Gastrointestinal weight-loss surgery: glimpses at the molecular level

IFN-γ Drives Human Monocyte Differentiation into Highly Proinflammatory Macrophages That Resemble a Phenotype Relevant to Psoriasis

As key cells of the immune system, macrophages coordinate the activation and regulation of the immune response. Macrophages present a complex phenotype that can vary from homeostatic, proinflammatory, and profibrotic to anti-inflammatory phenotypes. The factors that drive the differentiation from monocyte to macrophage largely define the resultant phenotype, as has been shown by the differences found in M-CSF- and GM-CSF-derived macrophages. We explored alternative inflammatory mediators that could be used for in vitro differentiation of human monocytes into macrophages. IFN-γ is a potent inflammatory mediator produced by lymphocytes in disease and infections. We used IFN-γ to differentiate human monocytes into macrophages and characterized the cells at a functional and proteomic level. IFN-γ alone was sufficient to generate macrophages (IFN-γ Mϕ) that were phagocytic and responsive to polarization. We demonstrate that IFN-γ Mϕ are potent activators of T lymphocytes that produce IL-17 and IFN-γ. We identified potential markers (GBP-1, IP-10, IL-12p70, and IL-23) of IFN-γ Mϕ and demonstrate that these markers are enriched in the skin of patients with inflamed psoriasis. Collectively, we show that IFN-γ can drive human monocyte to macrophage differentiation, leading to bona fide macrophages with inflammatory characteristics.

Surgical treatment of nonalcoholic fatty liver disease in severely obese patients

Obesity is a multi-organ system disease with underlying metabolic abnormalities and chronic systemic inflammation. Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is a hepatic manifestation of obesity metabolic dysfunction and its associated cardiovascular- and liver-related morbidities and mortality. Our current understanding of NAFLD pathogenesis, disease characteristics, the role of insulin resistance, chronic inflammation, gut–liver and gut–brain crosstalk and the effectiveness of pharmacotherapy is still evolving. Bariatric surgery significantly improves metabolic and NAFLD histology in severely obese patients, although its positive effects on fibrosis are not universal. Bariatric surgery benefits NAFLD through its metabolic effect on insulin resistance, inflammation, and insulinotropic and anorexinogenic gastrointestinal hormones. Further studies are needed to understand the natural course of NAFLD in severely obese patients and the role of weight loss surgery as a primary treatment for NAFLD.

Integrative clinical transcriptomics analyses for new therapeutic intervention strategies: a psoriasis case study

Psoriasis is a chronic inflammatory skin disease with complex pathological features and unmet pharmacotherapy needs. Here, we present a framework for developing new therapeutic intervention strategies for psoriasis by utilizing publicly available clinical transcriptomics data sets. By exploring the underlying molecular mechanisms of psoriasis, the effects of subsequent perturbation of these mechanisms by drugs and an integrative analysis, we propose a psoriasis disease signature, identify potential drug repurposing opportunities and present novel target selection methodologies. We anticipate that the outlined methodology or similar approaches will further support biomarker discovery and the development of new drugs for psoriasis.

Mining emerging biomedical literature for understanding disease associations in drug discovery

Systematically evaluating the exponentially growing body of scientific literature has become a critical task that every drug discovery organization must engage in in order to understand emerging trends for scientific investment and strategy development. Developing trends analysis uses the number of publications within a 3-year window to determine concepts derived from well-established disease and gene ontologies to aid in recognizing and predicting emerging areas of scientific discoveries relevant to that space. In this chapter, we describe such a method and use obesity and psoriasis as use-case examples by analyzing the frequency of disease-related MeSH terms in PubMed abstracts over time. We share how our system can be used to predict emerging trends at a relatively early stage and we analyze the literature-identified genes for genetic associations, druggability, and biological pathways to explore any potential biological connections between the two diseases that could be utilized for drug discovery.