This study evaluated the metabolic effects of Roux-en-Y gastric bypass or diet alone in patients with diabetes who had lost matched amounts of weight. The primary outcome, the change in hepatic ...insulin sensitivity, was similar in the two groups. Thus, weight loss itself, not effects independent of weight loss, accounted for the results.
This paper presents, a novel nature-inspired optimization paradigm, named as owl search algorithm (OSA) for solving global optimization problems. The OSA is a population based technique based on the ...hunting mechanism of the owls in dark. The proposed method is validated on commonly used benchmark problems in the field of optimization. The results obtained by OSA are compared with the results of six state-of-the-art optimization algorithms. Simulation results reveal that OSA provides promising results as compared to the existing optimization algorithms. Moreover, to show the efficacy of the proposed OSA, it is used to design two degree of freedom PI (OSA-2PI) controller for temperature control of a real-time heat flow experiment (HFE). Experimental results demonstrate that OSA-2PI controller is more precise for temperature control of HFE in comparison to the conventional PI controller.
Through the measure of thousands of small-molecule metabolites in diverse biological systems, metabolomics now offers the potential for new insights into the factors that contribute to complex human ...diseases such as cardiovascular disease. Targeted metabolomics methods have already identified new molecular markers and metabolomic signatures of cardiovascular disease risk (including branched-chain amino acids, select unsaturated lipid species, and trimethylamine-
-oxide), thus in effect linking diverse exposures such as those from dietary intake and the microbiota with cardiometabolic traits. As technologies for metabolomics continue to evolve, the depth and breadth of small-molecule metabolite profiling in complex systems continue to advance rapidly, along with prospects for ongoing discovery. Current challenges facing the field of metabolomics include scaling throughput and technical capacity for metabolomics approaches, bioinformatic and chemoinformatic tools for handling large-scale metabolomics data, methods for elucidating the biochemical structure and function of novel metabolites, and strategies for determining the true clinical relevance of metabolites observed in association with cardiovascular disease outcomes. Progress made in addressing these challenges will allow metabolomics the potential to substantially affect diagnostics and therapeutics in cardiovascular medicine.
The collection of fecal material and developments in sequencing technologies have enabled standardised and non-invasive gut microbiome profiling. Microbiome composition from several large cohorts ...have been cross-sectionally linked to various lifestyle factors and diseases. In spite of these advances, prospective associations between microbiome composition and health have remained uncharacterised due to the lack of sufficiently large and representative population cohorts with comprehensive follow-up data. Here, we analyse the long-term association between gut microbiome variation and mortality in a well-phenotyped and representative population cohort from Finland (n = 7211). We report robust taxonomic and functional microbiome signatures related to the Enterobacteriaceae family that are associated with mortality risk during a 15-year follow-up. Our results extend previous cross-sectional studies, and help to establish the basis for examining long-term associations between human gut microbiome composition, incident outcomes, and general health status.
Metabolic remodeling is now widely regarded as a hallmark of cancer, but it is not clear whether individual metabolic strategies are frequently exploited by many tumours. Here we compare messenger ...RNA profiles of 1,454 metabolic enzymes across 1,981 tumours spanning 19 cancer types to identify enzymes that are consistently differentially expressed. Our meta-analysis recovers established targets of some of the most widely used chemotherapeutics, including dihydrofolate reductase, thymidylate synthase and ribonucleotide reductase, while also spotlighting new enzymes, such as the mitochondrial proline biosynthetic enzyme PYCR1. The highest scoring pathway is mitochondrial one-carbon metabolism and is centred on MTHFD2. MTHFD2 RNA and protein are markedly elevated in many cancers and correlated with poor survival in breast cancer. MTHFD2 is expressed in the developing embryo, but is absent in most healthy adult tissues, even those that are proliferating. Our study highlights the importance of mitochondrial compartmentalization of one-carbon metabolism in cancer and raises important therapeutic hypotheses.
Human induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cell technologies coupled with genetic engineering now facilitate the study of the molecular underpinnings of disease in relevant human cell types. Application of ...CRISPR/Cas9-based approaches for genome-scale functional screening in iPS-derived cells, however, has been limited by technical constraints, including inefficient transduction in pooled format, loss of library representation, and poor cellular differentiation. Herein, we present optimized approaches for whole-genome CRISPR/Cas9 based screening in human iPS derived cardiomyocytes with near genome-wide representation at both the iPS and differentiated cell stages. As proof-of-concept, we perform a screen to investigate mechanisms underlying doxorubicin mediated cell death in iPS derived cardiomyocytes. We identified two poorly characterized, human-specific transporters (SLCO1A2, SLCO1B3) whose loss of function protects against doxorubicin-cardiotoxicity, but does not affect cell death in cancer cells. This study provides a technical framework for genome-wide functional screening in iPS derived cells and identifies new targets to mitigate doxorubicin-cardiotoxicity in humans.
As noted by Warburg, many cancer cells depend on the consumption of glucose. We performed a genetic screen to identify factors responsible for glucose addiction and recovered the two subunits of the ...xCT antiporter (system x
), which plays an antioxidant role by exporting glutamate for cystine. Disruption of the xCT antiporter greatly improves cell viability after glucose withdrawal, because conservation of glutamate enables cells to maintain mitochondrial respiration. In some breast cancer cells, xCT antiporter expression is upregulated through the antioxidant transcription factor Nrf2 and contributes to their requirement for glucose as a carbon source. In cells carrying patient-derived mitochondrial DNA mutations, the xCT antiporter is upregulated and its inhibition improves mitochondrial function and cell viability. Therefore, although upregulation of the xCT antiporter promotes antioxidant defence, it antagonizes glutamine metabolism and restricts nutrient flexibility. In cells with mitochondrial dysfunction, the potential utility of xCT antiporter inhibition should be further tested.
The Hippo pathway, evolutionarily conserved from flies to mammals, promotes cell death and inhibits cell proliferation to regulate organ size. The core component of this cascade, Mst1 in mammalian ...cells, is sufficient to promote apoptosis. However, the mechanisms underlying both its activation and its ability to elicit cell death remain largely undefined. We here identify a signaling cassette in cardiac myocytes consisting of K-Ras, the scaffold RASSF1A, and Mst1 that is localized to mitochondria and promotes Mst1 activation in response to oxidative stress. Activated Mst1 phosphorylates Bcl-xL at Ser14, which resides in the BH4 domain, thereby antagonizing Bcl-xL-Bax binding. This, in turn, causes activation of Bax and subsequent mitochondria-mediated apoptotic death. Our findings demonstrate mitochondrial localization of Hippo signaling and identify Bcl-xL as a target that is directly modified to promote apoptosis.
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•A mitochondrial K-Ras/RASSF1A signaling cassette activates Mst1•Mst1 phosphorylates the BH4 domain of Bcl-xL at Ser14•Bcl-xL phosphorylation antagonizes Bcl-xL-Bax binding and promotes Bax activation
Del Re et al. describe a mitochondrial K-Ras-RASSF1A complex that elicits Mst1 activation in cardiac myocytes in response to oxidative stress. Active Mst1 phosphorylates the BH4 domain of Bcl-xL at Ser14 to antagonize its association with Bax, leading to increased Bax activation and apoptosis.
Metabolic reprogramming has been proposed to be a hallmark of cancer, yet a systematic characterization of the metabolic pathways active in transformed cells is currently lacking. Using mass ...spectrometry, we measured the consumption and release (CORE) profiles of 219 metabolites from media across the NCI-60 cancer cell lines, and integrated these data with a preexisting atlas of gene expression. This analysis identified glycine consumption and expression of the mitochondrial glycine biosynthetic pathway as strongly correlated with rates of proliferation across cancer cells. Antagonizing glycine uptake and its mitochondrial biosynthesis preferentially impaired rapidly proliferating cells. Moreover, higher expression of this pathway was associated with greater mortality in breast cancer patients. Increased reliance on glycine may represent a metabolic vulnerability for selectively targeting rapid cancer cell proliferation.
Defects in mitochondrial fusion or fission are associated with many pathologies, raising the hope that pharmacological manipulation of mitochondrial dynamics may have therapeutic benefit. This ...approach assumes that organ physiology can be restored by rebalancing mitochondrial dynamics, but this concept remains to be validated. We addressed this issue by analyzing mice deficient in Mff, a protein important for mitochondrial fission. Mff mutant mice die at 13 wk as a result of severe dilated cardiomyopathy leading to heart failure. Mutant tissue showed reduced mitochondrial density and respiratory chain activity along with increased mitophagy. Remarkably, concomitant deletion of the mitochondrial fusion gene Mfn1 completely rescued heart dysfunction, life span, and respiratory chain function. Our results show for the first time that retuning the balance of mitochondrial fusion and fission can restore tissue integrity and mitochondrial physiology at the whole-organ level. Examination of liver, testis, and cerebellum suggest, however, that the precise balance point of fusion and fission is cell type specific.
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