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Macronutrients
Published in Chuong Pham-Huy, Bruno Pham Huy, Food and Lifestyle in Health and Disease, 2022
Chuong Pham-Huy, Bruno Pham Huy
On a worldwide basis, plant protein foods contribute over 60% of the per capita supply of protein, on average (1). Plant sources of proteins include legumes (lucernes, peas, beans, lentils, lupines, soybeans, peanuts, tamarinds, etc.), nuts, seeds, and fruits. These vegetarian foods are high in protein with protein concentrations greater than 7% (1). Other seeds and nuts rich in proteins and amino acids are: kidney beans, white beans, chickpeas, cowpeas, lima beans, pigeon peas, lupines, wing beans, almonds, Brazil nuts, cashews, pecans, walnuts, pumpkin seeds, hemp seeds, sesame seeds, chia seeds, and sunflower seeds. Fruits rich in proteins and amino acids include avocado, jackfruit, banana, cherries, kiwi, orange, pomegranate, raspberries, peaches, nectarines, currants, and grapefruits. Plant foods have advantages over animal foods regarding the prevention of harmful chronic diseases such as cardiovascular diseases, cancer, and obesity thanks to their low saturated fats and cholesterol. Indeed, vegans can obtain all essential amino acids by eating a variety of plant proteins.
Radionuclide-based Diagnosis and Therapy of Prostate Cancer
Published in Michael Ljungberg, Handbook of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging for Physicists, 2022
Sven-Erik Strand, Mohamed Altai, Joanna Strand, David Ulmert
Amino acids are essential to cell metabolism and growth. Several amino acid transporter systems are overexpressed in PCa. Anti-1-amino-3-[18F]Flurocyclobutane-1-carboxylic acid (18F-fluciclovine-FACBC) is a non-naturally occurring amino acid, and its transport is primarily mediated by sodium-dependent amino acid transporters. Because the amino acid transporters that are most involved in 18F-fluciclovine transport mediate influx and efflux of amino acids, washout of the radiotracer occurs over time. The specificity of 18F-fluciclovine for PCa relies on altered metabolic pathways overexpressed in PCa. Studies have shown a detection rate of 40 per cent for patients with biochemical recurrence and a PSA level of 0.79 ng/mL or less. Direct comparison between 18F-fluciclovine and 11C-choline PET/CT has demonstrated overall superior imaging performance for 18F-fluciclovine in biochemically recurrent PCa. A good overview of 18F-Fluciclovine is found in Parent and Schuster and colleagues [71].
Nutritional requirements
Published in Judy More, Infant, Child and Adolescent Nutrition, 2021
Proteins are needed for building and maintaining all the cells in the body. During growth, vast numbers of new cells are created and extra protein is needed for this. Protein is made up of long chains of amino acids linked together. Some amino acids can be made by the human body (non-essential amino acids) but others cannot; these are called ‘essential amino acids’ and must be provided by food. All the essential amino acids needed are found in the protein in animal foods, such as milk, eggs, meat and fish. Proteins in plant-based foods contain some but not all of the essential amino acids. However, the combination of a starchy food, such as cereals and their flours, bread, pasta, potatoes or rice, together with pulses or nuts will provide all the essential amino acids together. Examples of this combination are baked beans on toast, rice and peas or a hummus or peanut butter sandwich.
Pharmacotherapeutic options for cancer cachexia: emerging drugs and recent approvals
Published in Expert Opinion on Pharmacotherapy, 2023
Lorena Garcia-Castillo, Giacomo Rubini, Paola Costelli
Protein intake should be in the range of 1–1,5 g/kg/day and to potentiate the stimulus of protein synthesis in muscle tissue, the supplementation with single amino acids or their derivatives has been extensively studied. Branched-chain amino acids (BCAA: leucine, isoleucine, and valine) are known to exert an anabolic effect on the skeletal muscle. Glutamine, a non-essential amino acid, has been included in nutritional supplementation approaches because of its contribution in preventing muscle wasting in cancer patients. Moreover, β-hydroxy-β-methylbutyrate (HMB), a leucine metabolite has been proposed to reduce protein degradation rates [22,23]. An improved hand-grip strength was reported in advanced lung cancer patients after supplementation with arginine, glutamine, and HMB. However, no significant effects on lean body mass were observed [24]. A recent review of the effects exerted by HMB administration on cancer patients concluded that apparently there are positive hints in terms of muscle mass and function, although the authors recognize that this issue deserves additional clinical investigations [25].
Enhancement of tumor immunogenicity by the introduction of non- proteinogenic amino acid azetidine-2-carboxylic acid
Published in OncoImmunology, 2022
Siyu Li, Shiqing Wang, Baorui Tian, Na Li, Yanan Chen, Yanhua Liu, Weijun Su, Yan Fan, Yongjun Piao, Jia Li, Longlong Wang, Jin Zhao, Shu Wang, Yi Shi, Rong Xiang
Naturally occurred protein mistranslation caused by NPA analogues is an effective way to produce mutated and highly antigenic proteins.19–22 Since the active protein synthesis is a common feature of tumor cells for their malignant proliferation, NPA-induced regional mistranslation can be an effective method to generate tumor neoantigen in almost all kinds of tumors. Although there are potential detrimental effects caused by nonproteinogenic amino acid analogues, the side effects are controllable due to the facts that the mutation occurs at the protein translation level instead of the genomic level and the mutation rate is relatively low.13 Actually, when consuming the normal food with plenty of proline, Aze is not able to substitute proline efficiently to make enough mistranslated proteins to cause pathologic consequences. In our experiments, we fed the mice with proline-depleted diet during Aze treatment to enhance the incorporation of Aze. Besides, we utilized the anti-Cd44 antibody-decorated NPs to effectively deliver Aze to tumor cells, which showed very weak side effects to vital organs. However, we still observed potential Aze-induced inflammation in the lung (Figure S4E-G) that might be due to the fact that the expression of Cd44 was not highly cancer-cell-specific as expected.36 More specific target delivery system and optimization of the dosage of nonproteinogenic amino acid analogues are needed to further enhance the specific accumulation of Aze in tumor cells for its potential clinical application.
Electrophilic warheads in covalent drug discovery: an overview
Published in Expert Opinion on Drug Discovery, 2022
Nikolett Péczka, Zoltán Orgován, Péter Ábrányi-Balogh, György Miklós Keserű
In addition to cysteine, lysine is the other amino acid of interest with numerous available covalent warheads. Recently, Cravatt et al. performed a proteome-wide screening on reactive lysines using 180 covalent fragment probes with 34 different types of warheads [74]. From the approximately 13700 lysines from 3500 proteins they identified 800 actives on 580 different proteins, and the majority of them haven’t been reported previously. The large amount of new tractable lysines is probably the result of the wide array of warheads used in screening. Moreover, they found hits not only on proteins with traditionally druggable positions but also at protein-protein and protein-RNA binding interfaces. This study revealed that different warheads show different reactivity and preference for a certain type of protein. The success of these approaches suggests similar studies against other amino acids. In fact, attempts were made for the screening of reactive aspartate and glutamate [75–77], methionine [78], and also tyrosine [79] residues. However, the lack of versatile warhead chemistries lowers the effectiveness of these later screens. Therefore, further research is needed, especially for less studied amino acid residues that would result further labeling chemistries and warheads to facilitate the discovery of new targeted covalent inhibitors.