No abstract

Dietary flaxseed oil increased the breast-milk, plasma, and erythrocyte contents of the n-3 fatty acids ALA, EPA, and DPA but had no effect on breast-milk, plasma, or erythrocyte DHA contents.

Although it is known that the fatty acid profile of human milk is altered by diet, the rapidity with which this occurs has not been addressed. We hypothesized that after absorption the fatty acids of a given meal would be transferred rapidly from the chylomicrons of the blood into human milk. Fourteen lactating women drank six test formulas, each containing a different fat: menhaden oil, herring oil, safflower oil, canola oil, coconut oil, or cocoa butter. The subjects collected a midfeeding milk sample before consuming the breakfast test formula and additional samples at 6, 10, 14, and 24 h and then once daily for 4-7 d. Fatty acids of special interest included eicosapentaenoic and docosahexaenoic acids from menhaden oil, cetoleic acid from herring oil, linoleic acid from safflower oil, linolenic acid from canola oil, lauric acid from coconut oil, and palmitic and stearic acids from cocoa butter. Each of these fatty acids increased significantly in human milk within 6 h of consumption of the test formulas (P < 0.001). Maximum increases occurred 10 h after safflower oil; 14 h after cocoa utter, coconut oil, canola oil, and menhaden oil (eicosapentaenoic acid); and 24 h after herring oil and menhaden oil (docosahexaenoic acid). All of these fatty acids remained significantly elevated in milk (P < 0.05) for 10-24 h, except for docosahexaenoic acid, which remained significantly elevated for 2 d, and eicosapentaenoic acid, which remained elevated for 3 d. These data support the hypothesis that there is a rapid transfer of dietary fatty acids from chylomicrons into human milk.

No abstract

Increasing evidence suggests that alpha-synuclein (α-syn) oligomers are obligate intermediates in the pathway involved in α-syn fibrillization and Lewy body (LB) formation, and may also accumulate within LBs in Parkinson's disease (PD) and other synucleinopathies. Therefore, the development of tools and methods to detect and quantify α-syn oligomers has become increasingly crucial for mechanistic studies to understand the role of these oligomers in PD, and to develop new diagnostic methods and therapies for PD and other synucleinopathies. The majority of these tools and methods rely primarily on the use of aggregation state-specific or conformation-specific antibodies. Given the impact of the data and knowledge generated using these antibodies on shaping the foundation and directions of α-syn and PD research, it is crucial that these antibodies are thoroughly characterized, and their specificity or ability to capture diverse α-syn species is tested and validated. Herein, we describe an antibody characterization and validation pipeline that allows a systematic investigation of the specificity of α-syn antibodies using well-defined and well-characterized preparations of various α-syn species, including monomers, fibrils, and different oligomer preparations that are characterized by distinct morphological, chemical and secondary structure properties. This pipeline was used to characterize 17 α-syn antibodies, 15 of which have been reported as conformation-or oligomer-specific antibodies, using an array of techniques, including immunoblot analysis (slot blot and Western blot), a digital ELISA assay using single molecule array technology and surface plasmon resonance. Our results show that i) none of the antibodies tested are specific for one particular type of α-syn species, including monomers, oligomers or fibrils; ii) all antibodies that were reported to be oligomer-specific also recognized fibrillar α-syn; and iii) a few antibodies showed high specificity for oligomers and fibrils but did not bind to monomers. These findings suggest that the majority of α-syn aggregatespecific antibodies do not differentiate between oligomers and fibrils, thus highlighting the importance of exercising caution when interpreting results obtained using these antibodies. Our results also underscore the critical importance of the characterization and validation of antibodies before their use in mechanistic studies and as diagnostic and therapeutic agents. This will not only improve the quality of research and reduce costs but will also reduce the number of therapeutic antibody failures in the clinic.