Amino acids, glucose metabolism and clinical relevance for phenylketonuria management

It is general knowledge that glycaemia is affected by digested nutrients.Amino acids intake appears to be an important regulator in this regard. Many questions need to be answered, such as the real mediators of this responseand the mechanisms underlying this metabolic behavior. Studies have been undertaken in order to investigate the role of amino acids on metabolic parameters. Their main fndings suggest that the ingestion of free aminoacids have a pivotal role in avoiding glycaemia excursions, improving glucosetolerance. In parallel, several important molecules for glucose metabolism have been exploited. Insulin and glucagon-like peptide - 1 (GLP-1) release seemto be the main triggers of this response. This insulinogenic effect is attributed to some amino acids, particularly the branched-chain amino acids (leucine, isoleucine and valine). GLP-1 may exert its effects by activating its receptor inpancreas and enhancing insulin release by β-cells or through its extrapancreaticactions. The mechanisms that may justify the aforementioned effects remainto be answered, being the mTOR pathway activation a possible key. Thesemetabolic effects may have a special interest within the nutritional management of Phenylketonuria (PKU), an inborn metabolic disease of phenylalanine (Phe) catabolism. Since a Phe restricted diet is the mainstay of PKU treatment, a chronic supplementation with a Phe-free amino acid mixture is used. Although scientifc evidence is scarce, it is hypothesized whether this chronic ingestion may modulate glycaemia

Molecular chaperone genes in the sugarcane expressed sequence database (SUCEST)

Some newly synthesized proteins require the assistance of molecular chaperones for their correct folding. Chaperones are also involved in the dissolution of protein aggregates making their study significant for both biotechnology and medicine and the identification of chaperones and stress-related protein sequences in different organisms is an important task. We used bioinformatic tools to investigate the information generated by the Sugarcane Expressed Sequence Tag (SUCEST) genome project in order to identify and annotate molecular chaperones. We considered that the SUCEST sequences belonged to this category of proteins when their E-values were lower than 1.0e-05. Our annotation shows that 4,164 of the 5' expressed sequence tag (EST) sequences were homologous to molecular chaperones, nearly 1.8% of all the 5' ESTs sequenced during the SUCEST project. About 43% of the chaperones which we found were Hsp70 chaperones and its co-chaperones, 10% were Hsp90 chaperones and 13% were peptidyl-prolyl cis, trans isomerase. Based on the annotation results we predicted 156 different chaperone gene subclasses in the sugarcane genome. Taken together, our results indicate that genes which encode chaperones were diverse and abundantly expressed in sugarcane cells, which emphasizes their biological importance.2441730859

Identification and in silico expression pattern analysis of Eucalyptus expressed sequencing tags (ESTs) encoding molecular chaperones

Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)Expressed Sequence Tags (ESTs) sequencing provides reliable and useful information concerning gene expression patterns in the genomic context. Our group used bioinformatics to identify and annotate 5'EST-contigs belonging to the molecular chaperones within the Eucalyptus Genome Sequencing Project Consortium (FORESTs) database. We found that 1,959 5'EST-contigs, or approximately 1.6% of the total 5'EST-contigs, encoded chaperones, emphasizing their biological importance. About 55% of the chaperones that we found were Hsp70 chaperones and its co-chaperones, 18% were Hsp90 chaperones, 15% were Hsp60 and its co-chaperone, 8% were Hsp100 chaperones, and 4% were Small Hsps. We also investigated the digital expression profile of the chaperone genes to gain information on gene expression levels in the different libraries and we found that molecular chaperones may have differential expression. The results discussed here give important hints about the role of chaperones in Eucalyptus cells.283S520528Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq

Dermoscopy and Reflectance Confocal Microscopy for the Diagnosis of Scleromyxedema

info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Heart failure with reduced ejection fraction: Should we submit patients without angina to coronary angiography?

Coronary artery disease (CAD) accounts for about two-thirds of cases of heart failure with reduced ejection fraction (HFrEF) [1]. Angina symptoms and cardiovascular risk factors (CVRF) are not sufficient to establish an ischemic etiology and according to recommendations coronary angiography (CA) is the gold standard [1–3]. There is a paucity of information on the performance of CA for detecting CAD in HFrEF without known CAD [4]. We aimed to determine the frequency of CAD in HFrEF patients of unknown etiology and without known CAD, and to identify variables associated with the presence and severity of CAD

Detection of heat shock protein 70 in choroidal neovascular membranes secondary to age related macular degeneration

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Heat shock proteins are acute phase proteins that are upregulated in inflammation or following thermal stress. We analyzed the presence of the heat shock protein 70 (Hsp 70) in choroidal neovascular (CNV) membranes secondary to AMD after treatment with verteporphin photodynamic therapy (PDT) or transpupillary thermo therapy (TTT) to determine whether treatment correlated with the presence of Hsp70.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>CNV membranes were removed by pars plana vitrectomy (ppV) and subretinal extraction. The membranes were analysed by light microscopy and the presence of Hsp 70 was examined using histochemistry. HeLa Cells served as controls.</p> <p>Of the 14 membranes analysed 11 were Hsp70 positive and 3 negative. In the no pre-treatment group of 8 membranes 6 were Hsp70 positive and 2 negative; in the PTD group all 4 membranes were positive and in the TTT group 1 membrane was positive and 1 membrane was negative for Hsp70.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Hsp70 is present in the most CNV membranes secondary to AMD. Pre-treatment of the membrane with PTD or TTT does not appear to influence the expression of Hsp70.</p