Long-term Metabolic Effects of Non-Nutritive Sweeteners.

OBJECTIVE: Excessive consumption of added sugars has been linked to the rise in obesity and associated metabolic abnormalities. Non-nutritive sweeteners (NNSs) offer a potential solution to reduce sugar intake, yet their metabolic safety remains debated. This study aimed to systematically assess the long-term metabolic effects of commonly used NNSs under both normal and obesogenic conditions. METHODS: To ensure consistent sweetness level and controlling for the acceptable daily intake (ADI), eight weeks old C57BL/6 male mice were administered with acesulfame K (ace K, 535.25 mg/L), aspartame (411.75 mg/L), sucralose (179.5 mg/L), saccharin (80 mg/L), or steviol glycoside (Reb M, 536.25 mg/L) in the drinking water, on the background of either regular or high-fat diets (in high fat diet 60% of calories from fat). Water or fructose-sweetened water (82.3.gr/L), were used as controls. Anthropometric and metabolic parameters, as well as microbiome composition, were analyzed following 20-weeks of exposure. RESULTS: Under a regular chow diet, chronic NNS consumption did not significantly affect body weight, fat mass, or glucose metabolism as compared to water consumption, with aspartame demonstrating decreased glucose tolerance. In diet-induced obesity, NNS exposure did not increase body weight or alter food intake. Exposure to sucralose and Reb M led to improved insulin sensitivity and decreased weight gain. Reb M specifically was associated with increased prevalence of colonic Lachnospiracea bacteria. CONCLUSIONS: Long-term consumption of commonly used NNSs does not induce adverse metabolic effects,with Reb M demonstrating a mild improvement in metabolic abnormalities. These findings provide valuable insights into the metabolic impact of different NNSs, aiding in the development of strategies to combat obesity and related metabolic disorders.

Diet-omics in the Study of Urban and Rural Crohn disease Evolution (SOURCE) cohort.

Crohn disease (CD) burden has increased with globalization/urbanization, and the rapid rise is attributed to environmental changes rather than genetic drift. The Study Of Urban and Rural CD Evolution (SOURCE, n = 380) has considered diet-omics domains simultaneously to detect complex interactions and identify potential beneficial and pathogenic factors linked with rural-urban transition and CD. We characterize exposures, diet, ileal transcriptomics, metabolomics, and microbiome in newly diagnosed CD patients and controls in rural and urban China and Israel. We show that time spent by rural residents in urban environments is linked with changes in gut microbial composition and metabolomics, which mirror those seen in CD. Ileal transcriptomics highlights personal metabolic and immune gene expression modules, that are directly linked to potential protective dietary exposures (coffee, manganese, vitamin D), fecal metabolites, and the microbiome. Bacteria-associated metabolites are primarily linked with host immune modules, whereas diet-linked metabolites are associated with host epithelial metabolic functions.

Lack of gut microbiome recovery with spinal cord injury rehabilitation.

Spinal cord injury (SCI) is a devastating event that significantly changes daily function and quality of life and is linked to bowel and bladder dysfunction and frequent antibiotic treatment. We aimed to study the composition of the gut microbiome in individuals with SCI during the initial sub-acute rehabilitation process and during the chronic phase of the injury. This study included 100 fecal samples from 63 participants (Median age 40 years, 94% males): 13 cases with SCI in the sub-acute phase with 50 longitudinal samples, 18 cases with chronic SCI, and 32 age and gender-matched controls. We show, using complementary methods, that the time from the injury was a dominant factor linked with gut microbiome composition. Surprisingly, we demonstrated a lack of gut microbial recovery during rehabilitation during the sub-acute phase, with further deviation from the non-SCI control group in the chronic ambulatory SCI group. To generalize the results, we were able to show significant similarity of the signal when comparing to a previous cohort with SCI, to subjects from the American Gut Project who reported low physical activity, and to subjects from another population-based cohort who reported less normal stool consistency. Restoration of the microbiome composition may be another desirable measure for SCI recovery in the future, but further research is needed to test whether such restoration is associated with improved neurological outcomes and quality of life.

Baseline Peripheral Blood Mononuclear Cell Transcriptomics Before Ustekinumab Treatment Is Linked With Crohn's Disease Clinical Response at 1 Year.

INTRODUCTION: Ustekinumab, a monoclonal antibody to the p40 subunit of interleukin (IL)-12 and IL-23, is used for Crohn's disease (CD), and the documented clinical remission rate after 1 year was observed in approximately 50% of patients. We aimed to identify predictors for a clinical response using peripheral blood obtained from patients with CD just before ustekinumab treatment initiation. METHODS: RNA extraction from peripheral blood mononuclear cells was followed by mRNA paired-end sequencing. Differential gene expression was performed using DESeq2. RESULTS: We processed samples from 36 adults with CD (13 men, 36%) obtained at baseline before starting ustekinumab treatment. Twenty-two of 36 (61%) were defined as responders and 14/36 (39%) as nonresponders after 1 year based on Physician Global Assessment. Differential gene expression between responders (n = 22) and nonresponders (n = 14) did not show a gene expression signature that passed false discovery rate (FDR) correction. However, the analyses identified 68 genes, including CXCL1/2/3, which were induced in nonresponders vs responders with P < 0.05 and fold change above 1.5. Functional annotation enrichments of these 68 genes using ToppGene indicated enrichment for cytokine activity (FDR = 1.98E-05), CXCR chemokine receptor binding (FDR = 2.11E-05), IL-10 signaling (FDR = 5.03E-07), genes encoding secreted soluble factors (FDR = 1.73E-05), and myeloid dendritic cells (FDR = 1.80E-08). DISCUSSION: No substantial differences were found in peripheral blood mononuclear cell transcriptomics between responders and nonresponders. However, among the nonresponders, we noted an increased inflammatory response enriched for pathways linked with cytokine activity and chemokine receptor binding and innate myeloid signature. A larger cohort is required to validate and further explore these findings.

Mucosal transcriptomics highlight lncRNAs implicated in ulcerative colitis, Crohn's disease, and celiac disease.

Ulcerative colitis (UC), Crohn's disease (CD), and celiac disease are prevalent intestinal inflammatory disorders with nonsatisfactory therapeutic interventions. Analyzing patient data-driven cohorts can highlight disease pathways and new targets for interventions. Long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) are attractive candidates, since they are readily targetable by RNA therapeutics, show relative cell-specific expression, and play key cellular functions. Uniformly analyzing gut mucosal transcriptomics from 696 subjects, we have highlighted lncRNA expression along the gastrointestinal (GI) tract, demonstrating that, in control samples, lncRNAs have a more location-specific expression in comparison with protein-coding genes. We defined dysregulation of lncRNAs in treatment-naive UC, CD, and celiac diseases using independent test and validation cohorts. Using the Predicting Response to Standardized Pediatric Colitis Therapy (PROTECT) inception UC cohort, we defined and prioritized lncRNA linked with UC severity and prospective outcomes, and we highlighted lncRNAs linked with gut microbes previously implicated in mucosal homeostasis. HNF1A-AS1 lncRNA was reduced in all 3 conditions and was further reduced in more severe UC form. Similarly, the reduction of HNF1A-AS1 ortholog in mice gut epithelia showed higher sensitivity to dextran sodium sulfate-induced colitis, which was coupled with alteration in the gut microbial community. These analyses highlight prioritized dysregulated lncRNAs that can guide future preclinical studies for testing them as potential targets.

Gut microbial signature in lung cancer patients highlights specific taxa as predictors for durable clinical benefit.

We aimed to determine microbial signature linked with lung cancer (LC) diagnosis and to define taxa linked with durable clinical benefit (DCB) of advanced LC patients. Stool samples for microbial 16S amplicon sequencing and clinical data were collected from 75 LC patients (50 of which were treated with checkpoint inhibitors) and 31 matched healthy volunteers. We compared LC to healthy controls and patients with DCB to those without. LC patients had lower α-diversity and higher between-subject diversity. Random Forests model to differentiate LC cases from controls ROC-AUC was 0.74. Clostridiales, Lachnospiraceae, and Faecalibacterium prausnitzii taxa abundance was decreased in LC compared to controls. High Akkermansia muciniphila correlated with DCB (HR 4.26, 95% CI 1.98-9.16), not only for the immunotherapy-treated patients. In addition, high Alistipes onderdonkii (HR 3.08, 95% CI 1.34-7.06) and high Ruminococcus (HR 7.76, 95% CI 3.23-18.65) correlated with DCB.Our results support the importance of gut microbiome in LC. We have validated the apparent predictive value of Akkermansia muciniphila, and highlighted Alistipes onderdonkii and Ruminococcus taxa correlation with DCB. Upon additional validations those can be used as biomarkers or as targets for future therapeutic interventions.

Outbreak of Sepsis Following Surgery: Utilizing 16S RNA Sequencing To Detect the Source of Infection.

Background Nosocomial infections are a significant health concern. Following surgery, infections are most commonly associated with the surgical site, yet there are other potential sources for infections after surgical interventions. Identification of the source of infections can be very challenging. Methodology An outbreak of postoperative infections following surgery led to intensive care unit (ICU) admission of patients immediately after the surgical procedure. The blood cultures of two patients were positive for Citrobacter freundii. The only connection between all cases was the anesthesiologist. An epidemiological inquiry could not definitively identify the source of the outbreak. Therefore, we utilized an RNA sequencing technique to evaluate the microbiome of the anesthesiologist and compared the results to bacteria cultured from the bloodstream of the two patients. Results The anesthesiologist's microbiome contained amplicons that were identical to those of the bacteria in the patient's bloodstream. Because Citrobacter freundii is an uncommon source of bloodstream infections, and in the normal human microbiome, the results establish the source of a cluster of infections to the anesthesiologist. Conclusions In cases of nosocomial infections, when conventional microbiological techniques do not clearly establish the source of the infection, using 16S RNA sequencing should be considered.

Gut microbiome development in early childhood is affected by day care attendance.

The human gut microbiome develops during the first years of life, followed by a relatively stable adult microbiome. Day care attendance is a drastic change that exposes children to a large group of peers in a diverse environment for prolonged periods, at this critical time of microbial development, and therefore has the potential to affect microbial composition. We characterize the effect of day care on the gut microbial development throughout a single school year in 61 children from 4 different day care facilities, and in additional 24 age-matched home care children (n = 268 samples, median age of entering the study was 12 months). We show that day care attendance is a significant and impactful factor in shaping the microbial composition of the growing child, the specific daycare facility and class influence the gut microbiome, and each child becomes more similar to others in their day care. Furthermore, in comparison to home care children, day care children have a different gut microbial composition, with enrichment of taxa more frequently observed in older populations. Our results provide evidence that daycare may be an external factor that contributes to gut microbiome maturation and make-up in early childhood.

Defining the Celiac Disease Transcriptome using Clinical Pathology Specimens Reveals Biologic Pathways and Supports Diagnosis.

Celiac disease is provoked by gluten exposure, but the complete pathogenic process in the duodenum and the loss of tolerance to gluten is not well understood. We aimed to define the core celiac transcriptomic signature and pathologic pathways in pre-treatment formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded (FFPE) duodenum biopsies used for clinical diagnosis. We use mRNAseq to define pre-treatment diagnostic duodenum gene expression in 54 pediatric celiac patients and non-celiac controls, and we validate our key findings in two independent cohorts of 67 adults and pediatric participants that used fresh frozen biopsies. We further define similar and divergent genes and pathways in 177 small bowel Crohn disease patients and controls. We observe a marked suppression of mature epithelial metabolic functions in celiac patients, overlapping substantially with the Crohn disease signature. A marked adaptive immune response was noted for the up-regulated signature including interferon response, alpha-beta, and gamma-delta T-cells that overlapped to some extent with the Crohn disease signature. However, we also identified a celiac disease specific signature linked to increased cell proliferation, nuclear division, and cell cycle activity that was localized primarily to the epithelia as noted by CCNB1 and Ki67 staining. Lastly, we demonstrate the utility of the transcriptomic date to correctly classify disease or healthy states in the discovery and validation cohorts. Our data supplement recently published datasets providing insights into celiac pathogenesis using clinical pathology FFPE samples, and can stimulate new approaches to address this highly prevalent condition.

Individualized Dynamics in the Gut Microbiota Precede Crohn's Disease Flares.

OBJECTIVES: Crohn's disease (CD) is a chronic relapsing-remitting gut inflammatory disorder with a heterogeneous unpredictable course. Dysbiosis occurs in CD; however, whether microbial dynamics in quiescent CD are instrumental in increasing the risk of a subsequent flare remains undefined. METHODS: We analyzed the long-term dynamics of microbial composition in a prospective observational cohort of patients with quiescent CD (45 cases, 217 samples) over 2 years or until clinical flare occurred, aiming to identify whether changes in the microbiome precede and predict clinical relapse. Machine learning was used to prioritize microbial and clinical factors that discriminate between relapsers and nonrelapsers in the quiescent phase. RESULTS: Patients with CD in clinical, biomarker, and mucosal remission showed significantly reduced microbial richness and increased dysbiosis index compared with healthy controls. Of the 45 patients with quiescent CD, 12 (27%) flared during follow-up. Samples in quiescent patients preceding flare showed significantly reduced abundance of Christensenellaceae and S24.7, and increased abundance of Gemellaceae compared with those in remission throughout. A composite flare index was associated with a subsequent flare. Notably, higher individualized microbial instability in the quiescent phase was associated with a higher risk of a subsequent flare (hazard ratio 11.32, 95% confidence interval 3-42, P = 0.0035) using two preflare samples. Importantly, machine learning prioritized the flare index and the intrapersonal instability over clinical factors to best discriminate between relapsers and nonrelapsers. DISCUSSION: Individualized microbial variations in quiescent CD significantly increase the risk of future exacerbation and may provide a model to guide personalized preemptive therapy intensification.

De-novo protein function prediction using DNA binding and RNA binding proteins as a test case.

Of the currently identified protein sequences, 99.6% have never been observed in the laboratory as proteins and their molecular function has not been established experimentally. Predicting the function of such proteins relies mostly on annotated homologs. However, this has resulted in some erroneous annotations, and many proteins have no annotated homologs. Here we propose a de-novo function prediction approach based on identifying biophysical features that underlie function. Using our approach, we discover DNA and RNA binding proteins that cannot be identified based on homology and validate these predictions experimentally. For example, FGF14, which belongs to a family of secreted growth factors was predicted to bind DNA. We verify this experimentally and also show that FGF14 is localized to the nucleus. Mutating the predicted binding site on FGF14 abrogated DNA binding. These results demonstrate the feasibility of automated de-novo function prediction based on identifying function-related biophysical features.

Novel mechanism whereby nuclear factor kappaB mediates DNA damage repair through regulation of O(6)-methylguanine-DNA-methyltransferase.

O(6)-Methylguanine-DNA-methyltransferase (MGMT) and nuclear factor kappaB (NF-kappaB) are two key effectors associated with the development of resistance to alkylating agent-based chemotherapy. This prompted us to hypothesize that NF-kappaB might be involved in MGMT regulation. Consistent with this hypothesis, we have discovered two putative NF-kappaB binding sites within the MGMT promoter region and showed a specific and direct interaction of NF-kappaB at each of these sites. Forced expression of the NF-kappaB subunit p65 in HEK293 cells induced an increase in MGMT expression whereas addition of the NF-kappaB super repressor DeltaNIkappaB completely abrogated the induction. We also found a significant correlation between the extent of NF-kappaB activation and MGMT expression in the glioma cell lines and the human glial tumors tested and showed that it was independent of MGMT promoter methylation. Our results are of potential clinical significance because we show that cell lines with ectopic p65 or high constitutive NF-kappaB activity are less sensitive to nitrosourea treatment and that suppression of MGMT activity with O(6)-benzylguanine completely abolishes the chemoresistance acquired by NF-kappaB. The findings of our study strongly suggest that NF-kappaB plays a major role in MGMT regulation and that MGMT is most probably the major player in NF-kappaB-mediated chemoresistance to alkylating agents.

A novel synthetic cannabinoid derivative inhibits inflammatory liver damage via negative cytokine regulation.

The therapeutic potential of cannabinoids has been described previously for several inflammatory diseases, but the molecular mechanisms underlying the anti-inflammatory properties of cannabinoids are not well understood. In this study, we investigated the mechanism of action of a novel synthetic cannabinoid, [(+)(6aS,10aS)-6,6-Dimethyl-3-(1,1-dimethylheptyl)-1-hydroxy-9-(1H-imidazol-2-ylsulfanylmethyl]-6a,7,10,10a-tetrahydro-6H-dibenzo[b,d]pyran (PRS-211,092) that has no psychotropic effects but exhibits immunomodulatory properties. Treatment with PRS-211,092 significantly decreased Concanavalin A-induced liver injury in mice that was accompanied by: 1) promotion of early gene expression of interleukin (IL)-6 and IL-10 that play a protective role in this model; 2) induction of early gene expression of the suppressors of cytokine signaling (SOCS-1 and 3), followed by 3) inhibition of several pro-inflammatory mediators, including IL-2, monocyte chemoattractant protein-1 (MCP-1), IL-1beta, interferon-gamma, and tumor necrosis factor alpha. Based on these results, we propose a mechanism by which PRS-211,092 stimulates the expression of IL-6, IL-10 and the SOCS proteins that, in turn, negatively regulates the expression of pro-inflammatory cytokines. Negative regulation by PRS-211,092 was further demonstrated in cultured T cells, where it inhibited IL-2 production and nuclear factor of activated T cells activity. These findings suggest that this cannabinoid derivative is an immunomodulator that could be developed as a potential drug for hepatitis as well as for other short- or long-term inflammatory diseases.