Interest in bile acids (BAs) is growing due to their emerging role as signaling molecules and their association with various diseases such as colon cancer and metabolic syndrome. Analyzing BAs requires chromatographic separation of isomers, often with long run times, which hinders BA analysis in large studies. Here, we present a high-throughput method based on liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry to quantify BAs in mouse samples.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground/objectives: Chemerin is an adipokine involved in inflammatory and metabolic diseases, and its circulating levels have been associated with inflammatory parameters in various patient cohorts. Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus type 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection, which causes COVID-19, triggers inflammatory pathways. However, the association between serum chemerin levels and COVID-19 disease severity and outcomes has not been definitively established.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPhosphatidylcholine (PC) is an essential lipid for liver health and lipoprotein metabolism, but its circulating levels have rarely been studied in patients with cirrhosis. Chronic hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection causes lipid abnormalities and is a major cause of cirrhosis. Effective HCV elimination with direct-acting antivirals (DAAs) is associated with the normalization of serum low-density lipoprotein cholesterol levels.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFNeutrophils are critical immune cells in severe coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). S100 calcium-binding protein A12 (S100A12) is highly expressed in neutrophils during acute inflammation. The aim of this study was to evaluate serum S100A12 levels as a diagnostic and prognostic tool in COVID-19.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFSARS-CoV-2 infection was shown to induce proprotein convertase subtilisin/kexin type 9 (PCSK9) plasma levels in sepsis. Here, we investigate the association between serum PCSK9 levels and disease severity. PCSK9 was measured in serum of 55 controls, 40 patients with moderate and 60 patients with severe COVID-19 disease.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAdiponectin is primarily known for its protective role in metabolic diseases, and it also possesses immunoregulatory properties. Elevated levels of adiponectin have been observed in various inflammatory diseases. However, studies investigating adiponectin levels in the serum of COVID-19 patients have yielded conflicting results.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFHepatitis C virus (HCV) infection alters lysophosphatidylcholine (LPC) metabolism, enhancing viral infectivity and replication. Direct-acting antivirals (DAAs) effectively treat HCV and rapidly normalize serum cholesterol. In serum, LPC species are primarily albumin-bound but are also present in lipoprotein particles.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFInsulin-like growth factor-binding protein (IGFBP)-2 is a regulator of anabolic pathways, which become inactivated in severe illness. Here, we measured the serum IGFBP-2 levels of COVID-19 patients with moderate and severe disease as well as healthy controls to identify the associations of serum IGFBP-2 levels with disease severity. Patients with severe COVID-19 had higher serum IGFBP-2 levels than those with moderate disease and healthy controls, who had similar levels.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Disturbed bile acid homeostasis associated with a rise of primary and a decline of secondary bile acids is a consistent finding in inflammatory bowel diseases (IBDs). Whether fecal bile acids may emerge as biomarkers for IBD diagnosis and disease severity is less clear. Our study aimed to identify associations of 18 fecal bile acid species with IBD entity and disease activity.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFTransforming growth factor beta (Tgfb) is a well-studied pro-fibrotic cytokine, which upregulates cellular communication network factor 2 (Ccn2), collagen, and actin alpha 2, smooth muscle (Acta2) expression. Obesity induces adipose tissue fibrosis, which contributes to metabolic diseases. This work aimed to analyze the expression of Tgfb, Ccn2, collagen1a1 (Col1a1), Acta2 and BMP and activin membrane-bound inhibitor (Bambi), which is a negative regulator of Tgfb signaling, in different adipose tissue depots of mice fed a standard chow, mice fed a high fat diet (HFD) and ob/ob mice.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFCholesterol-to-coprostanol conversion by the intestinal microbiota has been suggested to reduce intestinal and serum cholesterol availability, but the relationship between intestinal cholesterol conversion and the gut microbiota, dietary habits, and serum lipids has not been characterized in detail. We measured conserved proportions of cholesterol high and low-converter types in individuals with and without obesity from two distinct, independent low-carbohydrate high-fat (LCHF) dietary intervention studies. Across both cohorts, cholesterol conversion increased in previous low-converters after LCHF diet and was positively correlated with the fecal relative abundance of .
View Article and Find Full Text PDFFibroblast growth factors (FGFs) are key regulators of the remarkable regenerative capacity of the liver. Mice lacking FGF receptors 1 and 2 (Fgfr1 and Fgfr2) in hepatocytes are hypersensitive to cytotoxic injury during liver regeneration. Using these mice as a model for impaired liver regeneration, we identified a critical role for the ubiquitin ligase Uhrf2 in protecting hepatocytes from bile acid accumulation during liver regeneration.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFHepatitis C virus (HCV) replication depends on cellular sphingomyelin (SM), but serum SM composition in chronic HCV infection has been hardly analyzed. In this work, 18 SM species could be quantified in the serum of 178 patients with chronic HCV infection before therapy with direct-acting antivirals (DAAs) and 12 weeks later, when therapy was completed. Six SM species were higher in the serum of females than males before therapy and nine at the end of therapy; thus, sex-specific analysis was performed.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFVisceral adiposity is strongly associated with liver steatosis, which predisposes to the development of non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH). Mice with loss of the molecular adapter protein beta-2 syntrophin (SNTB2) have greatly reduced intra-abdominal fat mass. Hepatic expression of proteins with a role in fatty acid metabolism such as fatty acid synthase was nevertheless normal.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Obesity and related co-morbidities represent a major health challenge nowadays, with a rapidly increasing incidence worldwide. The gut microbiome has recently emerged as a key modifier of human health that can affect the development and progression of obesity, largely due to its involvement in the regulation of food intake and metabolism. However, there are still few studies that have in-depth explored the functionality of the human gut microbiome in obesity and even fewer that have examined its relationship to eating behaviors.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF: Infection with hepatitis C virus (HCV) lowers serum cholesterol levels, which rapidly recover during therapy with direct-acting antivirals (DAAs). Serum cholesterol is also reduced in patients with liver cirrhosis. Studies investigating serum cholesterol in patients with chronic liver diseases are generally based on enzymatic assays providing total cholesterol levels.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection is associated with serum lipid abnormalities, which partly normalize following direct-acting antiviral (DAA) therapy. Here, associations of serum triglycerides (TGs) with viral genotype and markers of liver disease severity were evaluated in patients with chronic HCV. METHODS: The study included the serum of 177 patients with chronic HCV.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFHepatitis C virus (HCV) infection affects ceramide metabolism, and, here, we have evaluated associations of eight serum ceramide species with viral load, viral genotype, and disease markers in 178 patients with chronic HCV. In this cohort, ceramide d18:1;O2/16:0 was higher in the serum of the 20 diabetic patients compared to the patients without this complication. Moreover, ceramide d18:1;O2/24:0 was negatively correlated with age.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFNon-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) is a rapidly growing liver disease. The chemoattractant chemerin is abundant in hepatocytes, and hepatocyte expressed prochemerin protected from NASH. Prochemerin is inactive and different active isoforms have been described.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFVertebrate lonesome kinase (VLK) is the only known extracellular tyrosine kinase, but its physiological functions are largely unknown. We show that VLK is highly expressed in hepatocytes of neonatal mice, but downregulated during adulthood. To determine the role of VLK in liver homeostasis and regeneration, we generated mice with a hepatocyte-specific knockout of the VLK gene (Pkdcc).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Dysregulated lipid metabolism is critically involved in the development of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). The respective metabolic pathways affected in HCC can be identified using suitable experimental models. Mice injected with diethylnitrosamine (DEN) and fed a normal chow develop HCC.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFLipidomics aim to quantify lipid species in all kinds of samples, including tissues. To subject a fixed amount of sample to various workflows, tissue homogenates were frequently prepared at defined concentrations in water or by addition of organic solvents. Here, we investigated this first step of tissue lipidomics by quantitative flow injection analysis coupled to Fourier-Transform mass spectrometry (FTMS).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFHepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) still remains a difficult to cure malignancy. In recent years, the focus has shifted to lipid metabolism for the treatment of HCC. Very little is known about hepatitis B virus (HBV) and C virus (HCV)-related hepatic lipid disturbances in non-malignant and cancer tissues.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFLipids are a ubiquitous class of structurally complex molecules involved in various biological processes. In the fast-growing field of lipidomics, preanalytical issues are frequently neglected. Here, we investigated the stability of lipid profiles of murine liver, brain, lung, heart, and spleen homogenates by quantitative flow injection analysis using tandem mass spectrometry and high-resolution mass spectrometry.
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