Serum Cadmium Levels and Risk of Metabolic Syndrome: A Cross-Sectional Study.

The increase in the prevalence of metabolic disorders globally is becoming a public health concern. Previous studies have reported an association between environmental exposures to hazardous substances, including various heavy metals, and the risk for metabolic syndrome. However, reports on the contributions of cadmium (Cd) to the risk for obesity and diabetes remain inconsistent. This study aims to investigate an association between serum Cd levels (SCL) and diabesity and dyslipidemia risk scores. A total of 140 subjects were identified from a public academic institution in Lebanon. Socio-demographic information, diabesity, and obesity risk scores were determined using an interview-based adapted FINDRISC questionnaire and analysis of an acquired blood sample. SCL was quantified using inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS). The statistical analysis relied on a chi-squared test and multivariate logistic regression models, along with checks for confounders and effect modifiers. Our results showed a Cd geometric mean of 4.04 µg/L (± 2.5). High SCL was significantly associated with higher dyslipidemia risk (OR: 3.05 [95% CI: 1.19-7.86], P = 0.02), even after adjusting for confounders. However, SCL did not show a statistically significant association with diabetes and obesity outcomes. Elevated SCL increases the risk of dyslipidemia and alters the blood lipid profile. In addition, our findings do not support a role for Cd in diabesity.

Diagnostic accuracy of the Finnish Diabetes Risk Score for the prediction of undiagnosed type 2 diabetes, prediabetes, and metabolic syndrome in the Lebanese University.

BACKGROUND: Risk scores were mainly proved to predict undiagnosed type 2 diabetes mellitus (UT2DM) in a non-invasive manner and to guide earlier clinical treatment. The objective of the present study was to assess the performance of the Finnish Diabetes Risk Score (FINDRISC) for detecting three outcomes: UT2DM, prediabetes, and the metabolic syndrome (MS). METHODS: This was a prospective, cross-sectional study during which employees aged between 30 and 64, with no known diabetes and working within the faculties of the Lebanese University (LU) were conveniently recruited. Participants completed the FINDRISC questionnaire and their glucose levels were examined using both fasting blood glucose (FBG) and oral glucose tolerance tests (OGTT). Furthermore, they underwent lipid profile tests with anthropometry. RESULTS: Of 713 subjects, 397 subjects (55.2% female; 44.8% male) completed the blood tests and thus were considered as the sample population. 7.6% had UT2DM, 22.9% prediabetes and 35.8% had MS, where men had higher prevalence than women for these 3 outcomes (P = 0.001, P = 0.003 and P = 0.001) respectively. The AUROC value with 95% Confidence Interval (CI) for detecting UT2DM was 0.795 (0.822 in men and 0.725 in women), 0.621(0.648 in men and 0.59 in women) for prediabetes and 0.710 (0.734 in men and 0.705 in women) for MS. The correspondent optimal cut-off point for UT2DM was 11.5 (sensitivity = 83.3% and specificity = 61.3%), 9.5 for prediabetes (sensitivity = 73.6% and specificity = 43.1%) and 10.5 (sensitivity = 69.7%; specificity = 56.5%) for MS. CONCLUSION: The FINDRISC can be considered a simple, quick, inexpensive, and non-invasive instrument to use in a Lebanese community of working people who are unaware of their health status and who usually report being extremely busy because of their daily hectic work for the screening of UT2DM and MS. However, it poorly screens for prediabetes in this context.

Genetic polymorphisms of PPAR genes and human cancers: evidence for gene-environment interactions.

Peroxisome proliferator-activated receptors (PPARs) are nuclear transcription factors that play a role in lipid metabolism, cell proliferation, terminal differentiation, apoptosis, and inflammation. Although several cancer models have been suggested to explain PPARs' involvement in tumorigenesis, however, their role is still unclear. In this review, we examined associations of the different PPARs, polymorphisms and various types of cancer with a focus on gene-environment interactions. Reviewed evidence suggests that functional genetic variants of the different PPARs may modulate the relationship between environmental exposure and cancer risk. In addition, this report unveils the scarcity of reliable quantitative environmental exposure data when examining these interactions, and the current gaps in studying gene-environment interactions in many types of cancer, particularly colorectal, prostate, and bladder cancers.

Impact of ion-pairs for the determination of multiclass antimicrobials residues in honey by LC-MS/MS.

This study examines the behaviour of volatile perfluorinated carboxylic acids used as ion-pairing reagents for the separation of multiclass antimicrobial residues in honey (tetracyclines, sulphonamides, macrolides, and aminoglycosides). Heptafluorobutanoic acid and pentafluoropentanoic acid were compared as mobile phase additives at concentrations of 0-20 mmol.L-1 using reversed-phase chromatography. Our objective was to find optimal conditions that enable the separation of antimicrobials with a minimum loss in sensitivity and efficiency. The influence of ion pairing on chromatographic performance was examined. Results showed that heptafluorobutanoic acid was able to separate aminoglycosides faster and more efficiently than pentafluoropentanoic acid, but at low concentrations of heptafluorobutanoic acid between 2.5 and 5 mM, tetracyclines showed poor chromatographic efficiency. A concentration of 10 mM was found to be optimal for all studied veterinary drugs. The method was then applied to determine multiclass antimicrobial residues in honey. Based on validation data, the mean recoveries of analytes ranged between 93% and 104%, and the intermediate precisions were <21%. The decision limit (CCα) and detection capability (CCß) were in the ranges of 5-25 and 7-33 µg kg-1, respectively. The method was found to be suitable for use in analysis of veterinary drugs with a broader group of compounds found in food-producing animals.

Innovative SPE-LC-MS/MS technique for the assessment of 63 pharmaceuticals and the detection of antibiotic-resistant-bacteria: A case study natural water sources in Lebanon.

A powerful analytical method for simultaneous determination of 63 pharmaceuticals and some metabolites in aqueous samples has been developed. The list of compounds amenable to the methods includes different therapeutic classes belonging to antibiotics, stimulants, antidepressants, mucolytics, and antiparasites. The method involves concentration and clean up by an offline solid phase extraction SPE followed by liquid chromatography coupled to tandem mass spectrometry (LC-ESI-MS/MS). The recovery of the target compounds from water samples was most efficient on Waters Oasis HLB SPE cartridge, while acetonitrile/water (60/40) was shown to be the most suitable solvent for desorbing the compounds from SPE. In addition, acidification of samples prior to SPE was optimized to enhance the recovery of the compounds. In terms of method validation, the recoveries of analytes ranged from 68% to 134%. Repeatability and intermediate precision were <11% and 14%, respectively. The method detection limits ranged from 2.3ngL-1 to 94.3ngL-1. An optimized method was applied in a monitoring program to study the occurrence of pharmaceuticals to more than hundred samples collected from rivers, lakes, fountains, and wells overall Lebanon from April to June 2016. Caffeine, erythromycin and its degradation forms, were the most frequently detected compounds at levels reaching >10,000ngL-1 and 2000ngL-1, respectively. Moreover, bacterial analysis showed that the samples were contaminated by Escherichia coli (23%), intestinal Enterococcus (48%) and Pseudomonas aeruginosa (27%). Therefore, in order to evaluate if a correlation exists between finding antibiotics in water samples and the development of resistant-bacteria, an antimicrobial susceptibility test was conducted to the identified isolates using disk diffusion method. Multiple-antibiotic-resistant strains in both intestinal Enterococcus and E. coli were evident in many water samples, while P. aeruginosa was resistant to only one studied antibiotic.

Changes in plastid proteome and structure in arbuscular mycorrhizal roots display a nutrient starvation signature.

During arbuscular mycorrhizal symbiosis, arbuscule-containing root cortex cells display a proliferation of plastids, a feature usually ascribed to an increased plant anabolism despite the lack of studies focusing on purified root plastids. In this study, we investigated mycorrhiza-induced changes in plastidic pathways by performing a label-free comparative subcellular quantitative proteomic analysis targeted on plastid-enriched fractions isolated from Medicago truncatula roots, coupled to a cytological analysis of plastid structure. We identified 490 root plastid protein candidates, among which 79 changed in abundance upon mycorrhization, as inferred from spectral counting. According to cross-species sequence homology searches, the mycorrhiza-responsive proteome was enriched in proteins experimentally localized in thylakoids, whereas it was depleted of proteins ascribed predominantly to amyloplasts. Consistently, the analysis of plastid morphology using transmission electron microscopy indicated that starch depletion associated with the proliferation of membrane-free and tubular membrane-containing plastids was a feature specific to arbusculated cells. The loss of enzymes involved in carbon/nitrogen assimilation and provision of reducing power, coupled to macromolecule degradation events in the plastid-enriched fraction of mycorrhizal roots that paralleled lack of starch accumulation in arbusculated cells, lead us to propose that arbuscule functioning elicits a nutrient starvation and an oxidative stress signature that may prime arbuscule breakdown.

Influence of arbuscular mycorrhizal colonisation on cadmium induced Medicago truncatula root isoflavonoid accumulation.

Cadmium is a serious environmental pollution threats to the planet. Its accumulation in plants affects many cellular functions, resulting in growth and development inhibition, whose mechanisms are not fully understood. However, some fungi forming arbuscular mycorrhizal symbiosis with the majority of plant species have the capacity to buffer the deleterious effect of this heavy metal. In the present work we investigated the capacity of Rhizophagus irregularis (syn. Glomus irregularis) to alleviate cadmium stress in Medicago truncatula. In spite of a reduction in all mycorrhizal parameters, plants colonized for 21 days by R. irregularis and treated by 2 mg kg⁻¹ cadmium displayed less growth inhibition in comparison to plants grown without cadmium. Cadmium strongly increased the accumulation of some isoflavonoids and their derivates: formononetin, malonylononin, medicarpin 3-O-ß-(6'-malonylglucoside), medicarpin and coumestrol. Interestingly, in plants colonized by R. irregularis we noticed a strong reduction of the cadmium-induced accumulation of root isoflavonoids, a part for medicarpin and coumestrol. Moreover, transcripts of chalcone reductase, a protein that we reported previously as being down-regulated in R. irregularis-colonized M. truncatula roots, revealed a similar expression pattern with a strong increase in response to cadmium and a reduced expression in cadmium-treated mycorrhizal roots.

Proteomic analysis of Medicago truncatula root plastids.

Despite the recognized importance of non-photosynthetic plastids in a wide array of plant processes, the root plastid proteome of soil-grown plants still remains to be explored. In this study, we used a protocol allowing the isolation of Medicago truncatula root plastids with sufficient protein recovery and purity for their subsequent in-depth analysis by nanoscale capillary LC-MS/MS. Besides providing the first picture of a root plastid proteome, the results obtained highlighted the identification of 266 protein candidates whose functional distribution mainly resembled that of wheat endosperm amyloplasts and tobacco proplastids together with displaying major differences to those reported for chloroplasts. Most of the identified proteins have a role in nucleic acid-related processes (16%), carbohydrate (15%) and nitrogen/sulphur (12%) metabolisms together with stress response mechanisms (10%). It is noteworthy that BLAST searches performed against the proteins reported in different plastidomes allowed detecting 30 putative root plastid proteins for which homologues were previously unsuspected as plastid-located, most of them displaying a common putative role in participating in the plant cell responses against abiotic and/or biotic stresses. Taken together, the data obtained provide new insights into the functioning of root plastids and reinforce the emerging idea for an important role of these organelles in sustaining plant defence reactions.