Fate of thianthrene in biological systems.

1. Thianthrene is a sulfur-containing tricyclic molecule distributed widely within the macrostructure of hydrocarbon fossil fuels. Identified nearly 150 years ago, its chemistry has been widely explored leading to insights into reaction mechanisms and radical ion formation.

S-carboxymethyl-L-cysteine.

S-carboxymethyl-L-cysteine, the side-chain carboxymethyl derivative of the sulfur-containing amino acid, cysteine, has been known and available for almost 80 years. During this time, it has been put to a variety of uses, but it is within the field of respiratory medicine that, presently, it has found a clinical niche. Early studies indicated that this compound underwent a rather simplistic, predictable pattern of metabolism, whereas later investigations alluded to more subtle interactions with the pathways of intermediary metabolism, as may be expected for an amino acid derivative.

Untargeted metabolome quantitative trait locus mapping associates variation in urine glycerate to mutant glycerate kinase.

With successes of genome-wide association studies, molecular phenotyping systems are developed to identify genetically determined disease-associated biomarkers. Genetic studies of the human metabolome are emerging but exclusively apply targeted approaches, which restricts the analysis to a limited number of well-known metabolites. We have developed novel technical and statistical methods for systematic and automated quantification of untargeted NMR spectral data designed to perform robust and accurate quantitative trait locus (QTL) mapping of known and previously unreported molecular compounds of the metabolome.

Racemates revisited: heterochiral assemblies and the example of DL-thalidomide.

The existence of racemic compounds, comprised of pairs of opposite enantiomers as discrete molecular entities, has been accepted for over a century. However, their ability to remain as associated dimers when in solution is uncertain, if not generally doubted. In this article, data has been assembled to provide evidence for the presence of intact dimeric heterochiral assemblies in solution and presents DL-thalidomide as a probable example of this phenomenon.

Metabolic profiling reveals a contribution of gut microbiota to fatty liver phenotype in insulin-resistant mice.

Here, we study the intricate relationship between gut microbiota and host cometabolic phenotypes associated with dietary-induced impaired glucose homeostasis and nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) in a mouse strain (129S6) known to be susceptible to these disease traits, using plasma and urine metabotyping, achieved by (1)H NMR spectroscopy. Multivariate statistical modeling of the spectra shows that the genetic predisposition of the 129S6 mouse to impaired glucose homeostasis and NAFLD is associated with disruptions of choline metabolism, i.e.