Automated untargeted stable isotope assisted lipidomics of liver cells on high glucose shows alteration of sphingolipid kinetics

Abstract Untargeted lipidomics is a powerful tool to discover new biomarkers and to understand the physiology and pathology of lipids. The use of stable isotopes as tracers to investigate the kinetics of lipids is another tool able to supply dynamic information on lipid synthesis and catabolism. Coupling the two methodology is then very appealing in the study of lipid metabolism. The main issue to face is to perform thousands of calculations in order to obtain kinetic parameters starting from the MS raw data. An automated computerized routine able to do accomplish such task is presented in this paper. We analyzed the lipid kinetics of palmitic acid (PA) in hepatoma liver cells cultured in v…

Rationale and evidence on the use of tocilizumab in COVID-19: a systematic review

Abstract Background Tocilizumab is an IL-6 receptor-blocking agent proposed for the treatment of severe COVID-19. The aim of this systematic review was to describe the rationale for the use of tocilizumab for the treatment of COVID-19 and to summarize the available evidence regarding its efficacy and safety. Methods MEDLINE, PubMed, EMBASE, pre-print repositories (bioRxiv and medRxiv) and two trial Registries were searched for studies on the use of tocilizumab in COVID-19 or SARS-CoV-2 infection, viral pneumonia, and/or sepsis until 20th June 2020. Results We identified 3 indirect pre-clinical studies and 28 clinical studies including 5776 patients with COVID-19 (13 with a comparison group,…

Metabolomic analysis of plasma from Alzheimer disease patients

Alzheimer Disease is a degenerative disease characterized by progressive impairment of cognitive function. The main feature of AD the generation of an abnormal peptide, beta amyloid 42 (Ab42) from Amyloid Precursor Protein (APP). Ab42 is the main constituent of neurotangles and amyloid plaques, microscopic lesions found in AD patients brain. Ab42 triggers an inflammatory response that is responsible for most of the observed tissue damage. The diagnosis of AD is a complex task, mostly based on imaging techniques and clinical evaluation of the patient’s neurological and cognitive functions. The search for plasma biomarkers able to detect early mild cognitive impairment is one of the recent at…

Erratum: FragClust and TestClust, two informatics tools for chemical structure hierarchical clustering analysis applied to lipidomics. The example of Alzheimer's disease (Analytical and Bioanalytical Chemistry DOI: 10.1007/s00216-015-9229-6)

Erratum to: FragClust and TestClust, two informatics tools for chemical structure hierarchical clustering analysis applied to lipidomics. The example of Alzheimer’s disease

LIPIDOMICS OF FATTY LIVER IN NAFLD AND HCV INFECTION: LIVER SPHYNGOLIPIDS AND FATTY ACIDS

Lipids are used by the liver mainly for energy storage and membrane building, but they also contribute to cell signaling. Fatty liver is characterized by activation of metabolic and inflammatory pathways. In this work differences in lipidomic profiles of sphyngolipids (SL) and fatty acids (FA) have been evaluated in biopsies from 10 NAFLD patients, 22 (14 FL, 8 w/o FL) HCV patients and 13 healthy controls. FL is characterized by increased content of the main FA as myristic, palmitic, oleic, linoleic, saturated and monounsaturated FA in both model. FL of HCV is characterized by a more severe degree of cell damage and fibrosis associated with an increase of palmitoleic acid, long chain SL and…

Hypertonic Saline in Conjunction with High-Dose Furosemide Improves Dose-Response Curves in Worsening Refractory Congestive Heart Failure.

Introduction Diuretic responsiveness in patients with chronic heart failure (CHF) is better assessed by urine production per unit diuretic dose than by the absolute urine output or diuretic dose. Diuretic resistance arises over time when the plateau rate of sodium and water excretion is reached prior to optimal fluid elimination and may be overcome when hypertonic saline solution (HSS) is added to high doses of furosemide. Methods Forty-two consecutively hospitalized patients with refractory CHF were randomized in a 1:1:1 ratio to furosemide doses (125 mg, 250 mg, 500 mg) so that all patients received intravenous furosemide diluted in 150 ml of normal saline (0.9%) in the first step (0–24 h…

Platelet and Plasmatic Lipidic Profile as Potential Marker of Bipolar Disorders: Preliminary Findings

IntroductionAlthough the diagnosis of bipolar disorder is currently based on clinical criteria, preliminary studies showed that palmitic and arachidonic acid levels are able to discriminate adult patients with major depressive disorder (MDD) from those with bipolar disorder (BD).ObjectivesTo replicate and to expand previous findings by investigating the relation between mood disorders and platelet and plasmatic fatty levels.AimsTo compare the lipidic profile of individuals with different mood disorder (MDD vs. BD) and to investigate the relation with specific clinical features (duration of illness, attempted suicide, psychotic symptoms).MethodsPotential participants were recruited from the …

FragClust and TestClust, two informatics tools for chemical structure hierarchical clustering analysis applied to lipidomics. The example of Alzheimer's disease

Lipidomic analysis is able to measure simultaneously thousands of compounds belonging to a few lipid classes. In each lipid class, compounds differ only by the acyl radical, ranging between C10:0 (capric acid) and C24:0 (lignoceric acid). Although some metabolites have a peculiar pathological role, more often compounds belonging to a single lipid class exert the same biological effect. Here, we present a lipidomics workflow that extracts the tandem mass spectrometry data from individual files and uses them to group compounds into structurally homogeneous clusters by chemical structure hierarchical clustering analysis (CHCA). The case-to-control peak area ratios of the metabolites are then a…

LIPIDOMICA DELL’EPATITE CRONICA DA HCV E DELLA NAFLD. ASSOCIAZIONE TRA ACIDI GRASSI E SFINGOLIPIDI EPATICI CON IL DANNO D’ORGANO

Heparin induces an accumulation of atherogenic lipoproteins during hemodialysis in normolipidemic end-stage renal disease patients

Dyslipidemias may account for the excess of cardiovascular mortality in end-stage renal disease (ESRD). Lipoprotein studies in ESRD patients are usually relative to prehemodialysis samples even if significative changes may occur after dialysis. In this study, we aimed to investigate the effects of ESRD on triglyceride-rich lipoproteins (TRL) subpopulations distribution and acute change following hemodialytic procedures, including the relative contribution of heparin administration. We selected a group of normolipidemic male middle-aged ESRD patients free of any concomitant disease affecting lipoprotein remnant metabolism compared with controls. We separated TRL subfractions according to den…