In the present study, profiling of the Moringa oleifera seeds metabolome was carried out by employing proton nuclear magnetic resonance (1H NMR) spectroscopy combined with multivariate data analysis (MVDA) of 3 different solvent extracts. The principal component analysis (PCA) and partial least square-discriminant analysis (PLS-DA) score plot reveal that methanol extract was discriminated from ethyl acetate and hexane extracts by PC1 while ethyl acetate and hexane extracts were well separated from methanol extract by PC2. The PLS-DA loading plot highlighted the potential metabolites, which are responsible for the group separation observed in the score plot. Further detailed examination of the loading plot shows that methanol extract contains significantly higher amount of vitamins, sterols, amino acids and fatty acids compared to the other extracts. A total of 37 compounds were detected from the 3 different solvents upon which the methanolic extract was identified to contain more metabolites and in a wider range than the other organic solvent extracts. Based on PLS analysis, ergosterol, oleic acid, isoleucine, riboflavin, cholesterol, leucine, ascorbic acid, stigmasterol, tryptophan, choline, histidine and cysteine displayed strong correlation to 2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) free radical scavenging activity. Hence, this extract would be more appropriate in metabolite extraction for analysis and for therapeutical benefits. Therefore, NMR spectroscopy combined with MVDA in compliment with the right choice of solvent for extraction could be utilized by applicable industries to obtain maximum valued metabolites within a short period of time. Besides having high diversity of metabolites, M. oleifera seeds can serve as potential nutritional source to develop new functional foods, and even as a source of biodiesel. Key words: Moringa oleifera seeds, functional food, biofuel, metabolome, 2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH), multivariate data analysis, 1H NMR metabolomics.
Taurine is a sulfur-containing amino acid that is converted to a neutral beta-amino acid, chemically known as (2-Amino-ethane sulfonic acid) having chemical formula C2H7NO3S. It was first isolated from Ox bile, and thus derives its name from the Latin word "Taurus", meaning 'ox' or 'bull'. This is the only amino acid that is extensively found in animal tissue. The richest source of taurine is meat whereas fish, human tissue, large intestine, and human breast milk are also good/prime sources. It is present in high concentrations in animal tissues, especially the heart, brain, retina, skeletal muscles, large intestines, plasma, blood cells, and leucocytes. Plant protein is devoid of taurine. It involves many functions from prevention to protection, osmoregulation, conjugation of bile, anti-oxidation, membrane stabilization, and modulation of calcium signaling. Hence it is also known as a poly-functional or wonderful molecule. Taurine is significantly involved in functions of the cardiovascular, skeletal muscle, retina, and the central nervous system. It differs from other neuroprotective amino acids due to the presence of sulfonic acid instead of carboxylic acid, and the presence of sulphonate makes it a strong acid. Dietary taurine is beneficial in treating bone-related disorders, neurodegenerative diseases, obesity, and immunological defense against microbes, through enhancing the metabolism/functions of monocytes, macrophages, and other cells of the immune system. The human body contains about 1% body weight as taurine. In this review, we have made attempts to provide synthesis, chemical, biological function of taurine, which may guide and facilitate further research in this area. Key words: Taurine, spinal cord injury (SCI), taurus, intrauterine growth restriction (IUGR), diabetic peripheral neuropathy (DPN), osmolytes.
Acute spinal cord injury (ASCI) is an extremely overwhelming disease with high morbidity and mortality. Despite significant successes in understanding the pathophysiology of ASCI, little is known about limiting neurological damage and predicting recovery. Biofluid metabolomics by 1H NMR spectroscopy for metabolites quantification specific to nervous tissue injury may determine the injury and progression. This study evaluates the urinary metabolic profile in ASCI cases on two different treatment modalities. One forty participants were enrolled. Group-1, “healthy control, n=70”, ASCI cases in Group-2 “fixation with stem cells therapy, n=35” and ASCI cases in Group-3, “fixation alone n=35”. Urine samples were collected at baseline and regular follow-ups up to the 6th month for 1H NMR spectroscopy. The sample spectra were subjected to multivariate Orthogonal Partial Least Square Discriminant Analysis (OPLS-DA) and Variable Importance to the Projection (VIP) analysis. The significant metabolites were correlated with neurological recovery. Acetate, creatinine, creatine, creatine phosphate, urea, and phenylalanine were found to be significant. The 3D scattered score plots in OPLS-DA represented the shifting of cases towards control in the final follow-up. It was further substantiated on VIP score plots. The metabolic aberrations in urine with disease severity in ASCI could be a potential biomarker of neurological recovery. Key words: NMR spectroscopy, metabolomics, acute spinal cord injury (ASCI), Asia impairment scale (AIS), neurological recovery.
Integrative Next Generation Sequencing (NGS) DNA and RNA analyses have very recently become feasible, and the published to date studies have discovered critical disease implicated pathways, and diagnostic and therapeutic targets.A growing number of exomes, genomes and transcriptomes from the same individual are quickly accumulating, providing unique venues for mechanistic and regulatory features analysis, and, at the same time, requiring new exploration strategies.In this study, we have integrated variation and expression information of four NGS datasets from the same individual: normal and tumor breast exomes and transcriptomes.Focusing on SNPcentered variant allelic prevalence, we illustrate analytical algorithms that can be applied to extract or validate potential regulatory elements, such as expression or growth advantage, imprinting, loss of heterozygosity (LOH), somatic changes, and RNA editing.In addition, we point to some critical elements that might bias the output and recommend alternative measures to maximize the confidence of findings.The need for such strategies is especially recognized within the growing appreciation of the concept of systems biology: integrative exploration of genome and transcriptome features reveal mechanistic and regulatory insights that reach far beyond linear addition of the individual datasets.
Metabolomics captures the cellular chemistry and thereby the ultimate realization of numerous genetic, transcriptional, and enzymatic events. The mechanistic interpretation of small molecules as substrates, intermediates, or products of biochemical action is necessary to place metabolites into the correct physiological context of a system. Therefore, the tight connection between omics technologies and systems biology is vital.
Biological networks are extremely complex objects. Still representation of them remains to be very simple. Here hypothesis representing all regulatory cellular processes as cycles connected to each other is provided. Cycles were introduced as minimal parts of network containing negative feedback loop. All cycles were interconnected between each other by common members of network; it can be gene, protein or metabolite. Gene networks, metabolic networks and signaling cascades were represented as cycles with different characteristic period of oscillations. Dynamical connectivity takes place according to the period of oscillations. The period of high frequency oscillation must be “drawn” into the period of low frequency oscillation at least to avoid destructive interference of oscillations and moreover to maintain low frequency process that is supposed to be circadian rhythm and presumably cell cycle. So, corresponding multi-level model of regulatory networks as a composition of cycles which function as complex modular molecular clocks represented. This model shed light on biological networks at molecular level organizations and dynamics. Key words: Gene network, metabolic network, signaling networks, negative feedback loop, oscillations, molecular clock, circadian rhythm.
Crude metabolite extracts derived from the culture broths of endophytic fungi of five ethno-pharmacologically important plant species used by the ethnic tribes of the hill state of Meghalaya in North-East India were screened for the presence of toxins and secondary metabolites using agar plug paper chromatography, TLC (thin layer chromatography) and LC-MS (liquid chromatography-mass spectroscopy). The endophytic fungal isolates were found to produce a wide range of toxins, growth hormones and antibiotics upon searching in a fungal mycotoxin database. Relatedness among the fungal isolates was determined based upon their extra-cellular metabolite production pattern. The endophytic fungal isolates in the present study showed a wide range of metabolomic diversity and can be explored as potential microbial cell factories for production of a diverse range of biomolecules. Taxonomic relatedness of the endophytes based upon the snapshots of their secretomes, presented a contrasting picture in relation to their morphological identity. Rapid metabolome analysis of endophytic fungi using analytical techniques like LC-MS coupled with mass related search in fungal specific metabolite databases is bound to increase our insights about fungal chemo-taxonomy as a whole and bio-prospection of useful fungal metabolites in particular. Key words: Endophytic fungi, ethnic tribes, medicinal plants, agar plug paper chromatography, TLC, LC-MS, chemo-taxonomy, metabolome.
Acute heat stress may trigger systemic biochemical and physiological changes in living organisms leading to rapid loss of homeostasis. Metabolic regulatory process during heat stress has been poorly understood therefore the present study was undertaken in order to have an insight of alterations in various metabolites due to acute heat stress exposure using nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy. Male sprague-dawley (SD) rats were exposed to acute heat stress of 45±2°C for 3 h and urine samples were collected from control (n=6) and heat stress group (n=6) on day 0 and 1. Metabolites excreted in urine were analyzed using NMR spectroscopy in conjugation with principal component analysis (PCA). The biochemical response to acute heat stress was characterized by decreased levels of citrate, succinate, 2-oxoglutrate, phenylalanine, creatinine, hippurate and elevation in formate levels. Hence, some biological pathways such as tricarboxylic acid (TCA) cycle, catecholamine activity and gut microbiota were transiently affected due to heat stress exposure. NMR based metabonomic studies in conjugation with statistical analysis permits non-invasive and simultaneous monitoring of entire metabolic pathways. This reveals the subtle interplay of functional metabolites and pathways leading to an understanding of the systemic response to external stimuli such as heat stress. These studies form the basis for future studies to detect early biomarkers for heat stress in humans and identifying the population at risk. Furthermore, it can be used to develop methods to provide protection to the body against environmental insult, thereby reducing the adverse response to heat stress. Key words: Heat stress, hyperthermia, nuclear magnetic resonance, spectroscopy, metabonomics, urine.
Sorghum is a promising crop for the animal feed and fuel ethanol production. Presence of cyanide in its biomass, particularly in the tips of young leaves, carries some risk of toxicity to livestock and microbes, especially when at an immature stage of growth, its application may be restricted. The study was carried out at Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi with nine forage sorghum cultivars to determine cyanide content and its detoxification and fermentation. The cyanide content in sorghum biomass varied with the development stages and plant height. It ranged from 5.41 to 6.65 mg/100g at heading (50 to 82 cm height) and gradually decreased at flowering stage (82 to 175 cm height) from 2.75 to 3.46 mg/100 g. The minimum cyanide content was observed at milking (1.68 to 2.66 mg/100g) and dough stage (1.49 to 2.75 mg/100g) when the height was 175 to 220 cm.Saccharomyces cerevisiae strain, NCIM, 3186 was used to carry out fermentation of sorghum juice and found capable of detoxification and reduction of the cyanide content up to 84.6% improving the ethanol yield and fermentation efficiency by 91.8%. Thus, the utilization of sorghum cultivars at milking and dough stage could be considered safe to be for feed and fuel ethanol production. Key words: Cyanide, detoxification, sorghum, Saccharomyces cerevisiae, ethanol yield.
One hundred and sixty four rectal swab samples were collected from 110 live diarrheic piglets and 54 healthy piglets during an investigation on the prevalence of HPI-harboring Escherichia coli (HPI + E. coli) infection associated with porcine diarrhea. The data of polymerase chain reaction (PCR) revealed the presence of HPI + E. coli in 58.18% of swabs taken from diarrheic piglets, while 44.44% of samples taken from healthy pigs were so positive. Further PCR examination of 600 bacterial isolates from diarrheic samples revealed that 25 isolates were HPI +E. coli while 4 (16%) were F4+, 2 (8%) were F4+ and F6+, 2 (8%) were F4+ and F6+, and one (4%) was F6+, LTa+ and STb+. Among the 480 bacterial isolates from non-diarrheic samples, 20 isolates were HPI + E. coli, and only one (5%) was LTa+ and STb+, while absence of isolates belonging to the F4+ and F6+ groups was noted. O138 was the vast prevalent serotype among the HPI +E. coli isolates. It is suggested that HPI + E. coli maybe an opportunistic pathogen in swine. Key words: Escherichia coli, HPI, prevalence, piglet.
Food based strategy’ is used as a tool for combating micronutrient deficiencies. It is also referred as dietary modification, which encompasses a wide variety of intervention that aim at increasing the production, availability and consumption of food products, which are rich in micronutrients. One such food products are green leafy vegetables. There are many varieties of green leafy vegetables which are though rich in micronutrients, but are usually discarded or are not used for human consumption. One such leaf, a rich source of micronutrients but still under exploited is drumstick leaf (Moringa oleifira). The present study was done with the objective to assess the effect of different methods of drying (sun, shade and oven drying) on the nutritive value of the selected leaf with its fresh counterparts. The results showed significant increase (p 0.05). Key words: Moringa oleifira, dehydration, sun drying, shade drying, oven drying, biochemical analysis.
