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BACKGROUND: Although the influence of microbial invasion of the amniotic cavity on the development of spontaneous preterm delivery is unquestionable, the use of an invasive procedure to diagnose the status of an infection limits its clinical translation. OBJECTIVE: This study aimed to use exploratory and confirmatory analyses to investigate the presence of vaginal metabolome expression of microbial invasion of the amniotic cavity in women diagnosed as having preterm labor using high-performance liquid chromatography. STUDY DESIGN: In 140 women with singleton pregnancies and a diagnosis of preterm labor at

Metabolomics offers systematic identification and quantification of all metabolic products from the human body. This field could provide clinicians with new sets of diagnostic biomarkers for disease states in addition to quantifying treatment response to medications at an individualised level. This literature review aims to highlight the technology underpinning metabolic profiling, identify potential applications of metabolomics in clinical practice and discuss the translational challenges that the field faces. We searched PubMed, Medline and Embase for primary and secondary research articles regarding clinical applications of metabolomics. Metabolic profiling can be performed using mass spectrometry and NMR based techniques using a variety of biological samples. This is carried out in vivo or in vitro following careful sample collection, preparation and analysis. The potential clinical applications constitute disruptive innovations in their respective specialities, particularly oncology and metabolic medicine. Outstanding issues currently preventing widespread clinical use centre around scalability of data interpretation, standardisation of sample handling practice and e-infrastructure. Routine utilisation of metabolomics at a patient and population level will constitute an integral part of future healthcare provision.

Platinum-based chemotherapy persists to be the only effective therapeutic option against a wide variety of tumours. Nevertheless, the acquisition of platinum resistance is utterly common, ultimately cornering conventional platinum drugs to only palliative in many patients. Thus, encountering alternatives that are both effective and non-cross-resistant is urgent. In this work, we report the synthesis, reduction studies and luminescent properties of a series of cyclometallated (C,N,N') PtIV compounds derived from amine-imine ligands, and their remarkable efficacy at the high nanomolar range and complete lack of cross-resistance, as an intrinsic property of the platinacycle, against multiplatinum-resistant colorectal cancer (CRC) and castration-resistant prostate cancer (CRPC) metastatic cell lines generated for this work. We have also determined that the compounds are effective and selective for a broader cancer panel, including breast and lung cancer. Additionally, selected compounds have been further evaluated, finding a shift in their antiproliferative mechanism towards more cytotoxic and less cytostatic than cisplatin against cancer cells, being also able to oxidize cysteine residues and inhibit topoisomerase II, thereby holding great promise as future improved alternatives to conventional platinum drugs.

The synthesis of three new cyclometallated platinum(ii) compounds containing a para-tolyl ligand and a tridentate [C,N,N'] (cm1) or a bidentate [C,N] ligand and an additional ligand such as SEt2 (cm2) or PPh3 (cm3) is reported. The X-ray molecular structure of platinum(ii) compound cm3 is also presented. Intermolecular oxidative addition of methyl iodide or iodine upon cm1, cm2 and cm3 produced six novel cyclometallated platinum(iv) compounds. The cytotoxic activity against a panel of human adenocarcinoma cell lines (A-549 lung, MDA-MB-231 and MCF-7 breast, and HCT-116 colon), DNA interaction, topoisomerase I, IIa, and cathepsin B inhibition, and cell cycle arrest, apoptosis and ROS generation of the investigated complexes are presented. The best results for antiproliferative activity were obtained for platinum(iv) compounds cm1MeI and cm1I2 arising from oxidative addition of methyl iodide and iodine, respectively, to cm1. Cyclometallated platinum(iv) compounds cm1MeI and cm3MeI induce significant changes in the mobility of DNA and, in addition, cm1MeI, cm3MeI and cm1I2, showed considerable topoisomerase IIa inhibitory activity. Moreover, the compounds exhibiting the higher antiproliferative activity (cm1MeI and cm1I2) were found to generate ROS and to supress HCT-116 colon cancer cell growth by a mixture of cell cycle arrest and apoptosis induction. 1H NMR experiments carried out in a buffered aqueous medium (pH 7.40) indicate that compound cm1MeI is not reduced by common biologically relevant reducing agents such as ascorbic acid, glutathione or cysteine.

The synthesis of six novel cyclometallated platinum(iv) iodido complexes is accomplished by intermolecular oxidative addition of methyl iodide (compounds 2a-2c) or iodine (compounds 3a-3c) upon cyclometallated platinum(ii) compounds [PtX{(CH 3 ) 2 N(CH 2 ) 3 NCH(4-ClC 6 H 3 )}] (1a-1c: X = Cl, CH 3 or I). The X-ray molecular structures of platinum(ii) compound 1c and platinum(iv) compounds 3b and 3a' (an isomer of 3a) are reported. The cytotoxic activity against a panel of human adenocarcinoma cell lines (A-549 lung, MDA-MB-231 and MCF-7 breast, and HCT-116 colon), DNA interaction, topoisomerase I, IIa, and cathepsin B inhibition, and cell cycle arrest, apoptosis and ROS generation of the investigated complexes are presented. Remarkable antiproliferative activity was observed for most of the synthesized cycloplatinated compounds (series 1-3) in all the selected carcinoma cell lines. The best inhibition was provided for the octahedral platinum(iv) compounds 2a-2c exhibiting a methyl and an iodido axial ligand. Preliminary biological results point to a different mechanism of action for the investigated compounds. Cyclometallated platinum(ii) compounds 1a-1c modify the DNA migration as cisplatin. In contrast, cyclometallated platinum(iv) compounds 2a-2c and 3a-3c did not modify the DNA tertiary structure neither in the absence nor in the presence of ascorbic acid, which made them incapable of reducing platinum(iv) compounds 2b and 2c in a buffered aqueous medium (pH 7.40) according to 1 H NMR experiments. Remarkable topoisomerase IIa inhibitory activity is reported for platinum(iv) complexes 2b and 3a and in addition, for the last one, a moderate cathepsin B inhibition is reported. Cell cycle arrest (decrease in G0/G1 and G2 phases and arrest in the S phase), induction of apoptosis and ROS generation are related to the antiproliferative activity of some representative octahedral cyclometallated platinum(iv) compounds (2b and 2c).

We are grateful to the proteomics community for sharing their experiences from their meeting “The future of proteomics in ELIXIR” on March 1–2 2017 in Tübingen, allowing us to build on this and organise our workshop as a one-day event.The meeting was funded by PhenoMeNal, European Commission's Horizon2020 programme, grant agreement number 654241; Metabolomics, the youngest of the major omics technologies, is supported by an active community of researchers and infrastructure developers across Europe. To coordinate and focus efforts around infrastructure building for metabolomics within Europe, a workshop on the "Future of metabolomics in ELIXIR" was organised at Frankfurt Airport in Germany. This one-day strategic workshop involved representatives of ELIXIR Nodes, members of the PhenoMeNal consortium developing an e-infrastructure that supports workflow-based metabolomics analysis pipelines, and experts from the international metabolomics community. The workshop established metabolite identification as the critical area, where a maximal impact of computational metabolomics and data management on other fields could be achieved. In particular, the existing four ELIXIR Use Cases, where the metabolomics community - both industry and academia - would benefit most, and which could be exhaustively mapped onto the current five ELIXIR Platforms were discussed. This opinion article is a call for support for a new ELIXIR metabolomics Use Case, which aligns with and complements the existing and planned ELIXIR Platforms and Use Cases

Systems biology takes an interdisciplinary approach to the systematic study of complex interactions in biological systems. This approach seeks to decipher the emergent behaviors of complex systems rather than focusing only on their constituent properties. As an increasing number of examples illustrate the value of systems biology approaches to understand the initiation, progression, and treatment of cancer, systems biologists from across Europe and the United States hope for changes in the way their field is currently perceived among cancer researchers. In a recent EU-US workshop, supported by the European Commission, the German Federal Ministry for Education and Research, and the National Cancer Institute of the NIH, the participants discussed the strengths, weaknesses, hurdles, and opportunities in cancer systems biology.

A series of cyclometallated platinum(IV) compounds (3a, 3a' and 3b') with a meridional [C,N,N'] terdentate ligand, featuring an halido and an aryl group in the axial positions has been evaluated for electrochemical reduction and preliminary biological behavior against a panel of human adenocarcinoma (A-549 lung, HCT-116 colon, and MCF-7 breast) cell lines and the normal bronquial epithelial BEAS-2B cells. Cathodic reduction potentials (shifting from -1.463 to -1.570V) reveal that the platinum(IV) compounds under study would be highly reluctant to be reduced in a biological environment. Actually ascorbic acid was not able to reduce complex 3a', the most prone to be reduced according its reduction potential, over a period of one week. These results suggest an intrinsic activity for the investigated platinum(IV) complexes (3a, 3a' and 3b'), which exhibit a remarkable cytotoxicity effectiveness (with IC50 values in the low micromolar range), even greater than that of cisplatin. The IC50 for A-549 lung cells and clog P values were found to follow the same trend: 3b'>3a'>3a. However, no correlation was observed between reduction potential and in vitro activity. As a representative example, cyclometallated platinum(IV) compound 3a', exercise its antiproliferative activity directly over non-microcytic A-549 lung cancer cells through a mixture of cell cycle arrest (13% arrest at G1 phase and 46% arrest at G2 phase) and apoptosis induction (increase of early apoptosis by 30 times with regard to control). To gain further insights into the mode of action of the investigated platinum(IV) complexes, drug uptake, cathepsin B inhibition and ROS generation were also evaluated. Interestingly an increased ROS generation could be related with the antiproliferative activity of the cyclometallated platinum(IV) series under study in the cisplatin-resistant A-549 lung and HCT-116 cancer cell lines.

The effects of pre-incubation with mercury (Hg

The effects of pre-incubation with mercury (Hg2+) and cadmium (Cd2+) on the activities of individual glycolytic enzymes, on the flux and on internal metabolite concentrations of the upper part of glycolysis were investigated in mouse muscle extracts. In the range of metal concentrations analysed we found that only hexokinase and phosphofructokinase, the enzymes that shared the control of the flux, were inhibited by Hg2+ and Cd2+. The concentrations of the internal metabolites glucose-6-phosphate and fructose-6-phosphate did not change significantly when Hg2+ and Cd2+ were added. A mathematical model was constructed to explore the mechanisms of inhibition of Hg2+ and Cd2+ on hexokinase and phosphofructokinase. Equations derived from detailed mechanistic models for each inhibition were fitted to the experimental data. In a concentration-dependent manner these equations describe the observed inhibition of enzyme activity. Under the conditions analysed, the integral model showed that the simultaneous inhibition of hexokinase and phosphofructokinase explains the observation that the concentrations of glucose-6-phosphate and fructose-6-phosphate did not change as the heavy metals decreased the glycolytic flux.

The study of the reactivity of (1S,2R) [(?(5)-C(5)H(5))Fe{[(?(5)-C(5)H(4)) CHNCH(Me)CH(OH)C(6)H(5)}] (1a) with cis-[PtCl(2)(DMSO)(2)] under different experimental conditions has allowed to isolate and characterize three pairs of isomeric and diastereomerically pure platinum(II) complexes. Two of the pairs are the trans- and cis- isomers of (1S,2R)[Pt{(?(5)-C(5)H(5))Fe[(?(5)-C(5)H(4))CHNCH(Me)CH(OH)C(6)H(5)]}Cl(2)(DMSO)] [trans-(2a) and cis-(3a), respectively], and of (1S,2R) [Pt{(?(2)-N,O)(?(5)-C(5)H(5))Fe[(?(5)-C(5)H(4))CHNCH(Me)CH(O)C(6)H(5)]}Cl(DMSO)], {trans-(Cl, N) in (4a)} or a cis-(Cl, N) {in (5a)}; while the third one is formed by platinacycles: [Pt{(?(2)-C,N[(?(5)-C(5)H(3))]CHN-CH(Me)CH(OH)C(6)H(5)]Fe(?(5)-C(5)H(5))}Cl(DMSO)] with different planar chirality [S(p) (in 6a) or R(p) (in 7a)]. The crystal structures of compounds 2a, 3a, 5a and 6a are also reported. The cytotoxic assessment of 1a-7a on lung (A549), breast (MDA-MB-231) and colon (HCT-116) cancer cell lines is also reported and reveals that the potency of the complexes is strongly dependent on the mode of binding of the iminoalcohol {(N) in 2a and 3a, (N,O)(-) in 4a and 5a or (C,N)(-) in 6a and 7a}, the relative arrangement of the monodentate ligands (in 2a-5a), and the planar chirality of the 1,2-ferrocenylunit in (6a and 7a). Among the new products (2a-7a), compounds 4a and 5a exhibit the highest potency with IC(50) values smaller than cisplatin in the three cancer cell lines assayed. Electrophoretic DNA migration studies in the presence of 2a-7a have been performed in order to get further insights into their mechanism of action. A comparative study of the solution behaviour of all the complexes in DMSO-d(6) or in DMSO-d(6):D(2)O (1:1) mixtures at 298 K is also reported.