An integrated metabonomic investigation of acetaminophen toxicity in the mouse using NMR spectroscopy

An integrated metabonomics study using high-resolution 1H NMR spectroscopy has been applied to investigate the biochemical composition of intact liver tissue (using magic angle spinning), liver tissue extracts, and blood plasma samples obtained from control and acetaminophen-treated mice. Principal components analysis was used to visualize similarities and differences in biochemical profiles. The time- and dose-dependent biochemical effects of acetaminophen were related to the drug toxicity, as determined using histopathology. Metabolic effects in intact liver tissue and lipid soluble liver tissue extracts from animals treated with the high dose level of acetaminophen included an increase in lipid triglycerides and monounsaturated fatty acids together with a decrease in polyunsaturated fatty acids, indicating mitochondrial malfunction with concomitant compensatory increase of peroxisomal activity. In addition, a depletion of phospholipids was observed in treated liver tissue, which suggested an inhibition of enzymes involved in phospholipid synthesis. There was also a depletion in the levels of liver glucose and glycogen. In addition, the aqueous soluble liver tissue extracts from high dose animals also revealed an increase in lactate, alanine, and other amino acids, together with a decrease in glucose. Plasma spectra showed increases in glucose, acetate, pyruvate, and lactate. These observations all provide evidence for an increased rate of glycolysis. These findings could indicate a mitochondrial inability to use pyruvate in the citric acid cycle and also reveal the impairment of fatty acid beta-oxidation in liver mitochondria of such treated mice.     

Parental concordance and comorbidity for psychiatric disorder and associate risks for current psychiatric symptoms and disorders in a community sample of juvenile twins

In this report we characterize associations between parental psychiatric disorders and children's psychiatric symptoms and disorders using a population-based sample of 850 twin families. Juvenile twins are aged 8-17 years and are personally interviewed about their current history of DSM-III-R conduct, depression, oppositional-defiant, overanxious, and separation anxiety disorders using the CAPA-C. Mothers and fathers of twins are personally interviewed about their lifetime history of DSM-III-R alcoholism, antisocial personality disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, major depression, panic disorder/agoraphobia, social phobia, and simple phobia using a modified version of the SCID and the DIS. Generalized least squares and logistic regression are used to identify the juvenile symptoms and disorders that are significantly associated with parental psychiatric histories. The specificity of these associations is subsequently explored in a subset of families with maternal plus parental psychiatric histories with a prevalence > 1%. Parental depression that is not comorbid or associated with a different spousal disorder is associated with a significantly elevated level of depression and overanxious disorder symptoms and a significantly increased risk for overanxious disorder. Risks are higher for both symptomatic domains in association with maternal than paternal depression, and highest in association with maternal plus paternal depression. Risks for otherjuvenile symptoms and disorders index the comorbid and spousal histories with which parental depression is commonly associated. Paternal alcoholism that is not comorbid or associated with a maternal disorder is not significantly associated with current psychiatric symptoms or disorders in offspring. Risks for oppositional-defiant or conduct symptoms/disorders in the offspring of alcoholic parents index parental comorbidity and/or other spousal histories.     

Impurity profiling in bulk pharmaceutical batches using 19F NMR spectroscopy and distinction between monomeric and dimeric impurities by NMR-based diffusion measurements

The impurity profile of production batches of fluorine-containing drugs can be characterised efficiently using 19F NMR spectroscopy. This yields the number and proportions of impurities in the bulk drug to a level of approximately equal 0.1 mole% in a few minutes of NMR experiment time. The approach has been exemplified using a partially purified batch of the steroidal product fluticasone propionate, the impurities in which include a number of dimeric species. Further distinction between the monomer and dimer impurities has been achieved through high resolution chemical shift-resolved NMR measurement of molecular diffusion coefficients on the intact mixture using 19F NMR spectroscopy. The ability of NMR-based diffusion coefficient determination to distinguish between monomeric and dimeric substances was validated using a standard mixture of authentic materials containing both monomers and dimers.     

CM Affi-Gel Blue chromatography of human urine: a simple one-step procedure for obtaining erythropoietin suitable for in vitro erythropoietic progenitor assays

S ummary . A method for both concentrating and purifying human urinary erythropoietin (Ep) using CM Affi-Gel Blue is described. We have found that up to 40 litres of urine can be processed on a 1 litre gel bed of this material. This gives a 25-50-fold purification of Ep with an apparent Ep recovery in excess of 100%. The high recovery of Ep is probably due, in part, to the removal of inhibitors present in the initial urine. By selecting urine that contains high levels of Ep (>0.5 units/ml), it is possible with this method routinely to obtain preparations with specific activities of 100-300 units of Ep per mg protein. Such preparations are noninhibitory when assayed in either short-term suspension cultures or in longer-term methylcellulose cultures at concentrations up to 5-10 units/ml. Similar tests with these same bioassay systems have shown that other non-Ep stimulating factors (i.e. erythroblast enhancing factor (EEF), granulocyte/macrophage colony stimulating factor (GM-CSF) and burst promoting activity (BPA)) are also not present at detectable levels. In this study we also show that the loss of biological activity which often occurs when partially purified Ep preparations are stored in solution is markedly reduced in the presence of either 1% bovine serum albumin or 0-1% sodium dodecyl sulphate.     

Differential and synergistic effects of human granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor and human granulocyte colony-stimulating factor on hematopoiesis in human long-term marrow cultures.

The ability of granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor (GM-CSF) and G-CSF to influence hematopoiesis in long-term cultures (LTC) of human marrow was studied by cocultivating light density normal human marrow cells with human marrow fibroblast feeders engineered by retroviral infection to constitutively produce one of these growth factors. Feeders producing stable levels of 4 ng/mL GM-CSF or 20 ng/mL G-CSF doubled the output of mature nonadherent cells. The numbers of both colony forming unit-GM (CFU-GM) and erythroid burst forming unit (BFU-E) in the G-CSF LTC were also increased (twofold and fourfold, respectively, after 5 weeks in culture), but this effect was not seen with the GM-CSF feeders. At the time of the weekly half medium change 3H-thymidine suicide assays showed primitive adherent layer progenitors in LTC to be quiescent in both the control and GM-CSF cultures. In contrast, in the G-CSF cultures, a high proportion of primitive progenitors were in S-phase. A single addition of either recombinant GM-CSF or G-CSF to LTC in doses as high as 80 ng/mL and 150 ng/mL, respectively, failed to induce primitive progenitor cycling. However, three sequential daily additions of 150 ng/mL G-CSF did stimulate primitive progenitors to enter S-phase and a single addition of 5 or 12.5 ng/mL of G-CSF together with 10 ng/mL GM-CSF was able to elicit the same effect. Thus, selective elevation of G-CSF in human LTC stimulates proliferation of primitive clonogenic progenitors, which may then proceed through to the terminal stages of granulopoiesis. In contrast, the effects of GM-CSF in this system appear limited to terminally differentiating granulopoietic cells. However, when both GM-CSF and G-CSF are provided together, otherwise biologically inactive doses show strong stimulatory activity. These findings suggest that the production of both of these growth factors by normal stromal cells may contribute to the support and proliferation of hematopoietic cells, not only in LTC, but also in the microenvironment of the marrow in vivo.     

Regulators of human stem cell proliferation and engraftment

Transplantable human hematopoietic stem cells can be routinely detected by their ability to engraft sublethally irradiated immunodeficient mice with both lymphoid and myeloid progeny for periods of at least 6-8 weeks [1]. These cells include subsets with both short-term and longterm reconstituting activity, the former being responsible for most of the human cells seen in fully immunodeficient mice (eg, NOD/SCID-β2microglobulin^?/? mice) in the first 8 weeks and the latter being responsible for the lower levels of engraftment seen after the same period of time in less compromised (eg, NOD/SCID) mice [2]. Interestingly, human cells with short- and longterm hematopoietic reconstituting potential show further differences in the regulation of their ability to engraft when they are activated into cycle short-term reconstituting cells being unaffected whereas longterm reconstituting cells lose their transplantability when they transit S/G₂/M [2,3]. A closely related population of primitive human hematopoietic cells (referred to as longterm culture-initiating cells or LTC-ICs) are detected by virtue of their ability to generate intermediate types of progenitor cells for at least 5 weeks when co-cultured with stromal cell feeder layers, the intermediate progenitors being those that produce colonies of granulocytes and macrophages and/or erythroblasts in 2-week semi-solid cultures [4]. The proliferative status of these various stages of primitive human hematopoietic cells is regulated by their exposure to distinct types of both positively acting (mitogenic) and negatively acting (cytostatic) cytokines. We have recently discovered that stromal-derived growth factor 1 (SDF-1) belongs to a group of chemokines that act as inhibitors of primitive human progenitor cycling and is unique in its ability to force the entry of human LTC-ICs into G_o. SDF-1 can similarly act on proliferating human cells with longterm hematopoietic reconstituting ability in NOD/SCID mice. These cells can be shown to be actively proliferating at early times post-transplant in primary NOD/SCID mice by their high sensitivity to treatment with 5-fluorouracil in vivo or with high specific activity³H-thymidine in vitro as revealed when they are subsequently assayed in secondary NOD/SCID mice. Prior SDF-1 treatment in the primary mice abrogates this sensitivity. Importantly, this exposure to SDF-1 in vivo also causes a marked increase in the number of reconstituting cells that can be detected in the secondary mice even without exposure to a cycle-active drug - consistent with the restoration of engraftment potential by cycling longterm reconstituting stem cells forced to re-enter G_o. A similar, albeit less marked effect has also been achieved by SDF-1 treatment of human stem cells stimulated to proliferate in vitro. These findings demonstrate that cell cycle activation is a major but reversible constraint to the use of proliferating stem cells for transplantation therapies and suggest a novel approach to overcoming this limitation.     

Detection of breakpoint cluster region- negative and nonclonal hematopoiesis in vitro and in vivo after transplantation of cells selected in cultures of chronic myeloid leukemia marrow

Philadelphia (Ph1) chromosome-positive clonogenic progenitors usually disappear within 4 to 6 weeks in long-term cultures established from the marrow of patients with chronic myeloid leukemia (CML). In contrast, coexisting chromosomally normal hematopoietic cells are relatively well maintained. Thus, even though normal cells are initially undetectable, they may become the predominant population. Recently, we have begun to explore the potential of such cultures as a strategy for preparing CML marrow for autografting, and based on cytogenetic studies of the differential kinetics of Ph1-positive and Ph1-negative clonogenic cells, have chosen a 10-day period in culture to obtain maximal numbers of selectively enriched normal stem cells. Here we present the results of molecular analyses of the cells regenerated in vivo for the initial three CML patients to be treated using this approach by comparison with the differentiated cells generated by continued maintenance of an aliquot of the autograft in vitro (using a slightly modified culture feeding procedure to enhance the production and release of cells into the nonadherent fraction after 4 weeks) for the one patient whose genotype made molecular analysis of clonality status also possible. These analyses showed that cells with a rearranged breakpoint cluster region (BCR) gene were not detectable by Southern blotting in either in vitro or in vivo populations of mature cells that might be assumed to represent the progeny of primitive cells present at the end of the initial 10 days in culture. Production of BCR-negative cells was also shown to be temporally correlated with the appearance of nonclonal hematopoietic cells both in culture and in vivo. These findings provide support for the view that prolonged maintenance of CML marrow cells in long-term culture may allow molecular characterization of both the BCR-genotype and clonality status of cells with in vivo regenerative potential.     

Monoclonal antibodies to HLA-DP, DQ, and DR determinants: functional effects on the activation and proliferation of normal and EBV-transformed B cells

To investigate the function of HLA class II molecules in B-cell activation, we generated three new anti-HLA class II monoclonal antibodies with differing specificities for DP, DQ, and DR determinants. These were tested for their ability to inhibit various B- and T-lymphocyte responses. Each of these antibodies (NB-29, DH-84, and DH-224) immunoprecipitates a heterodimer of approximately 35,000 and 28,000 mol wt from 125I-surface-labeled B-lymphoma cells, as shown by SDS-PAGE. NB-29 (IgG1) detects a polymorphic DQ determinant, while DH-224 (IgG1) is reactive with monomorphic DR determinants, and DH-84 (IgG2a) has specificity for DP, DQ, and DR. Both DH-224 and DH-84, but not NB-29, were found to inhibit significantly the stimulation of peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) by anti-mu (70%-90% inhibition) and by lipopolysaccharide (80%-90% inhibition), as measured by incorporation of tritiated thymidine. When added to highly purified populations of peripheral blood B cells, none of these anti-class II monoclonal antibodies inhibited anti-mu-induced stimulation. This suggests that the inhibitory effect that DH-224 and DH-84 have on the stimulation of unfractionated PBMC may be due to their ability to interfere with the action of accessory cells. Epstein-Barr-virus (EBV)-transformed B-cell lines, in contrast, showed substantial inhibition of growth when cultured in the presence of any of the three antibodies. With respect to T cells, DH-84 and DH-224 strongly inhibited the mixed lymphocyte response; NB-29 did not. None of these antibodies inhibited stimulation of PBMC by phytohemagglutinin (PHA). These findings suggest that DQ and DR HLA class II molecules have differing roles in B-cell activation and document a direct antiproliferative effect of anti-HLA class II monoclonal antibodies on the growth of EBV-transformed cell lines.