Atherosclerosis linked to aberrant amino acid metabolism and immunosuppressive amino acid catabolizing enzymes

This work is part of the collaboration between the Laboratory of Radiobiology and Molecular Genetics, Vinca Institute of Nuclear Sciences, University of Belgrade, Belgrade, Serbia, and King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), Computational Bioscience Research Center (CBRC), Thuwal, Saudi Arabia. The research was funded by the Ministry of Education, Science and Technological Development of the Republic of Serbia and by the KAUST grant OSR#4129 (E.R.I I TG). T.G. was supported by the KAUST Base Research Funds BAS/1/1059-01-01, respectively, while M.E. was supported by the KAUST Office of Sponsored Research (OSR) grant no. FCC/1/1976-17-01.Cardiovascular disease is the leading global health concern and responsible for more deaths worldwide than any other type of disorder. Atherosclerosis is a chronic inflammatory disease in the arterial wall, which underpins several types of cardiovascular disease. It has emerged that a strong relationship exists between alterations in amino acid (AA) metabolism and the development of atherosclerosis. Recent studies have reported positive correlations between levels of branched-chain amino acids (BCAAs) such as leucine, valine, and isoleucine in plasma and the occurrence of metabolic disturbances. Elevated serum levels of BCAAs indicate a high cardiometabolic risk. Thus, BCAAs may also impact atherosclerosis prevention and offer a novel therapeutic strategy for specific individuals at risk of coronary events. The metabolism of AAs, such as L-arginine, homoarginine, and L-tryptophan, is recognized as a critical regulator of vascular homeostasis. Dietary intake of homoarginine, taurine, and glycine can improve atherosclerosis by endothelium remodeling. Available data also suggest that the regulation of AA metabolism by indoleamine 2,3-dioxygenase (IDO) and arginases (1 and 2) are mediated through various immunological signals and that immunosuppressive AA metabolizing enzymes are promising therapeutic targets against atherosclerosis. Further clinical studies and basic studies that make use of animal models are required. Here we review recent data examining links between AA metabolism and the development of atherosclerosis.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe

Supramolecular Perspective of Coordination Effects on Fluorine Interactions

Coordination effects have been considered through the most common interactions in the crystal structures of fluoro compounds (C-H/F and F/F interactions). The supramolecular profile of these effects is based on quantum-chemical calculations for the assessment of the interaction strength and electrostatic potential maps, which provide a qualitative insight into the examined effect. Coordination of aliphatic fluorides leads to an increase of the negative potential of the F atoms, and, hence, an increase in the hydrogen-bonding acceptor ability (strengthening of C-H/F interactions) and a weakening of the F/F interactions, due to an increase in repulsive interactions between the F atoms. There is no significant change in the potential of the F atoms due to coordination of C-6-aromatic fluorides, as in the case of aliphatic ones. This results in slight changes in the strengths of the C-H/F and F/F interactions (coupled with parallel interaction at large offsets, PILO), in a noticeable enhancement of stacking interactions, as well as in a significant enhancement of interactions involving the pi-system (F/pi - and C-H/pi interactions). It has also been shown that a decrease in the charge of the metal ions leads to a decrease in the negative potential of the F atom and also that the nature of the metal ion has a significant influence on the value of the potential of the F atoms

DES-ROD: Exploring Literature to Develop New Links between RNA Oxidation and Human Diseases

Normal cellular physiology and biochemical processes require undamaged RNA molecules. However, RNAs are frequently subjected to oxidative damage. Overproduction of reactive oxygen species (ROS) leads to RNA oxidation and disturbs redox (oxidation-reduction reaction) homeostasis. When oxidation damage affects RNA carrying protein-coding information, this may result in the synthesis of aberrant proteins as well as a lower efficiency of translation. Both of these, as well as imbalanced redox homeostasis, may lead to numerous human diseases. The number of studies on the effects of RNA oxidative damage in mammals is increasing by year due to the understanding that this oxidation fundamentally leads to numerous human diseases. To enable researchers in this field to explore information relevant to RNA oxidation and effects on human diseases, we developed DES-ROD, an online knowledgebase that contains processed information from 298,603 relevant documents that consist of PubMed abstracts and PubMed Central full-text articles. The system utilizes concepts/terms from 38 curated thematic dictionaries mapped to the analyzed documents. Researchers can explore enriched concepts, as well as enriched pairs of putatively associated concepts. In this way, one can explore mutual relationships between any combinations of two concepts from used dictionaries. Dictionaries cover a wide range of biomedical topics, such as human genes and proteins, pathways, Gene Ontology categories, mutations, noncoding RNAs, enzymes, toxins, metabolites, and diseases. This makes insights into different facets of the effects of RNA oxidation and the control of this process possible. The usefulness of the DES-ROD system is demonstrated by case studies on some known information, as well as potentially novel information involving RNA oxidation and diseases. DES-ROD is the first knowledgebase based on text and data mining that focused on the exploration of RNA oxidation and human diseases