Atorvastatin Treatment Modulates the Gut Microbiota of the Hypercholesterolemic Patients.

Hypercholesterolemia is one of the most important risk factors for development of cardiovascular diseases. The composition of gut microbiota (total microbes residing in the gut) impacts on cholesterol and lipid metabolism. On the contrary, alterations in gut microbiota in response to hypercholesterolemia or drug treatment with atorvastatin (a cholesterol-lowering agent) are rarely investigated. We performed 16S rDNA amplicon sequencing to evaluate the gut bacterial community of 15 untreated hypercholesterolemic patients (HP) and 27 atorvastatin-treated hypercholesterolemic patients (At-HP) and compared with 19 healthy subjects (HS). In total, 18 different phyla were identified in the study groups. An increase in relative abundance of Proteobacteria was observed in the HP group compared with At-HP and HS groups. The atherosclerosis-associated genus Collinsella was found at relatively higher abundance in the HP group. The anti-inflammation-associated bacteria (Faecalibacterium prausnitzii, Akkermansia muciniphila, and genus Oscillospira) were found in greater abundance, and proinflammatory species Desulfovibrio sp. was observed at decreased abundance in the drug-treated HP group compared with the untreated HP group. Relative abundances of the Bilophila wadsworthia and Bifidobacterium bifidum (bile acid-associated species) were decreased in the At-HP group. The At-HP and HS clustered separately from HP in the principal coordinate analysis. Decreased bacterial diversity was observed in the atorvastatin-treated group. In conclusion, these data suggest that atorvastatin treatment of patients with hypercholesterolemia may selectively restore the relative abundance of several dominant and functionally important taxa that were disrupted in the HP. Further studies are required to investigate the putative modifying effects of hypocholesterolemic drugs on functionality of gut microbiota, and the potential downstream effects on human health.

Alteration of serum immunoglobins, C-reactive protein, vitamin D, and electrolyte by atenolol and amlodipine in stress-induced hypertensive rats.

The present study is designed for the assessment of various pathological changes like immunoglobins, C-reactive protein, vitamin D, sodium, potassium, calcium in stress-induced hypertensive rats. Albino Wistar rats of sex male were grouped into six. Each group consists of six animals. Groups were Group I (normal control), Group II (disease control), Group III (amlodipine control), Group IV (atenolol control), Group V (amlodipine treatment), and Group VI (atenolol treatment). Group II, V, and VI animals exposed to regular stress by placing them in cages individually and giving foot electric shocks (1 mA, 50 ms duration with 0.5-1 min of intervals regulated randomly by a computer) along with forced swimming (30 min) in order to induce hypertension in rats. This stress was given two times daily (morning and evening) for regular 15 days. Induction of hypertension was confirmed by measuring the tail arterial pressure of blood and angiotensin II. For next 1 month, Group III and V animals are treated with amlodipine with 1 mg/kg, s.c. dose while Group IV and VI animals were given 10 mg/kg, s.c. the dose of atenolol once daily. At the end of the experimental work, blood collected, rats sacrificed, and serum separated. Serum sodium, potassium, immunoglobins, C-reactive protein, vitamin D, and calcium were measured by semi-auto-analyzer. Stress-induced hypertension in rats produced altered serum sodium, potassium, immunoglobins, C-reactive protein, vitamin D, and calcium level which is restored by atenolol. Administration of amlodipine in animals without hypertension shows alteration in the level of immunoglobins, calcium, vitamin D, and electrolytes.

Structural and functional characterization of pathogenic non- synonymous genetic mutations of human insulin-degrading enzyme by in silico methods.

Insulin-degrading enzyme (IDE) is a key protease involved in degrading insulin and amyloid peptides in human body. Several non-synonymous genetic mutations of IDE gene have been recently associated with susceptibility to both diabetes and Alzheimer's diseases. However, the consequence of these mutations on the structure of IDE protein and its substrate binding characteristics is not well elucidated. The computational investigation of genetic mutation consequences on structural level of protein is recently found to be an effective alternate to traditional in vivo and in vitro approaches. Hence, by using a combination of empirical rule and support vector machine based in silico algorithms, this study was able to identify that the pathogenic nonsynonymous genetic mutations corresponding to p.I54F, p.P122T, p.T533R, p.P581A and p.Y609A have more potential role in structural and functional deviations of IDE activity. Moreover, molecular modeling and secondary structure analysis have also confirmed their impact on the stability and secondary properties of IDE protein. The molecular docking analysis of IDE with combinational substrates has revealed that peptide inhibitors compared to small non-peptide inhibitor molecules possess good inhibitory activity towards mutant IDE. This finding may pave a way to design novel potential small peptide inhibitors for mutant IDE. Additionally by un-translated region (UTR) scanning analysis, two regulatory pathogenic genetic mutations i.e., rs5786997 (3' UTR) and rs4646954 (5' UTR), which can influence the translation pattern of IDE gene through sequence alteration of upstream-Open Reading Frame and Internal Ribosome Entry Site elements were identified. Our findings are expected to help in narrowing down the number of IDE genetic variants to be screened for disease association studies and also to select better competitive inhibitors for IDE related diseases.