Publications by authors named "Maria L Fernandez Sanchez"

Breast cancer (BC) is the leading cause of cancer death among women worldwide, making the discovery and quantification of new biomarkers essential for improving diagnostic and preventive strategies to limit dissemination and improve prognosis. Essential trace metals such as Fe, Cu, and Zn may play critical roles in the pathophysiology of both benign and malignant breast tumors. However, due to the high metabolic activity and reduced element selectivity of cancer cells, also non-essential elements may be taken up and may even be implicated with disease progression.

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Background: Triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) is the most lethal subtype of breast cancer and, despite its adverse effects, chemotherapy is the standard systemic treatment option for TNBC. Since, it is of utmost importance to consider the combination of different agents to achieve greater efficacy and curability potential, MSC secretome is a possible innovative alternative.

Methods: In the present study, we proposed to investigate the anti-tumor effect of the combination of a chemical agent (paclitaxel) with a complex biological product, secretome derived from human Uterine Cervical Stem cells (CM-hUCESC) in TNBC.

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Article Synopsis
  • Iron is crucial for human health, with a high demand for iron atoms to support haemoglobin formation in the body.
  • To measure how well iron is absorbed, three main methods are commonly used: faecal recovery, plasma appearance, and erythrocyte incorporation.
  • A new technique integrating Isotope Pattern Deconvolution (IPD) allows researchers to better assess how much iron is incorporated into red blood cells after supplementation, using stable isotopes for precise measurements.
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A major challenge in the 21st century is the development of point-of-care diagnostic tools capable to detect and quantify disease biomarkers in a straightforward, affordable, sensitive, and specific manner. The remarkable plasmonic properties of gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) have promoted their use for development of simple methodologies for nucleic acid detection in combination with a variety of oligonucleotides amplification techniques. Here, assemblies of AuNPs with Multicomponent Nucleic Acid enzymes (MNAzymes) has been successfully used in the design of a highly sensitive and simple bioassay for rapid spectroscopic detection and quantification of miRNA-4739 in blood samples.

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An inadequate selenium (Se) status can accelerate the aging process, increasing the vulnerability to age-related diseases. The study aimed to investigate plasma Se and Se species in a large population, including 2200 older adults from the general population (RASIG), 514 nonagenarian offspring (GO), and 293 GO Spouses (SGO). Plasma Se levels in women exhibit an inverted U-shaped pattern, increasing with age until the post-menopausal period and then declining.

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In-depth characterization of functionalized nanomaterials is still a remaining challenge in nanobioanalytical chemistry. In this work, we propose the online coupling of Asymmetric Flow Field-Flow Fractionation (AF4) with UV/Vis, Multiangle Light Scattering (MALS) and Inductively Coupled Plasma-Tandem Mass Spectrometry (ICP-MS/MS) detectors to carry out, in less than 10 min and directly in the functionalization reaction mixture, the complete characterization of gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) functionalized with oligonucleotides and surface-modified with polyethylene glycol (PEG). AF4 separation provided full separation of the bioconjugates from the original AuNPs while P/Au and S/Au ICP-MS/MS ratios in the bioconjugate fractographic peaks could be used to compute the corresponding stoichiometries, oligonucleotide/AuNP and PEG/AuNPs.

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Breast cancer is the leading cause of cancer death in woman and tremendous efforts are undertaken to limit its dissemination and to provide effective treatment. Various histopathological parameters are routinely assessed in breast cancer biopsies to provide valuable diagnostic and prognostic information. MMP-11 and CD45 are tumor-associated antigens and potentially valuable biomarkers for grading aggressiveness and metastatic probability.

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Breast milk is an optimal food that covers all the nutritional needs of the newborn. It is a dynamic fluid whose composition varies with lactation period. The neonatal units of hospitals have human milk banks, a service that analyzes, stores, and distributes donated human milk.

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Around 40% of the population will suffer at some point in their life a disease involving tissue loss or an inflammatory or autoimmune process that cannot be satisfactorily controlled with current therapies. An alternative for these processes is represented by stem cells and, especially, mesenchymal stem cells (MSC). Numerous preclinical studies have shown MSC to have therapeutic effects in different clinical conditions, probably due to their mesodermal origin.

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The current trends in modern medicine towards early diagnosis, or even prognosis, of different diseases have brought about the need for the corresponding biomarker detection at ever lower levels in really complex matrices. To do so, it is necessary to use proper extremely sensitive detection techniques such as elemental mass spectrometry. However, target labelling with metals for subsequent sensitive ICP-MS detection falls short nowadays even if resorting to inorganic nanoparticles containing a high number of detectable elements.

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The aim of this research was to quantify essential trace elements (iron, copper, zinc and iodine) and establish their speciation in human milk. Both the element and the species are important in new-born nutrition. Colostrum, and transitional and mature milks (25) were collected from 18 mothers of pre-term or full-term infants.

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MMP-11 is a member of the matrix metalloproteinase family (MMPs) which are overexpressed in cancer cells, stromal cells and the adjacent microenvironment. The MMP protein family encompasses zinc-dependent endopeptidases that degrade the extracellular matrix (ECM), facilitating the breakdown of the basal membrane and matrix connective tissues. This function is believed to be important in cancer development and metastasis.

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There are many conditions that affect the retina. However, diabetic retinopathy (RD) as a complication of Diabetes Mellitus continues to be the leading cause of blindness in working people globally. Diabetic retinopathy is an ocular complication of diabetes that is caused by the deterioration of the blood vessels that supply the retina, which has the consequence that the vision deteriorates irreversibly.

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Iron fortification in infant formulas is a common practice for providing iron to newborns in order to avoid its deficiency (anemia). Depending on the physicochemical species used, its bioavailability might be insufficient to meet iron requirements. In this vein, the influence of Lactoferrin (Lf) presence on iron bioavailability in 2-week-old wistar rats fed with formula milk fortified with Fe(III) -Lf or Fe(II)SO (in presence of Lf) using quantitative speciation (by HPLC-ICP-MS) and Isotope Pattern Deconvolution (IPD) is studied here.

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Purpose: In this work, the absorption and/or bioavailability of iron from two chemical species, Fe-Lf (apo-lactoferrin) complex and FeSO at low and high dose, and in Lf excess were investigated in lactating wistar rats.

Methods: The methodology used is based on the use of stable isotopes in combination with the approach "isotope pattern deconvolution" and ICP-MS for detection. This approach provides quantitative information about exogenous (Fe) and endogenous iron (Fe) distribution in fluids and tissues in the iron-supplemented rat groups.

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Selenium, an essential trace element, is involved in the complex system of defense against oxidative stress through selenium-dependent glutathione peroxidases (GPx) and other selenoproteins. Because of its antioxidant properties, selenium or its selenospecies at appropriate levels could hinder oxidative stress and so development of diabetes. In this vein, quantitative speciation of selenium in human plasma samples from healthy and diabetic patients (controlled and non-controlled) was carried out by affinity chromatography (AF) coupled on-line to inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) and isotope dilution analysis (IDA).

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This paper summarises results of zinc content and its speciation in human milk from mothers of preterm and full-term infants at different stages of lactation and from synthetic formula milks. Human milk samples (colostrum, 7th, 14th, and 28th day after delivery) from Spanish and Brazilian mothers of preterm and full-term infants (and also formula milks) were collected. After adequate treatment of the sample, total Zn was determined, while speciation analysis of the Zn was accomplished by size exclusion chromatography coupled online with the ICP-MS.

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A post-column isotope dilution analysis (IDA) methodology was applied to carry out quantitative speciation of selenium in human vitreous humor samples by size exclusion chromatography (SEC) coupled on-line to inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS). Two main selenium species detected by SEC-ICP-MS were found to be associated to protein complexes. The expected molecular weights for both selenium-bound complexes were confirmed by MALDI-TOF(MS) and the results matched well with the theoretical mass of a GPx monomer (M, 22 kDa) and tetramer (T, 88 kDa).

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Objective: The primary symptom of fibromyalgia is chronic, widespread pain; however, patients report additional symptoms including decreased concentration and memory. Performance-based deficits are seen mainly in tests of working memory and executive functioning. It has been hypothesized that pain interferes with cognitive performance; however, the neural correlates of this interference are still a matter of debate.

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Enriched stable iron isotopes in combination with isotope pattern deconvolution and ICP-MS have been used to study the absorption and bioavailability of iron from supplemented formula milk administrated to lactating rats. The use of two enriched stable isotope tracers, one as the metabolic tracer (here (57) Fe) and the other ((54) Fe) as quantitation tracer, is shown to provide quantitative data about endogenous and exogenous (supplemented) total Fe distribution in rat feces, urine, red blood cells (RBCs), serum, liver, and kidney. The proposed analytical methodology was validated using reference materials (serum, urine, and liver) spiked with both (54) Fe and (57) Fe.

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Quantitative proteomics and absolute determination of proteins are topics of fast growing interest, since only the quantity of proteins or changes in their abundance reflect the status and extent of changes of a given biological system. Quantification of the desired proteins has been carried out by molecule specific MS techniques, but relative quantifications are commonplace so far even resorting to stable isotope labelling techniques such as ICAT and SILAC. In the last decade the idea of using element-selective mass spectrometric detection (e.

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Total determination and speciation analysis of Se in commercial and selenised Agaricus mushrooms have been performed to investigate the Se species naturally occurring in non-enriched mushrooms as well as those present in specimens grown in a Se-enriched medium. Mushroom aqueous and enzymatic extracts have been analysed by three complementary chromatographic separation mechanisms (size-exclusion, anion-exchange and reversed-phase) coupled to an inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometer with an octopole reaction system. Post-column isotope dilution analysis has been used on-line with the separations for quantification of the Se species eluted.

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