Elevated Serum Level of DHEAS as a Hormone and IL-6 as a Proinflammatory Cytokine May Better Indicate Metabolic Syndrome in PCOS Women

Polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS) is the most prevalent metabolic disorder in reproductive-age women, indeed multifactorial condition. Cytokines such as TNF-alpha and IL-6 have influence on several metabolic activities. The increase in dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA) is thought to play an important role in IL-6-mediated pathogenetic effects in PCOS women. The aim of this study is to explore whether TNF-alpha and IL-6 are correlated hormone levels in PCOS disease.  We recruited 65 PCOS patients and 45 healthy controls. The serum IL-6, TNF-alpha, levels were measured by ELISA and clinical characteristics were measured. Both serum IL-6, TNF-alpha levels (p<0.01), or the serum TSH, FSH, LH, PRL levels were significantly higher in the patients of PCOS (p<0.01). Serum IL-6 levels were correlated with DHEAS level (r=-0.4186, p<0.01). DHEAS level tended to be higher in PCOS women with a correlation between age, BMI, IL-6 level and positively correlated with FSH, LH and PRL levels (p<0.01). There was an elevation of TSH level in the PCOS group (2.4±1.5) vs. control group (1.8±1.6). However, in control samples, there was no correlation between TNF alpha and IL-6, while in the PCOS samples positive correlation, was obtained. Oral glucose tolerance test (OGTT) was higher than the control (20.38±13.2) group vs. PCOS women (128.33±33.8) but only 3.44 % of them had Type II diabetes. HOMA-IR index was higher in the PCOS group (8.26±15.06) vs. control group (2.12±0.88) too. There was a correlation between age and IL-6 level and BMI. Serum IL-6 and DHEAS levels were significantly altered in PCOS patients and determined which might be PCOS prognostic importance. Keywords; PCOS; Cytokines; TNF-alpha; IL-6; DHEAS; Metabolic syndrome DOI: 10.7176/JMPB/71-02 Publication date:June 30th 202

Investigation of the effects of transcranial direct current stimulation and neurofeedback by continuous performance test

Transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) is a noninvasive neuromodulation technique based on weak direct current stimulation through the scalp. Neurofeedback (NFB) is a learning strategy that may help alter to brain wave parameters, by monitoring electroencephalography (EEG) feedback via special programs. We aimed to investigate the supportive effects of tDCS in addition to NFB training. 16 healthy volunteers were divided equally into two groups. One of the groups was trained by NFB with the sensorimotor rhythm (SMR) protocol; 2 days per week, 10 sessions of 30 min, the other group received 10 min of tDCS before each NFB sessions. Continuous Performance Test (CPT) was used to measure, response time and suppression and to determine selective attention condition. Also, Beck Depression and Anxiety Inventories were used to exclude people with depression and anxiety. Depression scores of NFB + tDCS group were decreased significantly. CPT scores were better at last sessions for both groups compared to the first sessions. Sessions were analyzed by comparing 1st, 2nd, 5th and 10th sessions. While the NFB + tDCS group had statistically significant changes at theta/beta ratios with SMR and alpha band amplitudes, NFB group statistics had changed at theta/SMR ratios. NFB training shows its effects at the end of 10 sessions. Despite an increase in the latencies of correct and commission responses on the task of CPT, additional use of tDCS improves cognitive performance. Also, tDCS has a supportive effect on the healthy participants who have mild anxiety and depression; also inhibition deficits of subjects were clear

Investigating Bio-interface Effects of Chronic ELF-MF Exposure before and after Neonatal Life on Rat Offspring Using Spectroscopy and Biochemical Assays

Electromagnetic (EM) energy that generates extremely low-frequency magnetic fields (ELF-MF) impacts all living organisms' biological systems. To investigate the chronic impact of ELF-MF (50 Hz) we designed an externally applied electric field exposure to rat offspring during intrauterine and after extrauterine life. A total of 18 rat offsprings blood serum was analyzed via biochemical assays and ATR-FTIR (400 to 4000 cm(-1)) analysis. The changes in the samples' total antioxidants (TAS) and total oxidants level (TOS) were measured, and we calculated oxidative stress index (OSI) and TNF-alpha level in serum samples. To attribute diseases, chemometric models were validated using PCA-SVD analysis. Proteins, including the amide I (1631 cm(-1)), exhibit the strongest bands in the spectra depending on the secondary structure of the protein, and there was a degradation of lipids as a result of lipid peroxidation; also a significant increase in the lipid to protein ratio was concluded from the analysis (p<0.001). Finally, EMF exposure statistically significantly interferes with lipids, protein, and DNA/RNA molecules. Our findings demonstrate that chronic EMF exposure is an environmental factor affecting blood serum parameters and could impair oxidant-antioxidant function, increase lipid peroxidation and oxidative stress depending on the continuity of ELF-MF exposure

Evaluation of Oxidative System Parameters in Alzheimer's Disease Before Medical Treatment

Background: Alzheimer's disease (AD) is the most common reason for dementia and is one of the most important causes of morbidity and mortality in the aging population. A crucial component of AD is the brain's sensitivity to oxidative stress. We aimed to determine the oxidative load of patients with AD who had just been diagnosed and had not yet begun medical treatment.Methods: To assess oxidative load before drug administration, we compared the levels of serum total antioxidant (TAS), oxidant status (TOS), paraoxonase (PON1), arylesterase (ARES), total thiol (THIOL) levels in patients just diagnosed with AD (n = 41) and control (n = 45) with the totally 86 individuals. AD and control groups oxidative stress index (OSI) ratio was calculated too.Results: There was a statistically significant difference between the AD and control groups for mean TAS, TOS, and OSI levels with a 95% confidence level (pTAS = 0.001, pTOS = 0.005, pOSI = 0.001). There was not a statistically significant difference between the groups in terms of mean PON1, ARES, and THIOL values. Significantly negative and positive correlations were found for the interested parameters in both groups.Conclusion: The increase in antioxidative capacity in patients with AD may be related to ARES supported by TAS, and THIOL levels suggest, that those protein oxidation mechanisms are effective in the progress of AD disease before medication.Copyright (c) 2022, Taiwan Society of Geriatric Emergency & Critical Care Medicine

Diagnosis of opioid use disorder with high sensitivity and specificity by advanced computational analysis of Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy

Opioid use disorder (OUD), which is a chronic disease and widespread public health problem results in death of the patient in the early period. The consumption of opioid depending on the use disorder time, affects blood biochemical parameters. OUD diagnosis can be clinically determined from biochemical values and with the screening tools in substance abuse. However, long-term OUD causes multiple pathological and physiological changes in many organs. Opioid initiated diseases, such as changes in tissue level and molecular level can be detected with advanced diagnostic methods after a long period of usage. It is important to diagnose these changes without causing organ dysfunction. The tests for the diagnose of chronic effects of OUD are expensive and time-consuming. In this study, we used Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy to discriminate the whole blood samples of opioid-addicted patients (n = 20) from healthy persons (n = 14) with an average addiction period of for 8 +/- 5.8 years. We purposed to compare whole blood vibrational results of OUD and HC. In order to identify absorption bands on structures of proteins, lipids and nucleic acids, their corresponding absorbance of band spectra were measured. We had chosen following bands 2959, 2931, 1646, 1550, 1453, 1400, 1314, 1243, 1080, 1079, 1542, 1045, 1467 to identify peak heights and to compare peak height ratios such as H1646 to H1550, H1079 to H1542, H2959 to H2931, H1453 to H1400, H1314 to H1243, H1045 to H1467, H1080 to H1550. Statistically, the p value of group heights were significantly different (p < 0.001). As a chemometric method, features extracted by principal component analysis (PCA) and then classified by linear discriminate analysis (LDA) and support vector machine (SVM) to determine the spectral data of disorder zones. The confidence of specificity and sensitivity and accuracy were obtained as 93.33%, 85%, 80.57% in raw data, and 100%, 100% and 100% in the second derivative respectively. Our research illustrates that whole blood analyses by FTIR, on the selected peak heights may discriminate pathological and healthy structural changes induced long term opioid use disorder.Thus, we have demonstrated that infrared spectroscopy can provide a simple and available diagnostic test for OUD patients

<p>Detection of the chemical changes in blood, liver, and brain caused by electromagnetic field exposure using Raman spectroscopy, biochemical assays combined with multivariate analyses</p>

The effects of the electromagnetic field on living organisms have been studied for several years. In this article, we showed what kind of cold change an extremely low-frequency electromagnetic field (ELF-MF) exposure 500 mu T 50 Hz by using a Meritt Coil System causes in the samples of the brain and liver samples. To measure oxidative load, we measured malondialdehyde (MDA) and glutathione (GSH) levels. To identify the chemical changes, we collected Raman spectra of cerebellum, left brain, right brain and liver tissue from the control group of animals and from the animal, which were exposed to an electromagnetic field (ELF-MF group). Obtained results showed, that lipid peroxidation was increased and the antioxidant response was decreased. In the brain samples the shift of peaks corresponding to the amide III vibrations existed after ELF-MF exposure. Structural changes were detected in CH2 vibrations originating from lipids in both hemispheres. Additionally, the number of amide III bonds was increased with ELF-MF exposure in the cerebellum and left-brain tissue. In liver tissue higher Raman intensities were visible in the tissues from the ELF-MF group. In this group electromagnetic field also caused structural changes in lipids. Principal component analysis (PCA) showed, that it is possible to distinguish ELF-MF and control groups. Consequently, hierarchical component analysis (HCA) showed that tissues from ELF-MF and control groups separately created similarity with the groups. Obtained results suggest that the electromagnetic field caused structural and quantitative chemical changes in brain and liver tissue. Additionally, present data suggest that ELF-MF plays an important role in the regulation of enzyme activity and has effects on biochemical processes, possibly improved by production of ROS

Investigation of the discrimination and characterization of blood serum structure in patients with opioid use disorder using IR spectroscopy and PCA-LDA analysis

Harmful illicit drug use, such as opioid use disorder (OUD), causes multiple diseases that result in physiological, pathological, and structural changes in serum biochemical parameters based on the period of use. Fourier-transform infrared (FTIR) spectrometry is a noninvasive optical technique that can provide accurate evidence about the biochemical compounds of analytical samples. This technique is based on the detection of functional groups and the spectral analysis of the region of the selected bands, which provides a reliable and accurate tool for evaluating changes in the biochemical parameters of OUD patients. In the present study, the Attenuated Total Reflection (ATR)-FTIR technique and clinical laboratory biochemical results were used to investigate the phospholipid-protein balance in the blood serum of participants with OUD by comparing their data to that of healthy controls. To compare the biochemical laboratory results with serum vibrational spectroscopy, we used infrared (IR) spectroscopy to distinguish the serum of the OUD patients, who had an average duration of use of 7.31 +/- 3.8 years (ranging from 6 to 15 years). We aimed to compare the clinical reports with findings from IR spectroscopy coupled with chemometrics analysis, principal component analysis (PCA), and linear discriminant analysis (LDA). The serum samples of the OUD male patients (n = 20) and healthy male individuals (n = 14) were evaluated using FTIR spectroscopy (range of 4000 cm(-1) - 400 cm(-1)). We focused on the areas where the results showed significant band differences and significant chemometric differences at the fingerprint region (1800 cm(-1) 900 cm(-1)), Amide I (1700 cm(-1) -1600 cm(-1)), C-H stretching band (3000 cm(-1) -2800 cm(-1)), triglyceride (Tg) levels and cholesterol esters (1800 cm(-1) -1700 cm(-1)), and total protein region (1700 cm(-1) -1350 cm(-1)). The intensity of these band areas was significantly different (p < 0.01) between OUD patients and healthy controls. Moreover, different bands on the serum spectrum of the OUD patients were explored. The results successfully specified the distinctions between OUD and the healthy controls (HCs). We compared the results with biochemical markers, such as albumin (Alb), Tg, and total cholesterol (Tc) levels of the patients, as well as the data of the healthy subjects obtained from the hospital. Additionally, we found that the Tg, Tc, and Alb levels decreased as the duration of heroin use increased based on the biochemical markers of the OUD patients. The laboratory biochemical reports and the vibrational spectroscopic analysis were correlated. The confidence of specificity, sensitivity, and accuracy was 100%, 92.85%, and 97.06% in the second derivative, respectively. Thus, we demonstrated that IR spectroscopy, multivariate data analysis, and clinical reports are consistent and correlated. Furthermore, FTIR is a simple and readily available diagnostic test that can successfully differentiate the serum samples of OUD patients from those of healthy subjects. (C) 2020 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved

Differential of cholangiocarcinoma disease using Raman spectroscopy combined with multivariate analysis

Cholangiocarcinoma (CCA) is a type of cancer, which 5-year survival is lower than 20 %, and which is detected mostly in advanced stage of the disease. Unfortunately, there are no diagnostic tools, which could show changes in the body indicating the development of the disease. Therefore, in this study, we investigate Raman spectroscopy as a promising analytical tool in medical diagnostics and as a method, which would allow to distinguish between healthy patients and patients suffering from cholangiocarcinoma. The obtained Raman spectra showed, that lower intensities of peaks corresponding to amino acids and proteins, as well as higher intensities of peaks originating from lipids vibrations were observed in healthy individuals in comparison with cancer patients. Moreover, Partial Last Square (PLS), Principal Component Analysis (PCA) and Hierarchical Component Analysis (HCA) of Raman spectra indicate that the ranges between 800 cm(-1) and 1800 cm(-1), 3477 cm(-1) -3322 cm(-1) and 1394 cm(-1) - 1297 cm(-1) allow to distinguish cancer patients from healthy ones. The obtained results showed, that Raman spectroscopy is a good candidate, to become in future one of the diagnostic tools of Cholangiocarcinoma. (c) 2022 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved

Development of novel spectroscopic and machine learning methods for the measurement of periodic changes in COVID-19 antibody level

In this research, blood samples of 47 patients infected by COVID were analyzed. The samples were taken on the 1st, 3rd and 6th month after the detection of COVID infection. Total antibody levels were measured against the SARS-CoV-2 N antigen and surrogate virus neutralization by serological methods. To differentiate COVID patients with different antibody levels, Fourier Transform InfraRed (FTIR) and Raman spectroscopy methods were used. The spectroscopy data were analyzed by multivariate analysis, machine learning and neural network methods. It was shown, that analysis of serum using the above-mentioned spectroscopy methods allows to differentiate antibody levels between 1 and 6 months via spectral biomarkers of amides II and I. Moreover, multivariate analysis showed, that using Raman spectroscopy in the range between 1317 cm(-1 )and 1432 cm(-1) , 2840 cm(-1) and 2956 cm(-1) it is possible to distinguish patients after 1, 3, and 6 months from COVID with a sensitivity close to 100%

Assessment of Oxidative Stress Effects in Serum Determined by FT-IR Spectroscopy in Cholangiocarcinoma Patients

© 2022 by the authors.Cholangiocarcinoma (CCA) is a heterogeneous malignant tumor containing intrahepatic and extrahepatic bile ducts and gallbladder carcinoma. Mostly diagnosed at an advanced stage with a <5% cure chance. Early-stage diagnosis may increase the number of patients who reach curative treatment. Fourier Transform InfraRed (FT-IR) spectroscopy was used to detect chemical changes in serum collected from CCA patients vs. healthy individuals. The study aims to correlate the FTIR spectra with biochemical indices such as TAS, TOS, OSI, and total protein levels. Decreased TAS and increased TOS, OSI, and total protein levels in CCA patients vs. healthy individuals were found. FTIR spectra showed higher absorbance of the peaks corresponding to C–O and bending vibration of C–O–H groups in CCA patients, while more CH2 functional groups than lipids could be seen in the FTIR spectra of controls serum. PLS analysis showed IR ranges of 1500 cm-1 to 1700 cm-1, and 2700 cm-1 to 3000 cm-1 were able to distinguish between CCA from controls, respectively. PCA confirmed this, while HCA did not differentiate between CCA and those without the disease. Lipids and some functional groups changes caused by oxidative stress can be applied to predict CCA by using FTIR spectroscopy