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International Journal of... Mar 2017Psychiatric evaluation presents a significant challenge because it conceptually integrates the input from multiple psychopathological approaches. Recent technological... (Review)
Review
Psychiatric evaluation presents a significant challenge because it conceptually integrates the input from multiple psychopathological approaches. Recent technological advances in the study of protein structure, function, and interactions have provided a breakthrough in the diagnosis and treatment of mood disorders (MD), and have identified novel biomarkers to be used as indicators of normal and disease states or response to drug treatment. The investigation of biomarkers for psychiatric disorders, such as enzymes (catechol-O-methyl transferase and monoamine oxidases) or neurotransmitters (dopamine, serotonin, norepinephrine) and their receptors, particularly their involvement in neuroendocrine activity, brain structure, and function, and response to psychotropic drugs, should facilitate the diagnosis of MD. In clinical settings, prognostic biomarkers may be revealed by analyzing serum, saliva, and/or the cerebrospinal fluid, which should promote timely diagnosis and personalized treatment. The mechanisms underlying the activity of most currently used drugs are based on the functional regulation of proteins, including receptors, enzymes, and metabolic factors. In this study, we analyzed recent advances in the identification of biomarkers for MD, which could be used for the timely diagnosis, treatment stratification, and prediction of clinical outcomes.
Topics: Biomarkers; Humans; Mood Disorders; Proteomics
PubMed: 27903845
DOI: 10.1177/0394632016681017 -
The Journal of Steroid Biochemistry and... Jun 2019Adrenal steroidogenesis is a robust process, involving a series of enzymatic reactions that facilitate conversion of cholesterol into biologically active steroid... (Review)
Review
Adrenal steroidogenesis is a robust process, involving a series of enzymatic reactions that facilitate conversion of cholesterol into biologically active steroid hormones under the stimulation of angiotensin II, adrenocorticotropic hormone and other regulators. The biosynthesis of mineralocorticoids, glucocorticoids, and adrenal-derived androgens occur in separate adrenocortical zones as a result of the segregated expression of steroidogenic enzymes and cofactors. This mini review provides the principles of adrenal steroidogenesis, including the classic and under-appreciated 11-oxygenated androgen pathways. Several adrenal diseases result from dysregulated adrenal steroid synthesis. Herein, we review growing evidence that adrenal diseases exhibit characteristic modifications from normal adrenal steroid pathways that provide opportunities for the discovery of biomarker steroids that would improve diagnosis and monitoring of adrenal disorders.
Topics: Adrenal Gland Diseases; Adrenal Glands; Biomarkers; Biosynthetic Pathways; Humans; Steroids
PubMed: 30707926
DOI: 10.1016/j.jsbmb.2019.01.018 -
Lab on a Chip Oct 2012Cellular mechanical properties have been observed to have important implications for pathogenesis and pathophysiology. These observations have led to the recent... (Review)
Review
Cellular mechanical properties have been observed to have important implications for pathogenesis and pathophysiology. These observations have led to the recent development of a unique class of biomarkers: mechanical biomarkers. Compared with the traditional biochemical-based biomarkers (e.g., antibodies), mechanical biomarkers have many advantages such as label-free, low cost, convenient maintenance, and reduced assay time. In the past few years, there has been an increasing effort to exploit cellular mechanical biomarkers in microfluidic devices. This trend makes sense because microfluidic devices often feature structures that have characteristic lengths similar to those of cells, which renders them uniquely capable of probing and utilizing mechanical biomarkers. In this Focus article, we discuss a few examples of mechanical biomarker-based microfluidic applications. We believe that these examples are just the tip of the iceberg and that the full potential of mechanical biomarkers in microfluidic-based diagnostics and therapeutics has yet to be revealed.
Topics: Animals; Antibodies; Biomarkers; Humans; Microfluidic Analytical Techniques
PubMed: 22968689
DOI: 10.1039/c2lc90100e -
Journal of Cancer Research and... Apr 2023A biomarker is a measurable indicator used to distinguish precisely/objectively either normal biological state/pathological condition/response to a specific therapeutic... (Review)
Review
A biomarker is a measurable indicator used to distinguish precisely/objectively either normal biological state/pathological condition/response to a specific therapeutic intervention. The use of novel molecular biomarkers within evidence-based medicine may improve the diagnosis/treatment of disease, improve health outcomes, and reduce the disease's socio-economic impact. Presently cancer biomarkers are the backbone of therapy, with greater efficacy and better survival rates. Cancer biomarkers are extensively used to treat cancer and monitor the disease's progress, drug response, relapses, and drug resistance. The highest percent of all biomarkers explored are in the domain of cancer. Extensive research using various methods/tissues is carried out for identifying biomarkers for early detection, which has been mostly unsuccessful. The quantitative/qualitative detection of various biomarkers in different tissues should ideally be done in accordance with qualification rules laid down by the Early Detection Research Network (EDRN), Program for the Assessment of Clinical Cancer Tests (PACCT), and National Academy of Clinical Biochemistry. Many biomarkers are presently under investigation, but lacunae lie in the biomarker's sensitivity and specificity. An ideal biomarker should be quantifiable, reliable, of considerable high/low expression, correlate with the outcome progression, cost-effective, and consistent across gender and ethnic groups. Further, we also highlight that these biomarkers' application remains questionable in childhood malignancies due to the lack of reference values in the pediatric population. The development of a cancer biomarker stands very challenging due to its complexity and sensitivity/resistance to the therapy. In past decades, the cross-talks between molecular pathways have been targeted to study the nature of cancer. To generate sensitive and specific biomarkers representing the pathogenesis of specific cancer, predicting the treatment responses and outcomes would necessitate inclusion of multiple biomarkers.
Topics: Child; Humans; Biomarkers, Tumor; Neoplasms; Biomarkers; Cost-Effectiveness Analysis
PubMed: 37147979
DOI: 10.4103/jcrt.jcrt_384_22 -
Neurotherapeutics : the Journal of the... Jan 2017Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a highly heterogeneous disease with no effective treatment. Drug development has been hampered by the lack of biomarkers that aid... (Review)
Review
Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a highly heterogeneous disease with no effective treatment. Drug development has been hampered by the lack of biomarkers that aid in early diagnosis, demonstrate target engagement, monitor disease progression, and can serve as surrogate endpoints to assess the efficacy of treatments. Fluid-based biomarkers may potentially address these issues. An ideal biomarker should exhibit high specificity and sensitivity for distinguishing ALS from control (appropriate disease mimics and other neurologic diseases) populations and monitor disease progression within individual patients. Significant progress has been made using cerebrospinal fluid, serum, and plasma in the search for ALS biomarkers, with urine and saliva biomarkers still in earlier stages of development. A few of these biomarker candidates have demonstrated use in patient stratification, predicting disease course (fast vs slow progression) and severity, or have been used in preclinical and clinical applications. However, while ALS biomarker discovery has seen tremendous advancements in the last decade, validating biomarkers and moving them towards the clinic remains more elusive. In this review, we highlight biomarkers that are moving towards clinical utility and the challenges that remain in order to implement biomarkers at all stages of the ALS drug development process.
Topics: Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis; Biomarkers; Disease Progression; Humans
PubMed: 27933485
DOI: 10.1007/s13311-016-0503-x -
Analytical Sciences : the International... 2017Liquid chromatography coupled with mass spectrometry (LC-MS) is one of the most prominent analytical techniques due to its inherent selectivity and sensitivity. LC-MS is... (Review)
Review
Liquid chromatography coupled with mass spectrometry (LC-MS) is one of the most prominent analytical techniques due to its inherent selectivity and sensitivity. LC-MS is currently the first choice for high-throughput bioanalysis due to the advancements in MS instruments and the analytical software. Based on this situation, we are developing various types of derivatization reagents, including chiral reagents for MS and/or MS/MS detection. These developed reagents are adopted for the detection of biomarker candidates related to diseases. The biomarker candidates include not only achiral molecules, but also chiral ones. Although determining the already-identified chiral molecules is relative easy, it is very difficult to identify and/or determine unknown enantiomer(s) in real samples. To solve this difficulty, we proposed a new strategy to identify unknown enantiomeric biomarkers related to diseases. This review paper deals with the development of derivatization reagents for amines and carboxylic acids in LC-MS analysis and their application to bioanalysis.
Topics: Amines; Biological Assay; Biomarkers; Carboxylic Acids; Chromatography, High Pressure Liquid; High-Throughput Screening Assays; Mass Spectrometry
PubMed: 28496058
DOI: 10.2116/analsci.33.555 -
Bioanalysis Jun 2018
Topics: Biological Assay; Biomarkers; Calibration; Pharmacokinetics; Reproducibility of Results; Validation Studies as Topic
PubMed: 29923751
DOI: 10.4155/bio-2017-0284 -
Genomics, Proteomics & Bioinformatics Aug 2015Psoriasis is one of the most prevalent autoimmune skin diseases. However, its etiology and pathogenesis are still unclear. Over the last decade, omics-based technologies... (Review)
Review
Psoriasis is one of the most prevalent autoimmune skin diseases. However, its etiology and pathogenesis are still unclear. Over the last decade, omics-based technologies have been extensively utilized for biomarker discovery. As a result, some promising markers for psoriasis have been identified at the genome, transcriptome, proteome, and metabolome level. These discoveries have provided new insights into the underlying molecular mechanisms and signaling pathways in psoriasis pathogenesis. More importantly, some of these markers may prove useful in the diagnosis of psoriasis and in the prediction of disease progression once they have been validated. In this review, we summarize the most recent findings in psoriasis biomarker discovery. In addition, we will discuss several emerging technologies and their potential for novel biomarker discovery and diagnostics for psoriasis.
Topics: Autoimmune Diseases; Biomarkers; Humans; Metabolome; Proteome; Psoriasis; Transcriptome
PubMed: 26362816
DOI: 10.1016/j.gpb.2015.04.002 -
The Journal of Nutrition Mar 2022Dietary biomarkers measured in biospecimens can play an important role in correcting for random and systematic measurement error in self-reported nutrient intake when...
BACKGROUND
Dietary biomarkers measured in biospecimens can play an important role in correcting for random and systematic measurement error in self-reported nutrient intake when assessing diet-disease associations. To date, high-quality biomarkers for calibrating self-reported dietary intake have only been developed for a few nutrients.
OBJECTIVES
To investigate new study designs and regression calibration approaches for calibrating self-reported nutrient intake for use in disease association analyses.
METHODS
We studied 3 regression calibration approaches: 1) an existing approach built on a calibration cohort assuming the existence of an objective biomarker (i.e., biomarker with random independent measurement error), 2) a proposed approach using a biomarker development cohort, and 3) a proposed 2-stage approach using both cohorts. We conducted simulation studies to compare the performance of different study designs/methods for estimating diet-disease associations and applied suitable methods to examine the association of sodium and potassium intake with cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk in Women's Health Initiative cohorts.
RESULTS
Simulation studies showed that the first approach can lead to biased association estimation when the objective biomarker assumption is violated; the second and third proposed approaches obviate the need for such an objective biomarker. Precision for estimating the association depends critically on sample size of the biomarker development cohort and the strength of the self-reported nutrient intake. Analyses based on the second and third approaches support previously reported significant findings using the first approach about associations of the ratio of sodium to potassium intake with CVD risk while providing efficiency gain for some outcomes.
CONCLUSIONS
Self-reported dietary intake needs to be calibrated for measurement error correction in diet-disease association analyses. When there are no existing objective biomarkers that can be used for calibration purpose, controlled feeding studies can be used to develop new biomarkers for use in calibration or can be used to calibrate self-reported dietary intake directly.
Topics: Biomarkers; Cardiovascular Diseases; Diet; Eating; Female; Humans; Potassium; Sodium
PubMed: 34905061
DOI: 10.1093/jn/nxab420 -
PloS One 2016Personalized medicine is a growing area of research which aims to tailor the treatment given to a patient according to one or more personal characteristics. These... (Review)
Review
BACKGROUND
Personalized medicine is a growing area of research which aims to tailor the treatment given to a patient according to one or more personal characteristics. These characteristics can be demographic such as age or gender, or biological such as a genetic or other biomarker. Prior to utilizing a patient's biomarker information in clinical practice, robust testing in terms of analytical validity, clinical validity and clinical utility is necessary. A number of clinical trial designs have been proposed for testing a biomarker's clinical utility, including Phase II and Phase III clinical trials which aim to test the effectiveness of a biomarker-guided approach to treatment; these designs can be broadly classified into adaptive and non-adaptive. While adaptive designs allow planned modifications based on accumulating information during a trial, non-adaptive designs are typically simpler but less flexible.
METHODS AND FINDINGS
We have undertaken a comprehensive review of biomarker-guided adaptive trial designs proposed in the past decade. We have identified eight distinct biomarker-guided adaptive designs and nine variations from 107 studies. Substantial variability has been observed in terms of how trial designs are described and particularly in the terminology used by different authors. We have graphically displayed the current biomarker-guided adaptive trial designs and summarised the characteristics of each design.
CONCLUSIONS
Our in-depth overview provides future researchers with clarity in definition, methodology and terminology for biomarker-guided adaptive trial designs.
Topics: Biomarkers; Clinical Trials, Phase II as Topic; Clinical Trials, Phase III as Topic; Humans; Precision Medicine
PubMed: 26910238
DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0149803