Omega 3 Fatty Acids and COVID-19: A Comprehensive Review.

The rapid international spread of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 responsible for coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has posed a global health emergency in 2020. It has affected over 52 million people and led to over 1.29 million deaths worldwide, as of November 13th, 2020. Patients diagnosed with COVID-19 present with symptoms ranging from none to severe and include fever, shortness of breath, dry cough, anosmia, and gastrointestinal abnormalities. Severe complications are largely due to overdrive of the host immune system leading to "cytokine storm". This results in disseminated intravascular coagulation, acute respiratory distress syndrome, multiple organ dysfunction syndrome, and death. Due to its highly infectious nature and concerning mortality rate, every effort has been focused on prevention and creating new medications or repurposing old treatment options to ameliorate the suffering of COVID-19 patients including the immune dysregulation. Omega-3 fatty acids are known to be incorporated throughout the body into the bi-phospholipid layer of the cell membrane leading to the production of less pro-inflammatory mediators compared to other fatty acids that are more prevalent in the Western diet. In this article, the benefits of omega-3 fatty acids, especially eicosapentaenoic acid and docosahexaenoic acid, including their anti-inflammatory, immunomodulating, and possible antiviral effects have been discussed.

Ionizable isotopic labeling reagent for relative quantification of amine metabolites by mass spectrometry.

A powerful approach to relative quantification by mass spectrometry is to employ labeling reagents that target specific functional groups in molecules of interest. A quantitative comparison of two or more samples may be readily accomplished by using a chemically identical but isotopically distinct labeling reagent for each sample. The samples may then be combined, subjected to purification steps, and mass analyzed. Comparison of the signal intensities obtained from the isotopically labeled variants of the target analyte(s) provides quantitative information on their relative concentrations in the sample. In this report, we describe the synthesis and use of heavy and light isotopic forms of methyl acetimidate for the relative quantification of amine-containing species. The principal advantages of methyl acetimidate as a labeling reagent are that the reaction product is positively charged and hydrophobicity is increased, both of which enhance electrospray ionization efficiency and increase detection sensitivity. The quantitative nature of the analysis was demonstrated in model metabolomics experiments in which heavy and light labeled Arabidopsis extracts were combined in different ratios. Finally, the labeling strategy was employed to determine differences in the amounts of amine-containing metabolites for Arabidopsis seeds germinated under two different conditions.

Spatial photorelease of oligonucleotides, using a safety-catch photolabile linker.

[reaction: see text] We report the development of a safety-catch photolabile linker that allows the light-directed synthesis and spatially selective photorelease of oligonucleotides from microarrays. The linker remains stable to light during DNA synthesis, and is activated for photorelease after acidic hydrolysis. We demonstrate that the photoreleased oligonucleotides can be amplified by PCR to produce double stranded DNA. The advantages offered by this linker could aid the development of an automated gene synthesis platform.

Light-directed radial combinatorial chemistry: orthogonal safety-catch protecting groups for the synthesis of small molecule microarrays.

We describe the development of photolabile protecting groups based on the 3,4,5-trimethoxyphenacyl group (TMP). Orthogonal safety-catches were created by introducing an acid-activatible dimethyl ketal (AA-TMP) and an oxidatively activatible 1,3-dithiane (OA-TMP) into the photolabile TMP group. We demonstrate the application of these protecting groups in light-directed synthesis of small molecule microarrays with diversity elements radially attached to a hydroxyproline scaffold.

Amplification and assembly of chip-eluted DNA (AACED): a method for high-throughput gene synthesis.

A basic problem in gene synthesis is the acquisition of many short oligonucleotide sequences needed for the assembly of genes. Photolithographic methods for the massively parallel synthesis of high-density oligonucleotide arrays provides a potential source, once appropriate methods have been devised for their elution in forms suitable for enzyme-catalyzed assembly. Here, we describe a method based on the photolithographic synthesis of long (>60mers) single-stranded oligonucleotides, using a modified maskless array synthesizer. Once the covalent bond between the DNA and the glass surface is cleaved, the full-length oligonucleotides are selected and amplified using PCR. After cleavage of flanking primer sites, a population of unique, internal 40mer dsDNA sequences are released and are ready for use in biological applications. Subsequent gene assembly experiments using this DNA pool were performed and were successful in creating longer DNA fragments. This is the first report demonstrating the use of eluted chip oligonucleotides in biological applications such as PCR and assembly PCR.