Noncoding RNAs in Neurodegenerative Diseases.

Noncoding RNAs are widely known for their various essential roles in the development of central nervous system. It involves neurogenesis, neural stem cells generation, maintenance and maturation, neurotransmission, neural network plasticity, formation of synapses, and even brain aging and DNA damage responses. In this review, we will discuss the biogenesis of microRNA, various functions of noncoding RNA's specifically microRNAs (miRNAs) that act as the chief regulators of gene expression, and focus in particular on misregulation of miRNAs which leads to several neurodegenerative diseases as well as its therapeutic outcome. Recent evidences has shown that miRNAs expression levels are changed in patients with neurodegenerative diseases; hence, miRNA can be used as a potential diagnostic biomarker and serve as an effective therapeutic tool in overcoming various neurodegenerative disease processes.

Signaling proteins that influence energy intake may affect unintentional weight loss in elderly persons.

After age 70 to 75 years, average body weight decreases both in ailing and healthy people because of a loss of appetite that results in reduced energy intake and the loss of body fat and lean muscle tissue. This so-called anorexia of aging predisposes elderly people to continued pathologic weight loss and malnutrition-major causes of morbidity and mortality. Health care professionals must understand the many factors involved in the anorexia of aging to help older adults prevent unintentional weight loss. Psychological, social, and cultural factors are important effectors; however, physiological factors are emphasized here because they are not thoroughly understood and they make it inherently difficult for most people to alter their body weight. Monoamines, steroid hormones (glucocorticoids and mineralocorticoids), endocannabinoids, and proteins all influence body weight. This review is an analysis of proteins from the brain, pancreas, adipose tissue, and gastrointestinal tract that are known to affect energy intake and energy balance, with an attempt to identify those factors that may change with aging. The articles included in this review were obtained by a PubMed database search using the keywords mouse OR rat OR human AND aged OR aging OR older OR elderly AND adult AND anorexia OR "unintentional weight loss," and each of the individual proteins discussed, as well as from the reference lists of those articles. The results reveal that some proteins may be important in the development of unintentional weight loss in elderly persons, whereas others may not have a significant role. However, many of the proteins that could conceivably have a role in unintentional weight loss have not yet been studied with that question in mind. Preventing unintentional weight loss in older adults is an important goal and further research on the role of proteins important for the maintenance of energy balance and the development of unintentional weight loss in elderly persons is warranted.

Total water intakes of community-living middle-old and oldest-old adults.

BACKGROUND: Literature reporting total daily water intake of community-dwelling older adults is limited. We evaluated differences in total water intake, water sources, water from meal and snack beverages, timing of beverage consumption, and beverage selection for three older age groups (young-old, 65-74 years; middle-old, 75-84 years; and oldest-old, >or=85 years). METHODS: Data for 2,054 older adults from the 1999-2002 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey were used for this study. Multivariate analyses controlling for age, sex, race-ethnicity, education, and marital status were conducted to determine differences in water intake variables across the age groups. RESULTS: Total water intakes found for the middle-old and oldest-old age groups were significantly lower than those found for the young-old age group. The relative contributions of beverages to total water intake were 40.8%, 38.3%, and 36.4% for the young-old, middle-old, and oldest-old, respectively. The water intakes from beverages consumed at snack occasions were significantly lower for the middle-old and oldest-old groups than those for the young-old group. All groups consumed the greatest amount of water in the morning. Coffee was the predominant source of water from beverages for all groups. CONCLUSIONS: This study fills a gap in the literature by providing an analysis of the daily water intake of middle-old and oldest-old adults. We found that the total water intake for the middle-old and oldest-old was significantly lower than that for the young-old. Future research needs to investigate the clinical outcomes associated with declining water intakes of community-dwelling older adults.

Guanethidine treatment does not block the ability of central leptin administration to decrease blood glucose concentrations in streptozotocin-induced diabetic rats.

Leptin, administered either into the ventricles of the brain or systemically, has been shown to normalize blood glucose concentrations in streptozotocin (STZ)-induced diabetic rats. We hypothesized that an intact sympathetic nervous system is necessary for centrally administered leptin to normalize or attenuate high blood glucose concentrations in STZ-induced diabetic rats. Young male Wistar rats (approximately 50 g) were treated every other day with either s.c. guanethidine (100 mg/kg) or vehicle for 2 weeks. Rats were then implanted with an intracerebroventricular cannula directed to the lateral ventricle and made diabetic with an i.v. injection of STZ (50 mg/kg). Half of the animals in each group were given daily injections of leptin (10 microl), while the remaining animals received vehicle injections. Blood glucose concentrations were measured daily and tissue norepinephrine content was determined by high performance liquid chromatography at the end of the study. Guanethidine pretreatment did not block the ability of centrally administered leptin to decrease blood glucose concentrations in diabetic rats. This suggests that the sympathetic nervous system does not mediate the leptin-induced attenuation of high blood glucose concentrations observed in diabetic rats.

CpG oligodeoxynucleotides stimulate canine and feline immune cell proliferation.

Oligodeoxynucleotides (ODNs) with unmethylated CpG dinucleotide motifs may be useful as non-specific immune system stimulants and adjuvants for protein or nucleic acid vaccines in humans and other primates. They may also be useful in cancer immunotherapy and in the modulation of allergic responses or mucosal immunity. To begin to determine the potential utility of CpG ODN technology in small animal veterinary medicine, we developed procedures to analyze the effects of CpG ODN on canine and feline blood, spleen and lymph node (LN) cells. We find that certain CpG ODN cause good lymphocyte proliferation (as monitored by [(3)H]-thymidine incorporation) in both canine and feline spleen and LN cells, but not in blood. This overall stimulatory effect of CpG ODN on spleen and LN cells is CpG dependent. The reverse sequences, GpC ODNs, do not cause significant lymphocyte proliferation in the cat; however, dogs are more sensitive to stimulation by the non-specific immune effects of the phosphorothioate backbone. We conclude that unmethylated CpG ODNs may also have potential uses as immune stimulants for vaccines and other antimicrobial agents in veterinary medicine for companion animals.