Mitochondrial bioenergetics and redox dysfunctions in hypercholesterolemia and atherosclerosis
Publication date: Available online 25 December 2019Source: Molecular Aspects of MedicineAuthor(s): Helena C.F. Oliveira, Anibal E. VercesiAbstractIn the first part of this review, we summarize basic mitochondrial bioenergetics concepts showing that mitochondria are critical regulators of cell life and death. Until a few decades ago, mitochondria were considered to play essential roles only in respiration, ATP formation, non-shivering thermogenesis and a variety of metabolic pathways. However, the concept presented by Peter Mitchell regarding coupling between electron flow and ATP synthesis through the intermediary of a H+ ...
Source: Molecular Aspects of Medicine - December 26, 2019 Category: Molecular Biology Source Type: research
Mitochondrially-targeted treatment strategies
Publication date: Available online 19 December 2019Source: Molecular Aspects of MedicineAuthor(s): Luiz H.M. Bozi, Juliane C. Campos, Vanessa O. Zambelli, Nikolas D. Ferreira, Julio C.B. FerreiraAbstractDisruption of mitochondrial function is a common feature of inherited mitochondrial diseases (mitochondriopathies) and many other infectious and non-infectious diseases including viral, bacterial and protozoan infections, inflammatory and chronic pain, neurodegeneration, diabetes, obesity and cardiovascular diseases. Mitochondria therefore become an attractive target for developing new therapies. In this review we describe ...
Source: Molecular Aspects of Medicine - December 20, 2019 Category: Molecular Biology Source Type: research
Blood-based bioenergetics: An emerging translational and clinical tool
Publication date: Available online 18 December 2019Source: Molecular Aspects of MedicineAuthor(s): Andrea Braganza, Gowtham K. Annarapu, Sruti ShivaAbstractAccumulating studies demonstrate that mitochondrial genetics and function are central to determining the susceptibility to, and prognosis of numerous diseases across all organ systems. Despite this recognition, mitochondrial function remains poorly characterized in humans primarily due to the invasiveness of obtaining viable tissue for mitochondrial studies. Recent studies have begun to test the hypothesis that circulating blood cells, which can be obtained by minimally...
Source: Molecular Aspects of Medicine - December 20, 2019 Category: Molecular Biology Source Type: research
Nanoparticle-aided glycovariant assays to bridge biomarker performance and ctDNA results
Publication date: Available online 29 November 2019Source: Molecular Aspects of MedicineAuthor(s): Kamlesh Gidwani, Henna Kekki, Joonas Terävä, Tero Soukka, Karin Sundfeldt, Kim PetterssonAbstractNumerous immunoassay based cancer biomarkers established in the 1970 and 1980′ies are widely used in clinical routine. Initial expectations of biomarkers such as CEA, CA125, CA19-9, AFP to provide decisive help in the diagnosis of early stage, pre-symptomatic cancers have not been realized. Thus, they are primarily used for monitoring disease progression and occasionally being useful as prognostic indicators. This limitation i...
Source: Molecular Aspects of Medicine - November 29, 2019 Category: Molecular Biology Source Type: research
Editorial Board
Publication date: December 2019Source: Molecular Aspects of Medicine, Volume 70Author(s): (Source: Molecular Aspects of Medicine)
Source: Molecular Aspects of Medicine - November 26, 2019 Category: Molecular Biology Source Type: research
Emerging isothermal amplification technologies for microRNA biosensing: Applications to liquid biopsies
Publication date: Available online 23 November 2019Source: Molecular Aspects of MedicineAuthor(s): Guillaume Gines, Roberta Menezes, Wenjin Xiao, Yannick Rondelez, Valerie TalyAbstractThe potential of microRNAs (miRNAs) as biomarker candidates in clinical practice for diagnosis, prognosis and treatment response prediction, especially in liquid biopsies, has led to a tremendous demand for techniques that can detect these molecules rapidly and accurately. Hence, numerous achievements have been reported recently in miRNA research. In this review, we discuss the challenges associated with the emerging field of miRNA detection,...
Source: Molecular Aspects of Medicine - November 23, 2019 Category: Molecular Biology Source Type: research
Quantification of mitochondrial DNA from peripheral tissues: Limitations in predicting the severity of neurometabolic disorders and proposal of a novel diagnostic test
Publication date: Available online 16 November 2019Source: Molecular Aspects of MedicineAuthor(s): Christos ChinopoulosAbstractNeurometabolic disorders stem from errors in metabolic processes yielding a neurological phenotype. A subset of those disorders encompasses mitochondrial abnormalities partially due to mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) depletion. mtDNA depletion can be attributed to inheritance, spontaneous mutations or acquired from drug-related toxicities. In the armamentarium of diagnostic procedures, mtDNA quantification is a standard for disease classification. However, alterations in mtDNA obtained from peripheral ti...
Source: Molecular Aspects of Medicine - November 16, 2019 Category: Molecular Biology Source Type: research
Molecular aspects of medicine – Editorial 2019
Publication date: Available online 14 November 2019Source: Molecular Aspects of MedicineAuthor(s): George A. Calin (Source: Molecular Aspects of Medicine)
Source: Molecular Aspects of Medicine - November 16, 2019 Category: Molecular Biology Source Type: research
Targets, pitfalls and reference materials for liquid biopsy tests in cancer diagnostics
Publication date: Available online 8 November 2019Source: Molecular Aspects of MedicineAuthor(s): Edward Geeurickx, An HendrixAbstractAssessment of cell free DNA (cfDNA) and RNA (cfRNA), circulating tumor cells (CTC) and extracellular vesicles (EV) in blood or other bodily fluids can enable early cancer detection, tumor dynamics assessment, minimal residual disease detection and therapy monitoring. However, few liquid biopsy tests progress towards clinical application because results are often discordant and challenging to reproduce. Reproducibility can be enhanced by the development and implementation of standard operatin...
Source: Molecular Aspects of Medicine - November 9, 2019 Category: Molecular Biology Source Type: research
Altered expression of miR-181 affects cell fate and targets drug resistance-related mechanisms
Publication date: Available online 6 November 2019Source: Molecular Aspects of MedicineAuthor(s): Cornelia Braicu, Diana Gulei, Lajos Raduly, Antonia Harangus, Alexandru Rusu, Ioana Berindan-NeagoeAbstractMicroRNAs (miRNAs) are non-coding transcripts which regulate genetic and epigenetic events by interfering with mRNA translation. miRNAs are involved in regulation of cell fate due to their ability of interfering with physiological or pathological processes. In this review paper, we evaluate the role of miR-181 family members as prognostic or diagnostic markers or therapeutic targets in malignant pathologies in connection ...
Source: Molecular Aspects of Medicine - November 6, 2019 Category: Molecular Biology Source Type: research
Cell-free DNA in blood as a noninvasive insight into the sarcoma genome
Publication date: Available online 6 November 2019Source: Molecular Aspects of MedicineAuthor(s): Heidi Maria Namløs, Kjetil Boye, Leonardo A. Meza-ZepedaAbstractSarcomas are malignant tumors of mesenchymal origin that arise mainly from connective and supportive tissue. Sarcomas include a wide range of histological subtypes, showing a large diversity at the molecular level, from simple to highly complex karyotypes but with few recurrent somatic changes. Therapeutic decisions increasingly rely on the molecular characteristics of the individual tumor. Circulating cell-free DNA (ctDNA) is released into peripheral blood and c...
Source: Molecular Aspects of Medicine - November 6, 2019 Category: Molecular Biology Source Type: research
Circular RNAs: The star molecules in cancer
Publication date: Available online 31 October 2019Source: Molecular Aspects of MedicineAuthor(s): Jianhong Liu, Dongpei Li, Hui Luo, Xiao ZhuAbstractCircular RNAs (circRNAs) are a class of endogenous non-coding RNAs with a closed loop structure. These RNAs are produced by pre-mRNA through variable shear processing and are highly conserved. Such highly conserved molecules play an important role in biology, especially in cancer biology. With the development of experimental techniques such as circRNA microarray screening and high-throughput sequencing technologies, the mystery of circRNAs has gradually been unveiled and the v...
Source: Molecular Aspects of Medicine - October 31, 2019 Category: Molecular Biology Source Type: research
Circulating miRNA analysis for cancer diagnostics and therapy
Publication date: Available online 18 October 2019Source: Molecular Aspects of MedicineAuthor(s): Lukas Valihrach, Peter Androvic, Mikael KubistaAbstractSuccessful treatment of cancer depends on early diagnosis and effective monitoring of patients’ response to therapy. Traditional tools based on tumor biopsies lack the sensitivity and specificity to capture cancer development in its early phases and are not applicable for continuous monitoring. To overcome these barriers, liquid biopsies have been introduced as a minimally invasive and cost-efficient means of diagnosis with high level of specificity and sensitivity. Trad...
Source: Molecular Aspects of Medicine - October 20, 2019 Category: Molecular Biology Source Type: research
Neurological disorders and mitochondria
Publication date: Available online 17 October 2019Source: Molecular Aspects of MedicineAuthor(s): J.V. Cabral-Costa, A.J. KowaltowskiAbstractThe brain is highly dependent on mitochondrial energy metabolism. As a result, mitochondrial dysfunction is a central aspect of many adult-onset neurological diseases, including stroke, ALS, Alzheimer's, Huntington's, and Parkinson's diseases. We review here how different mitochondrial functions, including oxidative phosphorylation, mitochondrial dynamics, oxidant generation, cell death regulation, Ca2+ homeostasis, and proteostasis are involved in these disorders. (Source: Molecular Aspects of Medicine)
Source: Molecular Aspects of Medicine - October 18, 2019 Category: Molecular Biology Source Type: research
The role of exosomes and MYC in therapy resistance of acute myeloid leukemia: Challenges and opportunities
Publication date: Available online 14 October 2019Source: Molecular Aspects of MedicineAuthor(s): Nithya Mudgapalli, Palanisamy Nallasamy, Haritha Chava, Srinivas Chava, Anup S. Pathania, Venugopal Gunda, Santhi Gorantla, Manoj K. Pandey, Subash C. Gupta, Kishore B. ChallagundlaAbstractAcute myeloid leukemia (AML) is caused by abnormal production of white blood cells, red blood cells or platelets. The leukemia cells communicate with their microenvironment through nano-vesicle exosomes that are 30–100 nm in diameter. These nano-vesicles are released from body fluids upon fusion of an endocytic compartment with the cell ...
Source: Molecular Aspects of Medicine - October 16, 2019 Category: Molecular Biology Source Type: research
