Metabolomics:Open Access

Last 20 years, this world has witnessed the rapid progresses of bioinformatics. Cancer bioinformatics is one of such important omics branches for drug developments and clinical applications. Same as other biological techniques or systems, bioinformatics are not omni-potent now. They have their own limits and shortcomings. This article addresses the panorama of bioinformatics in cancer researches and clinical applications. Their advantageous and drawbacks are discussed and highlighted.

Drug manufacture (highly competitive area) is pillar industry for many developed countries and largest medical expenditures worldwide. Nonetheless, new anticancer drug discovery, development and manufacture have been entering into bottleneck stages. The persistent reducing of successful rates of phase II and phase III anticancer drug evaluations in clinics are grim situations for most anticancer drug developers. Owing to all these undesired factors, anticancer drug developments are highly risky enterprising now. This editorial addresses important factors affecting anticancer drug developments in future.

High mortality rate of Ebola infections and less therapeutic options baffle the worldwide scientists and hamper the medical capability against disease spreads or disease-induced deaths and our understanding into this deadest virus. This article is to outline multi-facet factors of causing Ebola epidemics and further discuss several pathways to update present medical capabilities worldwide and solve this enigma forever.

High mortality rate of Ebola infections and less therapeutic options baffle the worldwide scientists and hamper the medical capability against disease spreads or disease-induced deaths and our understanding into this deadest virus. This article is to outline multi-facet factors of causing Ebola epidemics and further discuss several pathways to update present medical capabilities worldwide and solve this enigma forever.

A latex agglutination test (LAT) was developed for the rapid detection of antibodies against the VP1 or VP1 proteins of Enterovirus 71 (EV71). The proteins of interest, including prokaryotically expressed VP1 and two strains of anti-VP1 Monoclonal antibody (McAb) against EV71 were covalently linked to carboxylated latex using Ethyl-dimethyl-aminopropyl carbodiimide (EDC) to prepare sensitized latex beads. The LAT was evaluated by an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) as a reference test. The VP1-LAT showed a sensitivity of 87.0%, a specificity of 88.9%, and an agreement ratio of 90.0% in detecting VP1 in 100 serum samples from experimentally infected mice, while these values were 86.8%, 96.7%, and 93.3%, respectively, for 608 clinical human serum samples. The VP1-LAT has advantages over other assays in terms of low cost, rapidity, chemical stability, high sensitivity, repeatability, and specificity. The LAT established in the present study is a rapid and simple test suitable for field monitoring of antibodies against VP1-EV71.

1H-NMR metabolomics was used to investigate the changes of metabolites in the lungs of mice with and without being exposed to a controlled amount of cigarette smoke. It was found that the concentrations of adenosine derivatives (i.e. ATP, ADP and AMP), inosine and uridine were significantly changed in the lungs of mice exposed to cigarette smoke when compared with controls regardless the mice were obese or of regular weight. The decreased ATP, ADP, AMP and elevated inosine suggested that the deaminases in charge of adenosine derivatives to inosine derivatives conversion would be significantly changed in the lungs of mice exposed to cigarette smoke. Indeed, transcriptional study confirmed that the concentrations of adenosine monophosphate deaminase 2 and adenosine deaminase 2 were significantly changed in the lungs of mice exposed to cigarette smoke. We also found that the ratio of glycerophosphocholine (GPC) to phosphocholine (PC) was significantly increased in the lungs of obese mice compared with those of the regular weight mice. The GPC/PC ratio was further elevated in the lungs of obese group exposed to cigarette smoke.

We report three case of maturation arrest of oocyte two of which were treated with oocyte donation. A total failure of human oocytes to complete meiosis is rarely observed during assisted conception cycles. Maturation arrest of oocytes may occur at various stages of the cell cycle from germinal vesicle (GV) stage to metaphase one and two (MI and MII). Two cases that presented to us had unexplained infertility, but the third case had rheumatoid arthritis, which may result in an immune problem. In all the three couples, maturation arrest of the oocytes was noted repeatedly in all cycles of assisted reproductive technology (ART). In the first case the oocytes were arrested at both, the GV and metaphase I stage, in the second and third case arrest was noted in MI. Failure to resume meiosis in vivo may arise at one of the following three levels:  absent or incomplete luteinizing hormone(LH) effect  derangements in the signaling mechanism from the surrounding cumulus cells  intrinsic oocyte factors Currently no therapeutic approach would help to overcome the blocks in oocyte maturation and sustain successful in-vitro fertilization (IVF) Oocyte maturation arrest may be the cause of infertility in some couples previously classified as having unexplained infertility. The recognition of oocyte maturation arrest as a specific factor for infertility tells, how important the oocyte factor is. All the three patients were advised oocyte donation as the literature quotes very poor pregnancy rate with own oocyte. One patient conceived in the second cycle, whereas the other patient failed to conceive, despite transfer of good quality embryos.