Respiratory and Neurodegenerative Biomarker Discovery, Validation and Diagnosis

A special issue of High-Throughput (ISSN 2571-5135).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (15 March 2019) | Viewed by 3783

Special Issue Editors


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Guest Editor
Department of Biology and Biotechnology “L. Spallanzani”, Universita degli Studi di Pavia, Pavia, Italy
Interests: purification and characterization of enzymes and structural proteins; investigation of the proteome of different tissues/fluids by using the conventional methods of proteomics/metabolomics

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Guest Editor
Department of Molecular Medicine, University of Pavia, Via Taramelli 3, 27100 Pavia, Italy
Interests: purification and characterization of enzymes and structural proteins; investigation of the proteome of different tissues/fluids by using the conventional methods of proteomics/metabolomics

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Ample is the literature evidence that pinpoints neurodegenerative disorders as one of the greatest threats to public health. On the other hand, respiratory diseases also affect humanity, globally, with lung cancer and chronic lung diseases being responsible for extensive morbidity and mortality. Despite both being life-threatening diseases, affected patients often experience significant delay before a definitive diagnosis if symptoms are mild or overlap with other disorders. It follows that an accurate and early diagnosis of pathology would be of crucial importance for these individuals. Recent advances in genomics, proteomics, and metabolomics have generated many candidate biomarkers with clinical value. Being potentially useful, along the whole spectrum of the disease process, biomarkers have gained immense scientific interest as they can be helpful in improving patient outcomes and survival rates. However, despite an explosion of potential biomarkers in diagnosis, prediction, and prognosis, due to the lack of a validation process, only a few of them have made the transition into clinical practice.

The aim of this Special Issue is to attract contributions in the field of neurodegenerative and respiratory pathologies with a special emphasis on the discovery and validation of biomarkers that could be useful for their diagnosis.

Prof. Dr. Paolo Iadarola
Dr. Simona Viglio
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

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Keywords

  • biomarkers
  • pulmonary disorders
  • neurodegenerative disorders

Published Papers (1 paper)

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Research

15 pages, 1344 KiB  
Article
A Pilot Study to Investigate the Balance between Proteases and α1-Antitrypsin in Bronchoalveolar Lavage Fluid of Lung Transplant Recipients
by Maddalena Cagnone, Davide Piloni, Ilaria Ferrarotti, Monica Di Venere, Simona Viglio, Sara Magni, Anna Bardoni, Roberta Salvini, Marco Fumagalli, Paolo Iadarola, Sabrina Martinello and Federica Meloni
High-Throughput 2019, 8(1), 5; https://doi.org/10.3390/ht8010005 - 13 Feb 2019
Cited by 6 | Viewed by 3366
Abstract
The neutrophilic component in bronchiolitis obliterans syndrome (BOS, the main form of chronic lung rejection), plays a crucial role in the pathogenesis and maintenance of the disorder. Human Neutrophil Elastase (HNE), a serine protease responsible of elastin degradation whose action is counteracted by [...] Read more.
The neutrophilic component in bronchiolitis obliterans syndrome (BOS, the main form of chronic lung rejection), plays a crucial role in the pathogenesis and maintenance of the disorder. Human Neutrophil Elastase (HNE), a serine protease responsible of elastin degradation whose action is counteracted by α1-antitrypsin (AAT), a serum inhibitor specific for this protease. This work aimed to investigate the relationship between HNE and AAT in bronchoalveolar lavage fluid (BALf) from stable lung transplant recipients and BOS patients to understand whether the imbalance between proteases and inhibitors is relevant to the development of BOS. To reach this goal a multidisciplinary procedure was applied which included: (i) the use of electrophoresis/western blotting coupled with liquid chromatography-mass spectrometric analysis; (ii) the functional evaluation of the residual antiprotease activity, and (iii) a neutrophil count. The results of these experiments demonstrated, for the first time, the presence of the complex between HNE and AAT in a number of BALf samples. The lack of this complex in a few specimens analyzed was investigated in relation to a patient’s lung inflammation. The neutrophil count and the determination of HNE and AAT activities allowed us to speculate that the presence of the complex correlated with the level of lung inflammation. Full article
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