Stable Isotope Dilution Analysis (SIDA) to Determine Metabolites of Furan and 2-Methylfuran in Human Urine Samples: A Pilot Study.

Furan and 2-methylfuran (2-MF) are food contaminants that are classified as potentially carcinogenic to humans. The main source of exposure for adults via food is coffee consumption. Furan and 2-MF are volatile, which complicates exposure assessment because their content measured in food prior to consumption does not afford a reliable dosimetry. Therefore, other ways of exposure assessment need to be developed, preferably by monitoring exposure biomarkers, e.g., selected metabolites excreted in urine. In this study, cis-2-buten-1,4-dial (BDA)-derived urinary furan metabolites Lys-BDA (l-2-amino-6-(2,5-dihydro-2-oxo-1H-pyrrol-1-yl)hexanoic acid), AcLys-BDA (l-2-(acetylamino)-6-(2,5-dihydro-2-oxo-1H-pyrrol-1-yl)hexanoic acid) and GSH-BDA (N-[4-carboxy-4-(3-mercapto-1H-pyrrol-1-yl)-1-oxobutyl]-l-cysteinyl-glycine cyclic sulfide), as well as acetyl acrolein (AcA, 2-oxo-pent-2-enal)-derived metabolites Lys-AcA (l-2-(acetylamino)-6-(2,5-dihydro-5-methyl-2-oxo-1H-pyrrol-1-yl)-hexanoic acid) and AcLys-AcA (l-2-amino-6-(2,5-dihydro-5-methyl-2-oxo-1H-pyrrol-1-yl)-hexanoic acid) and their stable isotopically labeled analogs, were synthesized and characterized through NMR and MS, and a stable isotope dilution analysis (SIDA) with UPLC-ESI-MS/MS was established. As a proof of concept, urinary samples of a four-day human intervention study were used. In the frame of this study, ten subjects ingested 500 mL of coffee containing 0.648 µmol furan and 1.059 µmol 2-MF. Among the furan metabolites, AcLys-BDA was the most abundant, followed by Lys-BDA and GSH-BDA. Exposure to 2-MF via the coffee brew led to the formation of Lys-AcA and AcLys-AcA. Within 24 h, 89.1% of the ingested amount of furan and 15.4% of the ingested amount of 2-MF were detected in the urine in the form of the investigated metabolites. Therefore, GSH-BDA, Lys-BDA, AcLys-BDA, Lys-AcA and AcLys-AcA may be suitable as short-term-exposure biomarkers of furan and 2-MF exposure.

The metabolite-controlled ubiquitin conjugase Ubc8 promotes mitochondrial protein import.

Mitochondria play a key role in cellular energy metabolism. Transitions between glycolytic and respiratory conditions induce considerable adaptations of the cellular proteome. These metabolism-dependent changes are particularly pronounced for the protein composition of mitochondria. Here, we show that the yeast cytosolic ubiquitin conjugase Ubc8 plays a crucial role in the remodeling process when cells transition from respiratory to fermentative conditions. Ubc8 is a conserved and well-studied component of the catabolite control system that is known to regulate the stability of gluconeogenic enzymes. Unexpectedly, we found that Ubc8 also promotes the assembly of the translocase of the outer membrane of mitochondria (TOM) and increases the levels of its cytosol-exposed receptor subunit Tom22. Ubc8 deficiency results in compromised protein import into mitochondria and reduced steady-state levels of mitochondrial proteins. Our observations show that Ubc8, which is controlled by the prevailing metabolic conditions, promotes the switch from glucose synthesis to glucose usage in the cytosol and induces the biogenesis of the mitochondrial TOM machinery to improve mitochondrial protein import during phases of metabolic transition.

Fractionation of Extracts from Black Chokeberry, Cranberry, and Pomegranate to Identify Compounds That Influence Lipid Metabolism.

Polyphenols show a spectrum of bioactive effects, including an influence on lipid metabolism. In this study, we performed activity-guided fractionations of black chokeberry (aronia), cranberry, and pomegranate extracts to identify the biologically active compounds. The extracts were prepared from fruit juice concentrates with the adsorbent resin Amberlite XAD-7 and were separated into a copigment and an anthocyanin fraction, followed by fractionation into a polymer and monomeric fraction by means of hexane precipitation. For further fractionation of the cranberry and pomegranate copigment fractions, high-performance countercurrent chromatography (HPCCC) was used. The compounds in each fraction were identified by high-performance liquid chromatography/electrospray ionization tandem mass spectrometry (HPLC-ESI-MS/MS), and the quantification was performed by ultra high-performance liquid chromatography-diode array detector (UHPLC-DAD) analyses. Each of the (sub-)fractions was tested in three in vitro assays: phosphodiesterase 3B (PDE) activity, lipid accumulation, and lipolysis in 3T3-L1 cells. The results showed that various fractions and subfractions can inhibit lipid accumulation and PDE activity as well as increase lipolysis, particularly copigments. Overall, our results indicate an influence of polyphenol-rich (sub-)fractions on the lipid metabolism.

A Penalized Semialgebraic Deflation ICA Algorithm for the Efficient Extraction of Interictal Epileptic Signals.

As a noninvasive technique, electroencephalography (EEG) is commonly used to monitor the brain signals of patients with epilepsy such as the interictal epileptic spikes. However, the recorded data are often corrupted by artifacts originating, for example, from muscle activities, which may have much higher amplitudes than the interictal epileptic signals of interest. To remove these artifacts, a number of independent component analysis (ICA) techniques were successfully applied. In this paper, we propose a new deflation ICA algorithm, called penalized semialgebraic unitary deflation (P-SAUD) algorithm, that improves upon classical ICA methods by leading to a considerably reduced computational complexity at equivalent performance. This is achieved by employing a penalized semialgebraic extraction scheme, which permits us to identify the epileptic components of interest (interictal spikes) first and obviates the need of extracting subsequent components. The proposed method is evaluated on physiologically plausible simulated EEG data and actual measurements of three patients. The results are compared to those of several popular ICA algorithms as well as second-order blind source separation methods, demonstrating that P-SAUD extracts the epileptic spikes with the same accuracy as the best ICA methods, but reduces the computational complexity by a factor of 10 for 32-channel recordings. This superior computational efficiency is of particular interest considering the increasing use of high-resolution EEG recordings, whose analysis requires algorithms with low computational cost.