Efficacy and safety of different doses of vamorolone in boys with Duchenne muscular dystrophy: a systematic review and network meta-analysis.

Background and objectives: Several recent clinical studies have indicated that vamorolone is comparable in effectiveness to glucocorticosteroids for treating Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD). However, there is a lack of extensive data regarding the efficacy and safety of various doses of vamorolone. We conducted a study to evaluate the efficacy of different doses of vamorolone in boys with DMD, and compare the safety of vamorolone vs. glucocorticosteroids, prednisone or deflazacort in boys with DMD. Methods: We performed systematic searches of the PubMed, Embase, and Cochrane Library databases for vamorolone, glucocorticosteroids, prednisone or deflazacort in boys with DMD. We assessed statistical heterogeneity across trials based on the Newcastle Ottawa scale (NOS) tool test and I2 values, and mean differences were pooled using the random-effects model. We used traditional meta-analysis to evaluate efficacy and safety of vamorolone 6.0 mg/kg/d vs. vamorolone 2.0 mg/kg/d and vamorolone vs. prednisone. A network meta-analysis was applied to estimated the safety of vamorolone in comparison to glucocorticosteroids, prednisone and deflazacort. Our meta-analysis were performed using Revman 5.4 software, and our network meta-analysis were performed using Stata/MP 18.0. Results: In the meta-analysis, a total of 193 patients were analyzed across four clinical trials (97 patients receiving vamorolone 2 mg/kg per day; 96 patients receiving vamorolone 2 mg/kg per day). We observed that there were statistically significant differences in boys with DMD between vamorolone 6.0 mg/kg/d and vamorolone 2.0 mg/kg/d in TTSTANDV (MD = 0.03, 95%CI = 0.00-0.06, p = 0.04), TTRWV (MD = 0.13, 95%CI = 0.08-0.19, p < 0.01), 6MWT (MD = 24.54, 95%CI = 4.46-44.82, p = 0.02), TTCLIMBV (MD = 0.04, 95%CI = 0.01-0.06, p = 0.009), no significant difference in BMI z score (MD = 0.09, 95%CI = -0.03-0.20, p = 0.13). Indirect comparisons derived from network meta-analysis did not show significant differences among vamorolone, glucocorticosteroids, prednisone and deflazacort in BMI z score. Conclusion: Our findings implied that boys with DMD who took vamorolone 6 mg/kg daily instead of 2 mg/kg daily may be safer and have superior motor function. However, more large sample randomized controlled trials are needed to confirm our results. Systematic Review Registration: This systematic review and meta-analysis has been registered in the International Prospective Register of Ongoing Systematic Reviews PROSPERO (registration number: CRD42024562916).

Prediction of antioxidant peptides using a quantitative structure-activity relationship predictor (AnOxPP) based on bidirectional long short-term memory neural network and interpretable amino acid descriptors.

Antioxidant peptides can protect against free radical-mediated diseases, especially food-derived antioxidant peptides are considered as potential competitors among synthetic antioxidants due to their safety, high activity and abundant sources. However, wet experimental methods can not meet the need for effectively screening and clearly elucidating the structure-activity relationship of antioxidant peptides. Therefore, it is particularly important to build a reliable prediction platform for antioxidant peptides. In this work, we developed a platform, AnOxPP, for prediction of antioxidant peptides using the bidirectional long short-term memory (BiLSTM) neural network. The sequence characteristics of peptides were converted into feature codes based on amino acid descriptors (AADs). Our results showed that the feature conversion ability of the combined-AADs optimized by the forward feature selection method was more accurate than that of the single-AADs. Especially, the model trained by the optimal descriptor SDPZ27 significantly outperformed the existing predictor on two independent test sets (Accuracy = 0.967 and 0.819, respectively). The SDPZ27-based AnOxPP learned four key structure-activity features of antioxidant peptides, with the following importance as steric properties > hydrophobic properties > electronic properties > hydrogen bond contributions. AnOxPP is a valuable tool for screening and design of peptide drugs, and the web-server is accessible at http://www.cqudfbp.net/AnOxPP/index.jsp.

Experimental and computational studies on the mechanism of the ß-lactoglobulin-derived peptide inhibiting the antigenicity of ß-lactoglobulin.

In this study, through a combined simulated enzymolysis-molecular docking-molecular simulation-activity determination-action mechanism strategy, we screened a ß-LG-derived peptide (VAGTWYSL) to inhibit the antigenicity of ß-LG and explored its mechanism of action. Our results indicate that the inhibitory effect of the peptide on the antigenicity of ß-LG is affected by different experimental conditions, including pH, reaction time and concentration. Three factors may contribute to the reduced allergenicity of ß-LG. First, there must be sufficient forces between the peptide and ß-LG, as a result, hydrophobic forces and hydrogen bonds are the main forces to maintain the structural stability of the complex. Second, the binding of the peptide changes the secondary structure of ß-LG, especially with an increase in α-helices and a decrease in ß-turns. Third, the peptide binds to the hydrophobic region of ß-LG, involving the antigenic epitope region Val41-Lys60, which may reduce the antigenicity.

Six flavonoids inhibit the antigenicity of ß-lactoglobulin by noncovalent interactions: A spectroscopic and molecular docking study.

It is practical to inhibit the allergenicity of ß-lactoglobulin (ß-LG) using natural products acting via noncovalent interactions; however, the mechanism of the effect has not been investigated in detail. Herein, the comprehensive noncovalent mechanism of inhibition of the antigenicity of ß-LG by six flavonoids (kaempferol, myricetin, phloretin, epigallocatechin-3-gallate (EGCG), naringenin, and quercetin) was investigated by spectroscopic and molecular docking methods. Our results indicate that six flavonoids reduced the antigenicity of ß-LG in the following order: EGCG > phloretin > naringenin > myricetin > kaempferol > quercetin, with antigenic inhibition rates of 72.6%, 68.4%, 59.7%, 52.3%, 51.4% and 40.8%, respectively. Six flavonoids induced distinct conformational changes in ß-LG, which were closely associated with a decline in antigenicity of ß-LG. The flavonoids bound to specific antigen epitopes in the ß-sheet and ß-turn of ß-LG to induce a decrease in the antigenicity of the protein.

[Review for treatment effect and signaling pathway regulation of kidney-tonifying traditional Chinese medicine on osteoporosis].

The treatment effect and signaling pathway regulation effects of kidney-tonifying traditional Chinese medicine on osteoporosis have been widely studied, but there is no systematic summary currently. This review comprehensively collected and analyzed the traditional Chinese medicines on the treatment and signaling pathway regulation of osteoporosis in recent ten years, such as Epimedii Folium, Drynariae Rhizoma, Cnidii Fructus, Eucommiae Cortex, Psoraleae Fructus and Dipsaci Radix. Based on the existing findings, the following conclusions were obtained: ①kidney-tonifying traditional Chinese medicine treated osteoporosis mainly through BMP-Smads, Wnt/ß-catenin, MAPK, PI3K/AKT signaling pathway to promote osteoblast bone formation and through OPG/RANKL/ RANK, estrogen, CTSK signaling pathway to inhibit osteoclasts of bone resorption. Epimedii Folium, Drynariae Rhizoma, Cnidii Fructus and Psoraleae Fructus up-regulated the expression of key proteins and genes of BMP-Smads and Wnt/ß-catenin signaling pathways to promote bone formation. Epimedii Folium, Drynariae Rhizoma, Cnidii Fructus, Eucommiae Cortex, Psoraleae Fructus and Dipsaci Radix inhibited the bone resorption by mediating the OPG/RANKL/RANK signaling pathway. ②Kidney-tonifying traditional Chinese medicine prevented and treated osteoporosis through a variety of ways: icariin in Epimedii Folium, naringin in Drynariae Rhizoma, osthole in Cnidii Fructus and psoralen in Psoraleae Fructus can regulate BMP-Smads, Wnt/ß-catenin signaling pathway to promote bone formation, but also activate OPG/RANKL/RANK, CTSK and other signaling pathways to inhibit bone resorption. ③The crosstalk of the signaling pathways and the animal experiments of the traditional Chinese medicine on the prevention and treatment of osteoporosis as well as their multi-target mechanism and comprehensive regulation need further clarification.

Review for treatment and signaling pathway regulation of kidney-tonifying traditional Chinese medicine on osteoporosis / 中国药理学与毒理学杂志

The treatment and signaling pathway regulation effects of kidney- tonifying traditional Chinese medicine on osteoporosis have been widely studied, but without a systematic summary currently. This review comprehensively collected and analyzed the traditional Chinese medicine on the treatment and signaling pathway regulation of osteoporosis in recent ten years, such as Epimedium, Drynariae Rhizoma, Cnidium, Eucommia, Psoralen and Dipsacus. Based on the existing findings, we concluded the following conclusions: (1) kidney-tonifying traditional Chinese medicine treats osteoporosis mainly through BMP-Smads, Wnt/β-catenin, MAPK, PI3K/AKT signaling pathway to promote osteoblast bone formation and through OPG/RANKL/RANK, estrogen, CTSK signaling pathway to inhibit osteo?clasts of bone resorption. ① Epimedium, Drynariae Rhizoma, Cnidium and Psoralen up-regulate the key proteins and genes of BMP-Smads and Wnt/β-catenin signaling pathways to promote bone formation.② Epimedium, Drynariae Rhizoma, Cnidium, Eucommia, Psoralen, Dipsacusinhibit the bone resorption by mediating the OPG/RANKL/RANK signaling pathway. (2) Kidney-tonifying traditional Chinese medicine prevent and treat osteoporosis through a variety of ways: Icariin, Naringin, Osthol, Psoralen can regulate BMP-Smads, Wnt/β-catenin signaling pathway to promote bone formation, but also activate OPG/RANKL/RANK, CTSK and other signaling pathway to inhibit bone resorption. (3) The crosstalk of the signaling pathways and the animal experiments of the traditional Chinese medicine on the prevention and treatment of osteoporosis as well as their multi-target mechanism and comprehensive regulation need further clarification.