A Tryptophan-Deficient Diet Induces Gut Microbiota Dysbiosis and Increases Systemic Inflammation in Aged Mice.

The gut microflora is a vital component of the gastrointestinal (GI) system that regulates local and systemic immunity, inflammatory response, the digestive system, and overall health. Older people commonly suffer from inadequate nutrition or poor diets, which could potentially alter the gut microbiota. The essential amino acid (AA) tryptophan (TRP) is a vital diet component that plays a critical role in physiological stress responses, neuropsychiatric health, oxidative systems, inflammatory responses, and GI health. The present study investigates the relationship between varied TRP diets, the gut microbiome, and inflammatory responses in an aged mouse model. We fed aged mice either a TRP-deficient (0.1%), TRP-recommended (0.2%), or high-TRP (1.25%) diet for eight weeks and observed changes in the gut bacterial environment and the inflammatory responses via cytokine analysis (IL-1a, IL-6, IL-17A, and IL-27). The mice on the TRP-deficient diets showed changes in their bacterial abundance of Coriobacteriia class, Acetatifactor genus, Lachnospiraceae family, Enterococcus faecalis species, Clostridium sp genus, and Oscillibacter genus. Further, these mice showed significant increases in IL-6, IL-17A, and IL-1a and decreased IL-27 levels. These data suggest a direct association between dietary TRP content, the gut microbiota microenvironment, and inflammatory responses in aged mice models.

COVID-19 Virulence in Aged Patients Might Be Impacted by the Host Cellular MicroRNAs Abundance/Profile.

The World health organization (WHO) declared Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) a global pandemic and a severe public health crisis. Drastic measures to combat COVID-19 are warranted due to its contagiousness and higher mortality rates, specifically in the aged patient population. At the current stage, due to the lack of effective treatment strategies for COVID-19 innovative approaches need to be considered. It is well known that host cellular miRNAs can directly target both viral 3'UTR and coding region of the viral genome to induce the antiviral effect. In this study, we did in silico analysis of human miRNAs targeting SARS (4 isolates) and COVID-19 (29 recent isolates from different regions) genome and correlated our findings with aging and underlying conditions. We found 848 common miRNAs targeting the SARS genome and 873 common microRNAs targeting the COVID-19 genome. Out of a total of 848 miRNAs from SARS, only 558 commonly present in all COVID-19 isolates. Interestingly, 315 miRNAs are unique for COVID-19 isolates and 290 miRNAs unique to SARS. We also noted that out of 29 COVID-19 isolates, 19 isolates have identical miRNA targets. The COVID-19 isolates, Netherland (EPI_ISL_422601), Australia (EPI_ISL_413214), and Wuhan (EPI_ISL_403931) showed six, four, and four unique miRNAs targets, respectively. Furthermore, GO, and KEGG pathway analysis showed that COVID-19 targeting human miRNAs involved in various age-related signaling and diseases. Recent studies also suggested that some of the human miRNAs targeting COVID-19 decreased with aging and underlying conditions. GO and KEGG identified impaired signaling pathway may be due to low abundance miRNA which might be one of the contributing factors for the increasing severity and mortality in aged individuals and with other underlying conditions. Further, in vitro and in vivo studies are needed to validate some of these targets and identify potential therapeutic targets.