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Unmet needs exist in metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease (MASLD) risk stratification. Our ability to identify patients with MASLD with advanced fibrosis and at higher risk for adverse outcomes is still limited. Incorporating novel biomarkers could represent a meaningful improvement to current risk predictors. With this aim, omics technologies have revolutionized the process of MASLD biomarker discovery over the past decades. While the research in this field is thriving, much of the publication has been haphazard, often using single-omics data and specimen sets of convenience, with many identified candidate biomarkers but lacking clinical validation and utility. If we incorporate these biomarkers to direct patients' management, it should be considered that the roadmap for translating a newly discovered omics-based signature to an actual, analytically valid test useful in MASLD clinical practice is rigorous and, therefore, not easily accomplished. This article presents an overview of this area's current state, the conceivable opportunities and challenges of omics-based laboratory diagnostics, and a roadmap for improving MASLD biomarker research., Competing Interests: Conflict-of-interest statement: Authors declare no conflict of interests for this article., (©The Author(s) 2024. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.)

Interactions between communities of the gut microbiome and with the host could affect the onset and progression of metabolic associated fatty liver disease (MAFLD), and can be useful as new diagnostic and prognostic biomarkers. In this study, we performed a multi-omics approach to unravel gut microbiome signatures from 32 biopsy-proven patients (10 simple steatosis -SS- and 22 steatohepatitis -SH-) and 19 healthy volunteers (HV). Human and microbial transcripts were differentially identified between groups (MAFLD vs. HV/SH vs. SS), and analyzed for weighted correlation networks together with previously detected metabolites from the same set of samples. We observed that expression of Desulfobacteraceae bacterium, methanogenic archaea, Mushu phage, opportunistic pathogenic fungi Fusarium proliferatum and Candida sorbophila, protozoa Blastocystis spp. and Fonticula alba were upregulated in MAFLD and SH. Desulfobacteraceae bacterium and Mushu phage were hub species in the onset of MAFLD, whereas the activity of Fonticula alba, Faecalibacterium prausnitzii, and Mushu phage act as key regulators of the progression to SH. A combination of clinical, metabolomic, and transcriptomic parameters showed the highest predictive capacity for MAFLD and SH (AUC = 0.96). In conclusion, faecal microbiome markers from several community members contribute to the switch in signatures characteristic of MAFLD and its progression towards SH., (© 2023 Wiley-VCH GmbH.)

HTLV-1 and HTLV-2 are present in different high-risk populations, such as sexual workers and injecting drug users (IDUs). HTLV-1 is endemic in areas of Middle East, Southern Japan and Latin America, whereas HTLV-2 infection is endemic among some Native Americans and some Central African tribes. The pathogenic consequences and clinical manifestations of these two viruses differ significantly, demanding an adequate identification; therefore, proper diagnosis of HTLV-1 and 2 infection is crucial. To get a final diagnosis of HTLV-1 or 2 infection, it is recommended that positive serologic samples should be confirmed by PCR assays or western blot (WB) analysis. Thus, the aim of this study was to develop and implement a simple reaction for the rapid identification of HTLV-1 and 2. Nested real-time PCR technique followed by high resolution melting was performed based on the tax/rex sequences of HTLV-1 (M2) and HTLV-2 (MoT) cell lines perfectly discriminating between HTLV-1 from HTLV-2, by distinct melting curve profiles. The sensitivity assay of this method revealed that at least 1 viral copy of HTLV-1 or 1·5 viral copy of HTLV-2 could be amplified. Later, this method was validated using 200 blood samples from corpses. In agreement with previous epidemiological, the HTLV-1 and 2 prevalence was 1·5% (CI 95%: 0·31-4·3) and 0·5% (CI 95%: 0·013-2·75), respectively. The strategy proposed herein has some advantages over other PCR-based tests because it not only reduces considerably time and the costs of the total diagnosis but also allows detection and discrimination of HTLV-1 and 2 in the same reaction., (© 2022 The Society for Applied Microbiology.)

The COVID-19 pandemic poses a great challenge to global public health. The extraordinary daily use of household disinfectants and cleaning products, social distancing and the loss of everyday situations that allow contact between individuals, have a direct impact on the transfer of microorganisms within the population. Together, these changes, in addition to those that occur in eating habits, can affect the composition and diversity of the gut microbiota. A two-time point analysis of the fecal microbiota of 23 Metropolitan Buenos Aires (BA) inhabitants was carried out, to compare pre-pandemic data and its variation during preventive and compulsory social isolation (PCSI) in 2020. To this end, 23 healthy subjects, who were previously studied by our group in 2016, were recruited for a second time during the COVID-19 pandemic, and stool samples were collected from each subject at each time point ( n = 46). The hypervariable region V3-V4 of the 16S rRNA gene was high-throughput sequenced. We found significant differences in the estimated number of observed features ( p < 0.001), Shannon entropy index ( p = 0.026) and in Faith phylogenetic diversity ( p < 0.001) between pre-pandemic group (PPG) vs. pandemic group (PG), being significantly lower in the PG. Although no strong change was observed in the core microbiota between the groups in this study, a significant decrease was observed during PCSI in the phylum Verrucomicrobia, which contributes to intestinal health and glucose homeostasis. Microbial community structure (beta diversity) was also compared between PPG and PG. The differences observed in the microbiota structure by unweighted UniFrac PCoA could be explained by six differential abundant genera that were absent during PCSI. Furthermore, putative functional genes prediction using PICRUSt infers a smaller predicted prevalence of genes in the intestinal tryptophan, glycine-betaine, taurine, benzoate degradation, as well as in the synthesis of vitamin B12 during PCSI. This data supports the hypothesis that the microbiome of the inhabitants of BA changed in the context of isolation during PCSI. Therefore, these results could increase the knowledge necessary to propose strategic nutraceutical, functional food, probiotics or similar interventions that contribute to improving public health in the post-pandemic era., Competing Interests: The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2022 Aguilera, Mascardi, Belforte, Rosso, Quesada, Llovet, Iraola, Trinks and Penas-Steinhardt.)