Publications by authors named "V V Rodriguez Morales"

Diabetes mellitus (DM) leads to a more rapid development of DM cardiomyopathy (dbCM) and progression to heart failure in women than men. Combination of high-fat diet (HFD) and freshly-injected streptozotocin (STZ) has been widely used for DM induction, however emerging data shows that anomer-equilibrated STZ produces an early onset and robust DM model. We designed a novel protocol utilising a combination of multiple doses of anomer-equilibrated STZ injections and HFD to develop a stable murine DM model featuring dbCM analogous to humans.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and fronto-temporal dementia (FTD) are part of a spectrum of diseases that share several causative genes, resulting in a combinatory of motor and cognitive symptoms and abnormal protein aggregation. Multiple unbiased studies have revealed that proteostasis impairment at the level of the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) is a transversal pathogenic feature of ALS/FTD. The transcription factor XBP1s is a master regulator of the unfolded protein response (UPR), the main adaptive pathway to cope with ER stress.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Mitochondrial dysfunction is implicated in the pathogenesis of the neurological condition autosomal recessive spastic ataxia of Charlevoix-Saguenay (ARSACS), yet precisely how the mitochondrial metabolism is affected is unknown. Thus, to better understand changes in the mitochondrial metabolism caused by loss of the sacsin protein (encoded by the SACS gene, which is mutated in ARSACS), we performed mass spectrometry-based tracer analysis, with both glucose- and glutamine-traced carbon. Comparing the metabolite profiles between wild-type and sacsin-knockout cell lines revealed increased reliance on aerobic glycolysis in sacsin-deficient cells, as evidenced by the increase in lactate and reduction of glucose.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Pleural mesothelioma is a highly chemotherapy-resistant cancer. Approximately 50% of mesotheliomas do not express argininosuccinate synthetase 1 (ASS1), the rate-limiting enzyme in arginine biosynthesis, making arginine depletion with pegylated arginine deiminase (ADI-PEG20) an attractive therapeutic strategy. We investigated whether combinatory treatment composed of ADI-PEG20 and polyamine inhibitors constitutes a promising novel therapeutic strategy to overcome ADI-PEG20 resistance in mesothelioma patients.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Introduction: The benefits of long-acting injectable antipsychotics have been documented in several observational studies, but data remain scarce in Latin America. This study aimed at evaluating the effectiveness of paliperidone palmitate once monthly (PP1M) on treatment adherence and relapse in the schizophrenia population followed in a government-funded mental health care facility in Colombia.

Methods: A mirror-image study was conducted.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF