The effect of strength-endurance training on serum and urine metabolic profiles of female adolescent volleyball athletes

Aim

Limited investigations on metabolic responses to exercise training in female adolescent volleyball athletes exist. The aim of this study was to obtain serum and urine metabolite markers in female adolescent volleyball athletes within 2-week strength-endurance training using a metabolomics approach coupled with biochemical analysis, which would be potential biomarkers for evaluating the physiological state of athletes.

Methods

Twelve female adolescent volleyball athletes were recruited for 2-week strength-endurance training. Differential serum and urine metabolic profiles between the pre- and post-training group were obtained on gas chromatography coupled to mass spectrometry (GC-MS) and data subsequently underwent orthogonal partial least-squares analysis (OPLS).

Results

Strength-endurance training exerted a significant influence on the athletes' serum and urine metabolic profiles. The changed metabolites were primarily involved in energy metabolism, lipid metabolism and amino acids metabolism. Results support the hypothesis that female athletes displayed an increased propensity to oxidize lipids as the major energy source. Exposure to strength-endurance training also led to a significant increase in cortisol, but a decrease in testosterone, indicating disordered hormone adjustment. Exercise-induced oxidative stress occurred, as was evidenced by the decrease in reduced glutathione, and increases in blood malondialdehyde and oxidized glutathione. Since the muscle damage markers creatine kinase and lactate dehydrogenase did not show significant changes, the training might not cause cell membrane damage and the athletes did not cross the adaptive injury level.

Conclusion

By measurement of endogenous metabolites, the metabolomics study has the potential to reveal the global physiological changes in response to exercise training.

Prognostic value of inflammation-based markers in advanced or metastatic neuroendocrine tumours

Background

The role of systemic inflammation-based markers remains uncertain in advanced or metastatic neuroendocrine tumours (nets).

Methods

Systemic inflammatory factors, such as levels of circulating white blood cells and other blood components, were combined to yield inflammation-based prognostic scores [high-sensitivity inflammation-based Glasgow prognostic score (hsgps), neutrophil:lymphocyte ratio (nlr), platelet:lymphocyte ratio (plr), high-sensitivity inflammation-based prognostic index (hspi), and prognostic nutritional index (pni)], whose individual values as prognostic markers were retrospectively determined. Univariate and multivariate analyses were used to examine the association of inflammatory markers with overall survival (os).

Results

The study included 135 patients. Univariate analysis revealed that elevated white blood cell count, elevated neutrophil count, low serum albumin, elevated high-sensitivity C-reactive protein, and elevated hspi, hsgps, and nlr scores were significantly associated with worse os. Multivariate analyses demonstrated that, apart from pathology grade and original site of the tumour, elevated hspi (p = 0.004) was an independent prognostic factor for worse os.

Conclusions

In the present study, elevated pretreatment hspi was observed to be an independent predictor of shorter os in patients with inoperable advanced or metastatic net. The hspi might thus provide additional guidance for therapeutic decision-making in such patients.

[Desmocollin-1 significant correlated with the tumorigenesis and prognosis of HNSCC]

Objective:To explore the correlation between the expression of desmocollin1and the tumorigenesis and prognosis of HNSCC.Method:Five datasets of HNSCC from the GEO were analyzed. A tumor tissue microassay was chosen for further test. The expression of DSC1 of TMA was detected by immunohistochemical staining. Result:The expression of DSC1 was significantly increased in HNSCC. Meanwhile, the expression of DSC1 was much higher in poor-differentiated tumor than the welldifferentiated tumor in HNSCC. What's more, the HNSCC patients with lower expression of DSC1 had better outcomes. Conclusion:The results were according with the results of statistical analysis with the bioinformatics data from GEO, indicating that DSC1 significant correlated with the tumorigenesis and prognosis of HNSCC.

Decrease in stereognostic ability of the tongue with age

Rehabilitation of eating and swallowing functions from the viewpoint of quality of life should attempt to restore not only the physical, but also sensory function. As the size and shape of the intra-oral bolus of food provides oral sensory information important for eating and swallowing, we investigated the stereognostic ability of the tongue in 269 young adults (mean age: 24.5 years) and 60 seniors (mean age: 80.5 years); all of whom had no eating or swallowing complaints. Assessment of the stereognostic ability involved identifying 20 differently shaped test pieces placed in the oral cavity. The young adults identified a significantly higher number of differently shaped test pieces than the seniors (mean correct number of responses: 16.5 and 10.1 respectively; P < 0.001). Gender and the presence of palatal covers did not have any significant effect on stereognostic ability. The test pieces were categorized into six groups based on the shape. When the young adults misidentified a piece, they often selected another piece within the same group, almost never selecting a piece from another group. The seniors, however, chose test pieces from different groups. Moreover, to determine whether stereognosis could be improved through training, we conducted training involving four senior subjects in their 80s, who correctly identified 10 or fewer pieces. After the training, the number of correct answers increased significantly (P < 0.05). These findings indicate that seniors show decreased stereognostic ability of the tongue compared with young adults and suggest the possibility of recovering the ability using our training method.

[Changes of NK cell's activity and T lymphocyte subpopulation in peripheral blood of patients with laryngocarcinoma]

OBJECTIVE

By detecting the changes of NK cell's activity and T lymphocyte subpopulation in the peripheral blood of the patients with laryngocarcinoma, the immune function level of the patients could be judged and the prognosis of the patients could be predicted.

METHOD

The NK cell's activity in 47 patients with laryngocarcinoma was tested, and T lymphocyte subpopulation in 35 patients were detected with flow cytometer, and compared with the normal control group of 45 volunteers and the group of 15 patients with polyp of vocal cord.

RESULT

The NK cell's activity in the patients with laryngocarcinoma was lower than both of the normal control group and the polyp of vocal cord patients group, and the more severe was the degree of disease, the lower of the NK cell's activity was. The NK cell's activity in the pharyngocacinoma patients group in the 3-6 days after operation was lower than that in preoperation significantly; in the same time when the NK cell's activity was droping, CD3 and the ratio of CD4/CD8 became lower.

CONCLUSION

By detecting the changes of both NK cell's activity and the T lymphocyte subpopulation in patients with laryngocarcinoma, the immune function level of the patients can be judged objectively, which is of the important clinic significance.

Hydrogen peroxide-induced luminescence and evolution of molecular oxygen in human saliva

Low-level chemiluminescence (CL) appeared on addition of hydrogen peroxide to human saliva and then decayed slowly. Azide (10 microM) inhibited CL by about 50% and deuterium oxide (99.75%) enhanced it about twofold. 1,4-Diazabicyclo[2,2,2]octane (50 mM) and tryptophan (10 mM) were also enhancing, which suggests that singlet oxygen participates in this CL. The optimal pH for CL was around 8.5. Molecular oxygen was produced on addition of hydrogen peroxide to human saliva with a time course similar to that of CL; the optimal pH for oxygen evolution was around 8.0. The levels of SCN- and OSCN- at first decreased and increased, respectively, on addition of hydrogen peroxide and then remained constant as long as the induced CL could be detected. Dithiothreitol (1 mM) and mercaptoethanol (1 mM) completely suppressed CL. Induced CL was observed in saliva dialysed against 10 mM sodium phosphate (pH 7.5). Its intensity was increased by NaSCN, reaching a maximum around 0.1 mM NaSCN in the presence of 0.2 mM hydrogen peroxide. These results suggest that part of the molecular oxygen evolved on addition of hydrogen peroxide to human saliva is in a singlet state and that molecular oxygen is evolved by oxidation of hydrogen peroxide, which may be catalysed by OSCN- bound to salivary peroxidase.