Dissecting Target Toxic Tissue and Tissue Specific Responses of Irinotecan in Rats Using Metabolomics Approach

Folic acid-chitosan functionalized polymeric nanocarriers to treat colon cancer

In the present study, polymeric nanoparticles loaded with IRI and quercetin, a p-gp inhibitor, were developed to target folate receptors expressed by colon cancer cells for oral targeted delivery. This work reports the development of PNPs with an entrapment efficiency of 41.26 ± 0.56 % for IRI and 55.83 ± 4.51 for QT. PNPs were further surface modified using chitosan-folic acid conjugates for better targetability to obtain folic acid-chitosan coated nanoparticles. DLS and FeSEM revealed particles in the nanometric size range with spherical morphology, while FTIR and DSC provided details on their structure and encapsulation. In vitro drug release studies confirmed a sustained release pattern of IRI and QT, while cell line studies confirmed the superiority of C-FA-PNPs when tested on Caco2 cells. Pharmacodynamic studies in colon cancer induced rats showed similar efficacy for PNPs and C-FA-PNPs. Further examination from a bio-distribution study in healthy rats, revealed the failure of C-FA-PNPs to deliver the drugs to the colon adequately, while the PNPs improved the available concentration of IRI at the colon by almost 1.8 folds when compared to the available marketed product. Hence, the developed PNP formulation sticks out as a plausible substitute for the intravenous dosage forms of IRI which have been conventionally prevailing.

A metabolomics study: Could plasma metabolites be a guide for the prevention of tamsulosin side effects?

BACKGROUND

The understanding of precision medicine, which aims for high efficacy and low toxicity in treatments, has gained more importance with omics technologies. In this study, it was aimed to reach new suggestions for low-toxicity treatment by clarifying the relationship between tamsulosin side effects and metabolome profiles.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

Plasma samples of control and tamsulosin-treated rats were analyzed by LC-Q-TOF/MS/MS. MS/MS data was processed in XCMS software for the identification of metabolite and metabolic pathway analysis. Data were classified with MATLAB 2019b for multivariate data analysis. 34m/z values were found to be significantly different between the drug and control groups (P≤0.01 and fold analysis≥1.5) and identified by comparing METLIN and HMDB databases.

RESULTS

According to multivariate data analysis, α-Linolenic Acid, Thiamine, Retinoic acid, 1.25-Dihydroxyvitamin D3-26.23-Lactone, L-Glutamine, L-Serine, Retinaldehyde, Sphingosine 1-phosphate, L-Lysine, 23S.25-Dihydroxyvitamin D3, Sphinganine, L-Cysteine, Uridine 5'-diphosphate, Calcidiol, L-Tryptophan, L-Alanine levels changed significantly compared to the control group. Differences in the metabolisms of Retinol, Sphingolipid, Alanine-Aspartate-Glutamate, Glutathione, Fatty Acid, Tryptophan, and biosynthesis of Aminoacyl-tRNA, and Unsaturated Fatty Acid have been successfully demonstrated by metabolic pathway analysis. According to our study, vitamin A and D supplements can be recommended to prevent side effects such as asthenia, rhinitis, nasal congestion, dizziness and IFIS in the treatment of tamsulosin. Alteration of aminoacyl-tRNA biosynthesis and sphingolipid metabolism pathways during tamsulosin treatment is effective in the occurrence of nasal congestion.

CONCLUSIONS

Our study provides important information for tamsulosin therapy with high efficacy and low side effects in precision medicine.

NMR-based metabolomics reveals tissue metabolic responses to tetramethoxy gossypol in cottonseed oil

BACKGROUND

Cottonseed oil is one of the most widely consumed cooking oils because of its high nutritional benefits and relatively low price. The present study evaluated the effects of tetramethoxy gossypol (TMG), a rarely reported degradation product of free gossypol produced in crudely extracted cottonseed oil, on the metabolic responses of liver, heart, spleen, kidney and lung tissues in rats using proton nuclear magnetic resonance (¹ H NMR) spectroscopy combined with chemometric and bioinformatics techniques.

RESULTS

Endogenous low-molecular-weight metabolites in rat liver, heart, spleen, kidney and lung tissues were profiled by ¹ H NMR spectroscopy. The unsupervised principal components analysis and the supervised orthogonal partial least squares discriminant analysis revealed that the metabolic profiles in liver samples were greatly changed after TMG administration. Twenty significantly changed liver metabolites were screened out and further evaluated by receiver operating characteristic curve analysis, which were closely related to amino acid, glutathione, energy and lipid metabolism.

CONCLUSION

Concerning the potential chronic exposure to TMG in cottonseed oil and other cottonseed products, the cumulative effects of dietary TMG on tissues, especially the liver, should be noted when improving the quality control standard of cottonseed oil. © 2022 Society of Chemical Industry.

Functional metabolomics reveal the role of AHR/GPR35 mediated kynurenic acid gradient sensing in chemotherapy-induced intestinal damage

Intestinal toxicity induced by chemotherapeutics has become an important reason for the interruption of therapy and withdrawal of approved agents. In this study, we demonstrated that chemotherapeutics-induced intestinal damage were commonly characterized by the sharp upregulation of tryptophan (Trp)−kynurenine (KYN)−kynurenic acid (KA) axis metabolism. Mechanistically, chemotherapy-induced intestinal damage triggered the formation of an interleukin-6 (IL-6)−indoleamine 2,3-dioxygenase 1 (IDO1)−aryl hydrocarbon receptor (AHR) positive feedback loop, which accelerated kynurenine pathway metabolism in gut. Besides, AHR and G protein-coupled receptor 35 (GPR35) negative feedback regulates intestinal damage and inflammation to maintain intestinal integrity and homeostasis through gradually sensing kynurenic acid level in gut and macrophage, respectively. Moreover, based on virtual screening and biological verification, vardenafil and linagliptin as GPR35 and AHR agonists respectively were discovered from 2388 approved drugs. Importantly, the results that vardenafil and linagliptin significantly alleviated chemotherapy-induced intestinal toxicity in vivo suggests that chemotherapeutics combined with the two could be a promising therapeutic strategy for cancer patients in clinic. This work highlights GPR35 and AHR as the guardian of kynurenine pathway metabolism and core component of defense responses against intestinal damage.

Uterine Metabolomics Reveals Protection of Taohong Siwu Decoction Against Abnormal Uterine Bleeding

Incomplete abortion, a procedure for terminating pregnancy, will lead to abnormal uterine bleeding (AUB), infections, and even death. Taohong Siwu decoction (TSD) is a traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) formula, which has been developed to treat AUB for hundreds of years. However, the mechanism of the protective effect of TSD against AUB is not clear. We performed mass spectrometry (MS) of uterine samples to observe metabolic profile resulting from the treatment with TSD. An integrated gas chromatography-mass spectrometry and liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry based untargeted metabolomics approach combined with multivariate statistical analyses were used to investigate the metabolic profile of TSD against AUB. There was clear separation between pregnant and incomplete aborting rats as well as incomplete aborting and TSD administered rats. Based on random forest algorithm and receiver operator characteristic analysis, 12 biomarkers were optimized related to TSD administered. The effect of TSD on AUB are related to several pathways, such as AA metabolism, glyoxylate and dicarboxylate metabolism, alanine, aspartate, and glutamate metabolism. To our knowledge, this is the first uterine metabolomics study focusing on TSD on AUB and provide a new perspective for explaining the mechanism of TSD on AUB.

Prolonged Deleterious Influences of Chemotherapeutic Agent CPT-11 on Resident Peritoneal Macrophages and B1 Cells

CPT-11 is a first-line chemotherapeutic agent for the treatment of colorectal cancer in clinic. Previous studies including ours have demonstrated that CPT-11 is, however, toxic to the intestinal epithelium and resident peritoneal macrophages. By interacting with B1 cells, the resident peritoneal macrophages play critical roles in the maintenance of gastrointestinal homeostasis. It remains therefore elusive whether these peritoneal innate immune cells could be rebuilt spontaneously or artificially after being impaired by CPT-11 administration. In this study, we found that mouse resident peritoneal macrophages, namely the large peritoneal macrophages (LPMs) with a CD11b⁺F4/80^hiGATA6⁺ phenotype, and B1 (CD19⁺CD23⁻) cells were depleted by intraperitoneal (i.p.) CPT-11 treatment within 1 week, but reappeared from day 14 after CPT-11 treatment. However, the recovery processes of these innate immune cells were slow, as their counts could not be fully recovered even 2 months later, when compared with that of vehicle-treated control group. Interestingly, in the peritoneal cavity of the mice treated with CPT-11, the cell counts of LPMs and B1 cells were significantly increased after adoptive transfer with syngeneic peritoneal exudate cells (PECs) from healthy mice. Adoptive transfer with bone marrow cells also slightly increased, although not significantly, the cell counts of LPMs and B1 cells in CPT-11-treated mice. The survival rate of bacterial infected mice was significantly reduced by i.p. CPT-11 treatment in comparison with vehicle-treated or untreated control groups. Besides, oral administration of CPT-11 also had a delayed toxicity on the resident peritoneal macrophages. Our results suggest that CPT-11 has prolonged deleterious effects on peritoneal innate immune cells but adoptive transfer with PECs may accelerate their recovery processes, highlighting the potential of adoptive cell transfer as an avenue to counteract the adverse effects of this chemotherapeutic agent.

Quantitative Evaluation of the Compatibility Effects of Huangqin Decoction on the Treatment of Irinotecan-Induced Gastrointestinal Toxicity Using Untargeted Metabolomics

Huangqin decoction (HQD), a traditional Chinese medicine (TCM), has been widely used to treat gastrointestinal syndrome in China for thousands of years. Chemotherapy drug irinotecan (CPT-11) is used clinically to treat various kinds of cancers but limited by its side effects, especially delayed diarrhea. Nowadays, HQD has been proved to be effective in attenuating the intestinal toxicity induced by CPT-11. HQD consists of four medicinal herbs including Scutellaria baicalensis Georgi, Glycyrrhiza uralensis Fisch, Paeonia lactiflora Pall, and Ziziphus jujuba Mill. Due to its complexity, the role of each herb and the multi-herb synergistic effects of the formula are poorly understood. In order to quantitatively assess the compatibility effects of HQD, mass spectrometry-based untargeted metabolomics studies were performed. The serum metabolic profiles of rats administered with HQD, single S. baicalensis decoction, S. baicalensis-free decoction and baicalin/baicalein combination were compared. A time-dependent trajectory upon principal component analysis was firstly used to visualize the overall differences. Then metabolites deregulation score and relative area under the curve were calculated and used as parameters to quantitatively evaluate the compatibility effects of HQD from the aspect of global metabolic profile and the specifically altered metabolites, respectively. The collective results indicated that S. baicalensis played a crucial role in the therapeutic effect of HQD on irinotecan-induced diarrhea. Both HQD and SS decoction regulated glycine, serine and threonine pathway. This study demonstrated that metabolomics was a promising tool to elucidate the compatibility effects of TCM or combinatorial drugs.