No abstract

No abstract

While conventional nutrition research has yielded biomarkers such as doubly labeled water for energy metabolism and 24-h urinary nitrogen for protein intake, a critical need exists for additional, equally robust biomarkers that allow for objective assessment of specific food intake and dietary exposure. Recent advances in high-throughput MS combined with improved metabolomics techniques and bioinformatic tools provide new opportunities for dietary biomarker development. In September 2018, the NIH organized a 2-d workshop to engage nutrition and omics researchers and explore the potential of multiomics approaches in nutritional biomarker research. The current Perspective summarizes key gaps and challenges identified, as well as the recommendations from the workshop that could serve as a guide for scientists interested in dietary biomarkers research. Topics addressed included study designs for biomarker development, analytical and bioinformatic considerations, and integration of dietary biomarkers with other omics techniques. Several clear needs were identified, including larger controlled feeding studies, testing a variety of foods and dietary patterns across diverse populations, improved reporting standards to support study replication, more chemical standards covering a broader range of food constituents and human metabolites, standardized approaches for biomarker validation, comprehensive and accessible food composition databases, a common ontology for dietary biomarker literature, and methodologic work on statistical procedures for intake biomarker discovery. Multidisciplinary research teams with appropriate expertise are critical to moving forward the field of dietary biomarkers and producing robust, reproducible biomarkers that can be used in public health and clinical research.

High intakes of dietary fiber or resistant starches have been associated with a lower incidence of colon cancers. Because short-chain fatty acids (SCFA) such as butyrate are produced in the colonic lumen by the bacterial fermentation of dietary fibers and resistant starches, we hypothesized that SCFA may inhibit the development of invasive human colon cancers. To test this hypothesis, primary human invasive colonocytes were isolated from fresh surgical specimens and treated with 0.01 mol/L acetate, propionate or butyrate; cell invasion, cell adhesion, F-actin polymerization, urokinase plasminogen activator (uPA), tissue inhibitor matrix metalloproteinase (TIMP)-1, TIMP-2 and mutant p53, Bcl-2, Bax, p21 and proliferating cell nuclear antigen (PCNA) protein expression levels were examined. Although each of the SCFA tested significantly reduced primary cell invasion, butyrate was the most potent, inhibiting primary invasive human colon cancer invasion by 54% (P < 0.0001). The effects of SCFA on primary cell invasion appeared to be independent of cell adhesion and F-actin polymerization but dependent on the inhibition of uPA (P < 0.05) and the stimulation of TIMP-1 and TIMP-2 activities (P < 0.05). Protein expression levels of mutant p53, p21, Bax, Bcl-2 and PCNA were significantly altered by each of the SCFA tested (P < 0.05). These data indicate that SCFA inhibit invasive human colon cancer by modulating proteolytic uPA and antiproteolytic TIMP-1 and TIMP-2 activities, but their mechanisms of action on tumor suppression, apoptosis and growth arrest may differ.

Thrombospondin 1 is a glycoprotein that regulates cellular phenotype through interactions with its cellular receptors and extracellular matrix-binding partners. Thrombospondin 1 locally regulates angiogenesis and inflammatory responses that contribute to colorectal carcinogenesis in Apc Min/+ mice. The ability of thrombospondin 1 to regulate responses of cells and tissues to a variety of stresses suggested that loss of thrombospondin 1 may also have broader systemic effects on metabolism to modulate carcinogenesis. Apc Min/+ :Thbs1 −/− mice exhibited decreased survival and higher tumor multiplicities in the small and large intestine relative to Apc Min/+ mice when fed a low (5%) fat western diet. However, the protective effect of endogenous thrombospondin 1 was lost when the mice were fed a western diet containing 21% fat. Biochemical profiles of liver tissue identified systemic metabolic changes accompanying the effects of thrombospondin 1 and dietary lipid intake on tumorigenesis. A high-fat western diet differentially regulated elements of amino acid, energy and lipid metabolism in Apc Min/+ :Thbs1 −/− mice relative to Apc Min/+ :Thbs1 +/+ mice. Metabolic changes in ketone body and tricarboxylic acid cycle intermediates indicate functional interactions between Apc and thrombospondin 1 signaling that control mitochondrial function. The cumulative diet-dependent differential changes observed in Apc Min/+ :Thbs1 −/− versus Apc Min/+ mice include altered amino acid and lipid metabolism, mitochondrial dysfunction, eicosanoids and ketone body formation. This metabolic profile suggests that the protective role of thrombospondin 1 to decrease adenoma formation in Apc Min/+ mice results in part from improved mitochondrial function.

Fermentation of dietary fiber within the colonic lumen yields short chain fatty acids (SCFA) such as butyrate, which may modulate colonic mucosal biology and inhibit the development of a malignant phenotype. However, different fibers yield varying proportions of various SCFA. We studied the effects of the three most common SCFA, acetate, butyrate, and propionate, on the proliferation, adhesion, and motility of the human intestinal Caco-2 cell line, as well as the effects of these SCFA on alkaline phosphatase and dipeptidyl dipeptidase specific activity (common laboratory markers of differentiation). In addition, we examined the modulation of c-myc protein and the tyrosine phosphorylation of cellular proteins by these SCFA in order to determine whether the variations in the potency of these three SCFA for phenotypic change extended to variations in effects on intracellular signaling and protooncogene expression. All three SCFA tended to slow proliferation, promote brush border enzyme activity, and inhibit both adhesion to and motility across a type I collagen matrix substrate. However, we observed substantial differences in the potency of these three SCFA with regard to these effects. In particular, butyrate was uniformly more potent than an equimolar concentration of acetate whereas equimolar propionate achieved comparable effects with regard to proliferation and brush border enzyme activity but was intermediate between butyrate and acetate with regard to modulation of cell-matrix interactions. Similarly, the SCFA downregulated c-myc protein levels and modulated the phosphorylation of several intracellular tyrosine phosphoproteins, but the effects of the three SCFA varied substantially for these parameters. These results suggest that the common short chain fatty acids are not equipotent in their effects on human Caco-2 colon cancer cell biology. Such differences in potency could contribute to the observed differences in effects of different dietary fibers in vivo.

No abstract

No abstract