Investigation of urine metabolome of BALB/c mouse infected with an avirulent strain of Toxoplasma gondii.

BACKGROUND: The protozoan parasite Toxoplasma gondii is a major concern for human and animal health. Although the metabolic understanding of toxoplasmosis has increased in recent years, the analysis of metabolic alterations through noninvasive methodologies in biofluids remains limited. METHODS: Here, we applied liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS)-based metabolomics and multivariate statistical analysis to analyze BALB/c mouse urine collected from acutely infected, chronically infected and control subjects. RESULTS: In total, we identified 2065 and 1409 metabolites in the positive electrospray ionization (ESI +) mode and ESI - mode, respectively. Metabolomic patterns generated from principal component analysis (PCA) and partial least squares discriminant analysis (PLS-DA) score plots clearly separated T. gondii-infected from uninfected urine samples. Metabolites with altered levels in urine from T. gondii-infected mice revealed changes in pathways related to amino acid metabolism, fatty acid metabolism, and nicotinate and nicotinamide metabolism. CONCLUSIONS: This is the first study to our knowledge on urine metabolic profiling of BALB/c mouse with T. gondii infection. The urine metabolome of infected mouse is distinctive and has value in the understanding of Toxoplasmosis pathogenesis and improvement of treatment.

[Effects of trimetazidine therapy on left ventricular function after percutaneous coronary intervention].

OBJECTIVE: To explore the effects of trimetazidine therapy on left ventricular (LV) function after percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI). METHODS: A total of 106 patients with unstable angina pectoris underwent successful elective PCI were randomly assigned to standard therapy group (control, n = 55) or trimetazidine group (n = 51, 60 mg trimetazidine loading dose prior to PCI followed by 20 mg Tid after PCI on top of standard therapy). cTnI level was measured before and at 16-18 hours after PCI. LV function was evaluated by echocardiography and major adverse cardiac events (MACE, including death, re-infarction and target vessel revascularization) at 12 months after PCI was compared between the two groups. RESULTS: Post procedural cTnI level increased from [0.02 (0.01, 0.03)] µg/L at baseline to [0.11 (0.07, 0.13)] µg/L (P < 0.05) at 16-18 hours in the trimetazidine group, while [0.02(0.01, 0.03)] µg/L to [1.31(0.44, 2.31)] µg/L in the control group (P < 0.05). Post procedural cTnI level was significantly reduced in the trimetazidine group compared to the control group (P < 0.05). At 12 months follow-up, left ventricular ejection fraction in the trimetazidine group was significantly higher than in control group [(65.65 ± 3.94)% vs. (62.29 ± 3.06)%, P < 0.01] while incidence of MACE was similar between the two groups. CONCLUSION: Trimetazidine can reduce the post-PCI cTnI release and improve left ventricular function after PCI in patients with unstable angina pectoris.

[Molecular characteristics of DNA-A of tomato leaf curl Guangdong virus isolate G2].

Virus isolate G2 was isolated from tomato plants showing leaf curl symptoms in Guangdong. The complete nucleotide sequence of G2 DNA-A was determined to be 2744 nucleotides encoding six potential ORFs, with two (AV1 and AV2) in virus sense and four (AC1, AC2, AC3 and AC4) in complementary sense. G2 DNA-A has a typical characteristics of Begomovirus genome organization. BLAST results showed that G2 DNA-A belonged to the Begomovirus of Geminiviridae. Pairwise comparisons of G2 DNA-A with those of other 41 begomoviruses indicated that G2 DNA-A was most closely related to that of Papaya leaf curl China virus isolate G10 (PaLCuCNV-[G10]) (82.8% sequence identity). The intergenic region (IR) of G2 differed to great extent with other begomoviruses (30.9%-81.8% nucleotide sequence identity); when individual encoded proteins were compared, the CP of G2 had relatively high amino acid sequence identity (77.6%-99.2%) with other begomoviruses whereas the AC4 of G2 had less amino acid sequence identity (43.5%-78.8%). Phylogenetic analysis based on the DNA-A sequences also showed that G2 was less related to the reported begomoviruses. These results revealed that G2 infecting Guangdong tomato might be a previously unreported species of Begomovirus, for which the name Tomato leaf curl Guangdong Virus (ToLCGDV) is proposed.