Integrative perspective of the healthy aging process considering the metabolome, cardiac autonomic modulation and cardiorespiratory fitness evaluated in age groups.

The aging process causes changes at all organic levels. Although metabolism, cardiac autonomic modulation (CAM), and cardiorespiratory fitness (CRF) are widely studied as a function of age, they are mainly studied in isolation, thus making it difficult to perceive their concomitant variations. This study aimed to investigate the integrated changes that occur in the metabolome, CAM, and CRF throughout aging in apparently healthy individuals. The subjects (n = 118) were divided into five groups according to age (20-29, 30-39, 40-49, 50-59, and 60-70 years old) and underwent blood collection, autonomic assessment, and a cardiopulmonary exercise test for metabolomics analysis using mass spectrometry and nuclear magnetic resonance, cardiac autonomic modulation analysis, and CRF by peak oxygen consumption analysis, respectively. The Tukey's post hoc and effect size with confidence interval were used for variables with a significant one-way ANOVA effect (P < 0.01). The main changes were in the oldest age group, where the CRF, valine, leucine, isoleucine, 3-hydroxyisobutyrate, and CAM reduced and hippuric acid increased. The results suggest significant changes in the metabolome, CAM, and CRF after the age of sixty as a consequence of aging impairments, but with some changes in the metabolic profile that may be favorable to mitigate the aging deleterious effects.

Comparing extracellular vesicles and cell membranes as biocompatible coatings for gold nanorods: Implications for targeted theranostics.

Extracellular vesicles (EVs) and cell membrane nanoghosts are excellent coatings for nanomaterials, providing enhanced delivery in the target sites and evasion of the immune system. These cell-derived coatings allow the exploration of the delivery properties of the nanoparticles without stimulation of the immune system. Despite the advances reported on the use of EVs and cell-membrane coatings for nanomedicine applications, there are no standards to compare the benefits and main differences between these technologies. Here we investigated macrophage-derived EVs and cell membranes-coated gold nanorods and compared both systems in terms of target delivery in cancer and stromal cells. Our results reveal a higher tendency of EV-coated nanorods to interact with macrophages yet both EV and cell membrane-coated nanorods were internalized in the metastatic breast cancer cells. The main differences between these nanoparticles are related to the presence or absence of CD47 in the coating material, not usually addressed in EVs characterization. Our findings highlight important delivery differences exhibited by EVs- or cell membranes- coated nanorods which understanding may be important to the design and development of theragnostic nanomaterials using these coatings for target delivery.