liver, but effects on bile acid (BA) metabolism are less well known. BAs are synthesized exclusively in the liver from cholesterol via the rate-limiting enzyme cholesterol 7 alpha-hydroxylase (CYP7A1). BAs contribute to the solubilization and absorption of lipids and serve as important signaling molecules, capable of systemic endocrine function.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThere is a growing consensus that nutritional programming may persist and influence risk for several chronic diseases in adulthood. In the present study, we used urinary metabolic analysis in assessing diet effects on early-life metabolism. Urine samples from healthy three-month-old infants fed human milk (HM; = 93), cow's milk-based infant formula [MF; = 80], or soy protein-based infant formula (SF; = 76) were analyzed with an untargeted metabolomics approach using GC-TOF MS.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: During the postnatal feeding period, formula-fed infants have higher cholesterol synthesis rates and lower circulating cholesterol concentrations than their breastfed counterparts. Although this disparity has been attributed to the uniformly low dietary cholesterol content of typical infant formulas, little is known of the underlying mechanisms associated with this altered cholesterol metabolism phenotype.
Objective: We aimed to determine the molecular etiology of diet-associated changes in early-life cholesterol metabolism with the use of a postnatal piglet feeding model.
Titanium dioxide nanoparticles (TiO NPs) are used in paints, plastics, papers, inks, foods, toothpaste, pharmaceuticals and cosmetics. However, TiO NPs cause inflammation, pulmonary damage, fibrosis and lung tumours in animals and are possibly carcinogenic to humans. Although there are a large number of studies on the toxicities of TiO NPs, the data are inconclusive and the mechanisms underlying the toxicity are not clear.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIn vivo micronucleus and Pig-a (phosphatidylinositol glycan, class A gene) mutation assays were conducted to evaluate the genotoxicity of 10 nm titanium dioxide anatase nanoparticles (TiO(2)-NPs) in mice. Groups of five 6-7-week-old male B6C3F1 mice were treated intravenously for three consecutive days with 0.5, 5.
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