Search results for " Biomarker"

2018

Drosophila melanogaster has been for over a century the model of choice of several neurobiologists to decipher the formation and development of the nervous system as well as to mirror the pathophysiological conditions of many human neurodegenerative diseases. The rare disease Friedreich’s ataxia (FRDA) is not an exception. Since the isolation of the responsible gene more than two decades ago, the analysis of the fly orthologue has proven to be an excellent avenue to understand the development and progression of the disease, to unravel pivotal mechanisms underpinning the pathology and to identify genes and molecules that might well be either disease biomarkers or promising targets for therap…

Quantitative and qualitative profiles of circulating monocytes may help identifying tuberculosis infection and disease stages

2017

Tuberculosis (TB) is one of the most important cause of morbidity and death among infectious diseases, and continuous efforts are needed to improve diagnostic tools and therapy. Previous published studies showed that the absolute cells number of monocytes or lymphocytes in peripheral blood or yet the ratio of monocytes to lymphocytes displayed the ability to predict the risk of active TB. In the present study we evaluated the ratio of monocytes to lymphocytes variation and we also analyzed the ex-vivo expression of CD64 on monocytes as tools to identify biomarkers for discriminating TB stages. Significant differences were found when the average ratio of monocytes to lymphocytes of active TB…

Novel molecular markers of cardiovascular disease risk in type 2 diabetes mellitus

2021

Diabetes represents the leading risk factor for the development of cardiovascular disease (CVD). Chronic hyperglycemia and/or acute post-prandial changes in blood glucose determine an increase in reactive oxygen species (ROS), which play a fundamental role in endothelial dysfunction and in the nuclear transport of pro-atherogenic transcription factors that activate the "inflammasome". In addition, the glycemic alteration favors the formation and stabilization of atherosclerotic plaque through the mechanism of non-enzymatic glycation of different molecules, with the establishment of the so-called "advanced glycosylation end products" (AGE). Laboratory information provided by the level of bio…

The potential of cystatin C as a predictive biomarker in breast cancer

2020

Breast cancer (BCa) is the leading cause of cancer-related deaths among women. Numerous efforts are being directed toward identifying novel tissue and/or circulating molecular markers that may help clinicians in detecting early-stage BCa patients and in providing an accurate estimation of the prognosis and prediction of response to clinical treatments. In this setting, emerging evidence has indicated Cystatin C (Cyst C), as the most potent endogenous inhibitor of cysteine cathepsins, as a possible useful marker in the clinical management of BCa patients.This review analyzes the results of emerging studies underpinning a potential clinical role of Cyst C, as additional marker in BCa.Cyst C e…

The phospholipase DDHD1 as a new target in colorectal cancer therapy

2018

Background Our previous study demonstrates that Citrus-limon derived nanovesicles are able to decrease colon cancer cell viability, and that this effect is associated with the downregulation of the intracellular phospholipase DDHD domain-containing protein 1 (DDHD1). While few studies are currently available on the contribution of DDHD1 in neurological disorders, there is no information on its role in cancer. This study investigates the role of DDHD1 in colon cancer. Methods DDHD1 siRNAs and an overexpression vector were transfected into colorectal cancer and normal cells to downregulate or upregulate DDHD1 expression. In vitro and in vivo assays were performed to investigate the functional…

Tumour mutational burden as a biomarker for immunotherapy: Current data and emerging concepts

2020

International audience; Treatment with immune checkpoint inhibitors targeting programmed cell death protein 1 (PD-1) or its ligand (PD-L1) can generate durable responses in various cancer types, but only in a subset of patients. The use of predictive biomarkers for response to PD-1/PD-L1 inhibitors is critical for patient selection. Expression of PD-L1 has demonstrated utility in patient selection. Tumour mutational burden (TMB) is an emerging biomarker for response to PD-1/PD-L1 inhibitors. The evaluation of this biomarker is based on the hypothesis that a high number of mutations in somatic exonic regions will lead to an increase in neoantigen production, which could then be recognised by…

Immunotherapy in non-small-cell lung cancer: a bridge between research and clinical practice

2018

Lung cancer has been historically considered a poorly immunogenic disease because of the few evidence of immune responses in affected patients and the limited efficacy of immunomodulating strategies. Recent understanding of the molecular mechanisms leading to cancer immune evasion has allowed the development of a new class of drugs called immune checkpoint inhibitors, which reactivate host responses with outstanding clinical benefits in a portion of patients with non-small-cell lung cancer. In this review, we briefly summarize the basis of immunogenicity and immune escape of cancer, with specific focus on non-small-cell lung cancer, mechanisms underlying immune checkpoint inhibitors effica…

Colorectal Cancer Cell Line SW480 and SW620 Released Extravascular Vesicles: Focus on Hypoxia-induced Surface Proteome Changes

2018

Background/aim Extravascular vesicle (EV) proteome closely reflects the proteome of the cell of origin. Therefore, cancer cell-derived EV proteomic analysis could help in identifying cancer biomarkers. This study's goal was to investigate hypoxia-induced proteomic changes in EV released from hypoxic human isogenic non-metastatic colorectal cancer cells SW480 and metastatic colorectal cancer cells SW620. Materials and methods EV were characterized by western blot, transmission electron microscopy, proteomic analysis using liquid chromatography time-of-flight-mass spectrometry and quantified by an label-free intensity-based absolute quantitation (iBAQ) approach. Results A total of 16 proteins…

Epigenetic biomarkers for human sepsis and septic shock: insights from immunosuppression

2020

Sepsis is a life-threatening condition that occurs when the body responds to an infection damaging its own tissues. Sepsis survivors sometimes suffer from immunosuppression increasing the risk of death. To our best knowledge, there is no ‘gold standard’ for defining immunosuppression except for a composite clinical end point. As the immune system is exposed to epigenetic changes during and after sepsis, research that focuses on identifying new biomarkers to detect septic patients with immunoparalysis could offer new epigenetic-based strategies to predict short- and long-term pathological events related to this life-threatening state. This review describes the most relevant epigenetic mecha…

Integrative Metabolomic and Transcriptomic Analysis for the Study of Bladder Cancer

2019

Metabolism reprogramming is considered a hallmark of cancer. The study of bladder cancer (BC) metabolism could be the key to developing new strategies for diagnosis and therapy. This work aimed to identify tissue and urinary metabolic signatures as biomarkers of BC and get further insight into BC tumor biology through the study of gene-metabolite networks and the integration of metabolomics and transcriptomics data. BC and control tissue samples (n = 44) from the same patients were analyzed by High-Resolution Magic Angle Spinning Nuclear Magnetic Resonance and microarrays techniques. Besides, urinary profiling study (n = 35) was performed in the same patients to identify a metabolomic profi…