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Medicines associated with folate-homocysteine-methionine pathway disruption.
Vidmar, M, Grželj, J, Mlinarič-Raščan, I, Geršak, K, Dolenc, MS
Archives of toxicology. 2019;(2):227-251
Abstract
Folate is vital for cell development and growth. It is involved in one-carbon transfer reactions essential for the synthesis of purines and pyrimidines. It also acts in conjunction with cobalamin (vitamin B12) as a fundamental cofactor in the remethylation cycle that converts homocysteine to methionine. A deficiency in folate or vitamin B12 can lead to elevated homocysteine level, which has been identified as an independent risk factor in several health-related conditions. Adequate folate levels are essential in women of childbearing age and in pregnant women, and folate deficiency is associated with several congenital malformations. Low folate levels can be caused by dietary deficiencies, a genetic predisposition or treatment with medicines that affect folate concentration. Women who are pregnant or of child-bearing age commonly use medicines, so it is important to identify the basic biochemical mechanisms by which medicines interfere with the folate-homocysteine-methionine pathway. This review focuses on prescription medicines associated with folate disruption. It also summarizes their undesirable/toxic effects. Recommendations regarding folate supplementation during medical therapy are also reviewed.
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Hyperhomocysteinaemia and the risk of recurrent venous thrombosis: results from the MEGA follow-up study.
Hensen, ADO, Lijfering, WM, Cannegieter, SC, Rosendaal, FR, van Hylckama Vlieg, A
British journal of haematology. 2019;(2):219-226
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Abstract
The measurement of homocysteine is still part of routine thrombosis or thrombophilia work-up in many thrombosis centres in the world. Previous observational studies have shown that hyperhomocysteinaemia is associated with an increased risk of first and recurrent venous thrombosis (VT). Randomised trials, however, showed no benefit of homocysteine-lowering therapy on the risk of first or recurrent VT. This discrepancy could be explained by incomplete adjustment for confounders in the observational studies. We investigated in a large population-based follow-up study whether if the levels of homocysteine and its metabolites, methionine and cysteine, were associated with recurrent VT. Approximately three months after discontinuation of anticoagulant treatment, homocysteine, methionine and cysteine concentrations were measured in 2210 patients with VT. During a median follow-up of 6·9 years, 340 patients developed a recurrence (incidence rate, 2·8/100 patient-years). We found that elevated homocysteine concentrations were not associated with an increased risk of recurrent VT, neither as a continuous variable per 5 μmol/l increase (hazard ratio [HR] 0·98 (95% confidence interval [CI], 0·90-1·04)) nor when levels were >95th (>23·0 μmol/l) percentile (HR 1·03 (95% CI, 0·65-1·64)). Similar results were obtained for cysteine and methionine values. We conclude that hyperhomocysteinaemia is not associated with an increased risk of recurrent VT.
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Associations between XRCC3 Thr241Met polymorphisms and breast cancer risk: systematic-review and meta-analysis of 55 case-control studies.
Dashti, S, Taherian-Esfahani, Z, Keshtkar, A, Ghafouri-Fard, S
BMC medical genetics. 2019;(1):79
Abstract
BACKGROUND The X-ray repair cross-complementing group 3 (XRCC3) is an efficient component of homologous recombination and is required for the preservation of chromosomal integrity in mammalian cells. The association between Thr241Met single-nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) in this gene and susceptibility to breast cancer has been assessed in several studies. Yet, reports are controversial. The present meta-analysis has been designed to identify whether this SNP is associated with susceptibility to breast cancer. METHODS We performed a systematic review and meta-analysis for retrieving the case-control studies on the associations between T241 M SNP and the risk of breast cancer. Crude odds ratios (ORs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) were calculated to verify the association in dominant, recessive, and homozygote inheritance models. RESULTS We included 55 studies containing 30,966 sporadic breast cancer cases, 1174 familial breast cancer cases and 32,890 controls in the meta-analysis. In crude analyses, no association was detected between the mentioned SNP and breast cancer risk in recessive, homozygote or dominant models. However, ethnic based analysis showed that in sporadic breast cancer, the SNP was associated with breast cancer risk in Arab populations in homozygous (OR (95% CI) = 3.649 (2.029-6.563), p = 0.0001) and recessive models (OR (95% CI) = 4.092 (1.806-9.271), p = 0.001). The association was significant in Asian population in dominant model (OR (95% CI) = 1.296, p = 0.029). However, the associations was significant in familial breast cancer in mixed ethnic-based subgroup in homozygote and recessive models (OR (95% CI) = 0.451 (0.309-0.659), p = 0.0001, OR (95% CI) = 0.462 (0.298-0.716), p = 0.001 respectively). CONCLUSIONS Taken together, our results in a large sample of both sporadic and familial cases of breast cancer showed insignificant role of Thr241Met in the pathogenesis of this type of malignancy. Such results were more conclusive in sporadic cases. In familial cases, future studies are needed to verify our results.
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Pilot Phase I Clinical Trial of Methioninase on High-Stage Cancer Patients: Rapid Depletion of Circulating Methionine.
Hoffman, RM, Tan, Y, Li, S, Han, Q, Zavala, J, Zavala, J
Methods in molecular biology (Clifton, N.J.). 2019;:231-242
Abstract
Methionine (MET) has been shown to be a tumor-selective therapeutic target for cancer, since cancer cells require higher amounts of MET to divide and survive than normal cells. This phenomena is known as MET dependence and is probably due to MET overuse by cancer cells. A pilot clinical trial was initially carried out with non-recombinant METase (METase) produced from Pseudomonas putida and subsequently highly purified. No acute clinical toxicity was observed for any criteria measured in the three patients. The depletion of serum MET started within 30 min of the infusion and was maintained for 4 h after the infusion was completed in patient 1 and patient 2. The lowest serum MET levels were 35% and 19% of the pretreatment level, respectively, in patient 1 and patient 2. Patient 3 received a 10 h i.v. infusion of METase without any sign of side effects. MET was depleted over 200-fold from 23.1 to 0.1 μM by the 10-h infusion of patient 3. No clinical toxicity was observed in any criteria measured in patient 3. Subsequently, another pilot Phase I clinical trial was carried out of serum MET depletion in cancer patients by recombinant METase (rMETase) cloned from Pseudomonas putida and produced in E. coli. Patients with advanced breast cancer, lung cancer, renal cancer, and lymphoma were given a single rMETase treatment at doses ranging from 5000 to 20,000 units by i.v. infusion over 6-24 h. No clinical toxicity was observed in any patient after rMETase treatment. rMETase levels were measured at 0.1 to 0.4 units per ml of serum in the patients which correspond to therapeutic levels in vitro. The lowest serum MET levels in rMETase-treated patients were 0.1% of the pretreatment levels corresponding to approximately 0.1 μM, which also correlates to therapeutic levels in vitro as well as in vivo. The results of the METase and rMETase pilot Phase I clinical trials therefore indicate that i.v. infusion of rMETase is safe and effectively depletes its biochemical target of serum MET, suggesting potential efficacy in future clinical trials.
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Endoplasmic reticulum aminopeptidase 1 polymorphism Ile276Met is associated with atopic dermatitis and affects the generation of an HLA-C associated antigenic epitope in vitro.
Niepiekło-Miniewska, W, Mpakali, A, Stratikos, E, Matusiak, Ł, Narbutt, J, Lesiak, A, Kuna, P, Wilczyńska, K, Nowak, I, Wiśniewski, A, et al
Journal of the European Academy of Dermatology and Venereology : JEADV. 2019;(5):906-911
Abstract
BACKGROUND Atopic dermatitis (AD) is a common inflammatory skin disease of complex aetiology, with interactions between susceptibility genes and environmental factors. We have previously described a protective effect of the KIR2DS1 gene encoding the natural killer cell receptor, whose ligands are HLA-C molecules. Here, we found an association of HLA-C*05:01 allele with AD. KIR-HLA-C interactions are affected by peptides presented by HLA-C. The generation of these peptides is strongly influenced by endoplasmic reticulum aminopeptidases 1 and 2 (ERAP1 and ERAP2). Expression and activity of ERAP molecules depend on the polymorphisms of their genes. OBJECTIVE Possible associations of several single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in the ERAP1 and ERAP2 genes with susceptibility to AD. METHODS Peripheral blood DNA isolation from 318 patients and 549 controls. PCR-SSO or PCR-SSP for HLA-C typing; TaqMan Genotyping Assay for ERAP typing. RESULTS Only one SNP in the ERAP1 gene, rs26618T>C, causing the amino acid change Ile276Met, had an association with AD. To gain insight on the functional role of this SNP, we produced recombinant variants differing only at position 276 (Ile or Met) and tested their aminopeptidase activity against a N-terminally extended precursor LIVDRPVTLV of the HLA-C*05:01 epitope IVDRPVTLV. Both ERAP1 variants were able to efficiently generate the epitope, although the 276Ile allotype was able to do this about 50% faster. Furthermore, both variants were quite inefficient in further degradation of the mature epitope. Finally, we found that the effect of 276Met on susceptibility to AD was seen only in KIR2DS1-negative individuals, not protected by this KIR. CONCLUSION Associations of HLA-C*05:01 allele and rs26618T>C (Ile276Met) ERAP1 polymorphism with AD, and a significant difference between these two ERAP1 variants in their ability to generate an epitope for the HLA-C*05:01 molecule was found.
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Genetic variants in RUNX3, AMD1 and MSRA in the methionine metabolic pathway and survival in nonsmall cell lung cancer patients.
Chen, K, Liu, H, Liu, Z, Luo, S, Patz, EF, Moorman, PG, Su, L, Shen, S, Christiani, DC, Wei, Q
International journal of cancer. 2019;(3):621-631
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Abstract
Abnormal methionine dependence in cancer cells has led to methionine restriction as a potential therapeutic strategy. We hypothesized that genetic variants involved in methionine-metabolic genes are associated with survival in nonsmall cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients. Therefore, we investigated associations of 16,378 common single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in 97 methionine-metabolic pathway genes with overall survival (OS) in NSCLC patients using genotyping data from two published genome-wide association study (GWAS) datasets. In the single-locus analysis, 1,005 SNPs were significantly associated with NSCLC OS (p < 0.05 and false-positive report probability < 0.2) in the discovery dataset. Three SNPs (RUNX3 rs7553295 G > T, AMD1 rs1279590 G > A and MSRA rs73534533 C > A) were replicated in the validation dataset, and their meta-analysis showed an adjusted hazards ratio [HR] of 0.82 [95% confidence interval (CI) =0.75-0.89] and pmeta = 2.86 × 10-6 , 0.81 (0.73-0.91) and pmeta = 4.63 × 10-4 , and 0.77 (0.68-0.89) and pmeta = 2.07 × 10-4 , respectively). A genetic score of protective genotypes of these three SNPs revealed an increased OS in a dose-response manner (ptrend < 0.0001). Further expression quantitative trait loci (eQTL) analysis showed significant associations between these genotypes and mRNA expression levels. Moreover, differential expression analysis further supported a tumor-suppressive effect of MSRA, with lower mRNA levels in both lung squamous carcinoma and adenocarcinoma (p < 0.0001 and < 0.0001, respectively) than in adjacent normal tissues. Additionally, low mutation rates of these three genes indicated the critical roles of these functional SNPs in cancer progression. Taken together, these genetic variants of methionine-metabolic pathway genes may be promising predictors of survival in NSCLC patients.
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In-vivo imaging of methionine metabolism in patients with suspected malignant pleural mesothelioma.
Lopci, E, Novellis, P, Testori, A, Rahal, D, Voulaz, E, Bottoni, E, Ferraroli, GM, Crepaldi, A, Ceresoli, GL, Perrino, M, et al
Nuclear medicine communications. 2019;(11):1179-1186
Abstract
OBJECTIVES In-vivo characterization of malignant pleural mesothelioma (MPM) with C-methionine PET/computed tomography (MET PET). METHODS Between September 2014 and February 2016, 30 consecutive patients with clinical suspicion of MPM were prospectively recruited. The study was approved and registered at www.clinicaltrials.gov (NCT02519049). Patients were evaluated at baseline with MET PET (experimental) and fluorine-18 fluorodeoxyglucose PET/computed tomography (FDG PET) (standard). Principal parameters analyzed were SUVmax, SUVmean, metabolic tumor volume (MTV), and metabolic tumor burden (MTB = MTV ×SUVmean). The reference standard for diagnostic performance was based on histology. RESULTS The presence of malignancy was confirmed in 29/30 patients: 23 (76.6%) with MPM (20 epithelioid, two biphasic, and one sarcomatoid), five (16.6%) with adenocarcinoma of the lung, and one (3.3%) with an undifferentiated carcinoma. In one case, diagnosis was benign pleural inflammation. All tumors showed increased uptake of C-methionine: median SUVmax, SUVmean, MTV, and MTB were, respectively, 5.70 [95% confidence interval (CI): 4.51-6.79], 3.15 (95% CI: 2.71-3.40), 33.85 (95% CI: 14.08-66.64), and 105.25 (95% CI: 41.77-215.25). Pathology data revealed MTV and MTB to be significantly higher in nonepithelioid histology (P < 0.05). The other parameters showed a homogeneous distribution across the tumor types. Overall, MET PET identified 49 lymph nodes, compared with 34 nodes on FDG PET, demonstrating a sensitivity of 91% (95% CI: 80-96%), a positive predictive value of 92% (95% CI: 82- 97%), and an accuracy of 85% (P = 0.0042). CONCLUSIONS MET PET is able to characterize MPM lesions regardless of histology. This technique shows higher sensitivity than FDG PET for the identification of secondary lymph nodes.
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Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) - biomarkers of oxidative stress and methylation and transsulfuration cycle.
Waligóra, A, Waligóra, S, Kozarska, M, Damasiewicz-Bodzek, A, Gorczyca, P, Tyrpień-Golder, K
Psychiatria polska. 2019;(4):771-788
Abstract
Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) affects people from all regions of the globe, regardless of nationality, living standards or social group. Currently, it is assumed that ASD pathogenesis is multifactorial because there is no one specific cause of the disorder. According to literature, ASD may result from genetic defects, metabolic disorders or exposure to environmental factors. There is a number of hypotheses that attempt to explain the intensity of emotional and behavioral symptoms or the increased sensory threshold that is characteristic of ASD. It is suggested that neurological changes may be due to oxidative stress occurring in early brain tissue development and reduced antioxidative barrier. Due to the abnormalities in the synthesis of neurotransmitters, often occurring in ASD, autism is investigated for disorders of vital biochemical processes of methylation and transsulfuration. Finding a biomarker for a disturbed oxidative-reduction equilibrium, methylation pathway pathology, or other reason could be an important diagnostic tool and the base for individual treatment for patients with varying degrees of severity. This work provides a review of the potential biological indicators for ASD taking into account the occurrence of oxidative stress and the methylation and transsulfuration cycles.
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Double-blind placebo-controlled multicenter phase II trial to evaluate D-methionine in preventing/reducing oral mucositis induced by radiation and chemotherapy for head and neck cancer.
Hamstra, DA, Lee, KC, Eisbruch, A, Sunkara, P, Borgonha, S, Phillip, B, Campbell, KCM, Ross, BD, Rehemtulla, A
Head & neck. 2018;(7):1375-1388
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BACKGROUND The purpose of this study was to test if oral D-methionine (D-met) reduced mucositis during chemoradiotherapy. METHODS We conducted a placebo-controlled double-blind randomized phase II trial of D-met (100 mg/kg p.o. b.i.d.) testing the rate of severe (grades 3-4) mucositis. RESULTS Sixty patients were randomized. Grade 2 + oral pain was higher with placebo (79% vs 45%; P = .0165), whereas grade 2 + body odor was greater with D-met (3% vs 41%; P = .0015). Mucositis was decreased with D-met by the physician (World Health Organization [WHO], P = .007; Radiation Therapy Oncology Group [RTOG], P = .009) and patient functional scales (RTOG, P = .0023). The primary end point of grades 3 to 4 mucositis on the composite scale demonstrated a decrease with D-met (48% vs 24%; P = .058), which was borderline in significance. A planned secondary analysis of a semiquantitative scoring system noted decreased oral ulceration (2.2 vs 1.5; P = .023) and erythema (1.6 vs 1.1; P = .048) with D-met. CONCLUSION Although not meeting the primary end point, results of multiple assessments suggest that D-met decreased mucositis.
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Methionine oxidation by hydrogen peroxide in peptides and proteins: A theoretical and Raman spectroscopy study.
Sjöberg, B, Foley, S, Cardey, B, Fromm, M, Enescu, M
Journal of photochemistry and photobiology. B, Biology. 2018;:95-99
Abstract
The oxidation of proteins results in their deterioration via the oxidation of reactive amino acids. Oxidation of the amino acid, methionine plays an important role during biological conditions of oxidative stress, and equally a role in protein stability. In this study the oxidation of the methionine residue using the tripeptide GlyMetGly with respect to hydrogen peroxide has been studied using both Raman spectroscopy and DFT calculations. Spectral modifications following the formation of methionine sulfoxide are shown with the appearance of the SO vibration whilst there is also the modification of the CS vibrations at approximately 700 cm-1. The changes in the intensity of the CS stretching band were used to calculate the kinetic rate constant as 7.9 ± 0.6 × 10-3 dm3 mol-1 s-1. The energy barrier for the reaction. is determined both experimentally and using DFT calculations. The reaction of the dairy protein beta-lactoglobulin with hydrogen peroxide is equally studied using the same technique. The solvent accessible surface area of the methionine residues within the protein were also determined and a comparison of the reaction rate constant and the energy barriers of reaction for the oxidation of the tripeptide and for the protein respectively thus, provides information about the role of the protein environment in the oxidation process.