👤 Anna Maria Masci

Childhood obesity is associated with alterations in lipoprotein metabolism and increased oxidative stress, assessed by lipid peroxidation products, reactive oxygen species (ROS) and nitric oxide (NO) levels, oxidized/reduced glutathione (GSH/GSSG) ratio, and the activities of superoxide dismutase (SOD) and catalase. High-density lipoproteins (HDL) play an antioxidant role, conditioned by cholesteryl ester transfer protein (CETP), paraoxonase (PON) 1, lecithin:cholesterol acyltransferase (LCAT), lipoprotein-associated phospholipase A This study aims to evaluate HDL antioxidant capacity in children and adolescents with obesity and the status of its conditioning factors. Thirty children and adolescents, 15 with obesity and 15 normal-weight controls were studied in a cross-sectional observational study. Lipid profile and high-sensitivity C-reactive protein were assessed using standardized methods. Lipid peroxidation products, ROS, NO, GSH and GSSG levels, and catalase, SOD, CETP, LCAT, PON 1 (PON and arylesterase [ARE]) and Lp-PLA Children with obesity showed lower HDL cholesterol and apo A-I levels (P < .01), reduced CETP (P < .05), ARE (Lp-PLA Children and adolescents with obesity exhibited reduced HDL antioxidant activity, alterations in its conditioning factors, intrinsic oxidative modification of HDL particles, and increased oxidative stress. These alterations may affect long-term cardiovascular risk in children and adolescents with obesity. Show less

Vaccines stimulate various immune factors critical to protective immune responses. However, a comprehensive picture of vaccine-induced immune factors and pathways have not been systematically collected and analyzed. To address this issue, we developed VaximmutorDB, a web-based database system of vaccine immune factors (abbreviated as "vaximmutors") manually curated from peer-reviewed articles. VaximmutorDB currently stores 1,740 vaccine immune factors from 13 host species (e.g., human, mouse, and pig). These vaximmutors were induced by 154 vaccines for 46 pathogens. Top 10 vaximmutors include three antibodies (IgG, IgG2a and IgG1), Th1 immune factors (IFN-γ and IL-2), Th2 immune factors (IL-4 and IL-6), TNF-α, CASP-1, and TLR8. Many enriched host processes (e.g., stimulatory C-type lectin receptor signaling pathway, SRP-dependent cotranslational protein targeting to membrane) and cellular components (e.g., extracellular exosome, nucleoplasm) by all the vaximmutors were identified. Using influenza as a model, live attenuated and killed inactivated influenza vaccines stimulate many shared pathways such as signaling of many interleukins (including IL-1, IL-4, IL-6, IL-13, IL-20, and IL-27), interferon signaling, MARK1 activation, and neutrophil degranulation. However, they also present their unique response patterns. While live attenuated influenza vaccine FluMist induced significant signal transduction responses, killed inactivated influenza vaccine Fluarix induced significant metabolism of protein responses. Two different Yellow Fever vaccine (YF-Vax) studies resulted in overlapping gene lists; however, they shared more portions of pathways than gene lists. Interestingly, live attenuated YF-Vax simulates significant metabolism of protein responses, which was similar to the pattern induced by killed inactivated Fluarix. A user-friendly web interface was generated to access, browse and search the VaximmutorDB database information. As the first web-based database of vaccine immune factors, VaximmutorDB provides systematical collection, standardization, storage, and analysis of experimentally verified vaccine immune factors, supporting better understanding of protective vaccine immunity. Show less