Browsing by Author "Vaz, Fatima"
Now showing 1 - 10 of 11
Results Per Page
Sort Options
- Occupational secondhand smoke effect on nasal epithelial proteomaPublication . Pacheco, Solange; Vaz, Fatima; Torres, Vukosava; Penque, Deborah; Simões, Tania; James, PeterThe tobacco is one of the biggest public health threats, smoking kills more than 7 million people/year worldwide and more than 890,000 are deaths resulting from exposure to Secondhand Smoke (SHS). In adults, SHS is associated to cardiovascular and respiratory diseases, including coronary heart disease and lung cancer, through pathological and molecular mechanisms not yet understood. In this study, we aimed to investigate the SHS effects on nasal epithelial proteome in exposed workers.
- Occupational smoke exposure may modify the expression of respiratory tract proteomaPublication . Neves, Sofia; Pacheco, Solange; Vaz, Fatima; Torres, Vukosava Milic; James, Peter; Simões, Tânia; Penque, DeborahQuestion: Tobacco is one of the biggest public health threats. Smoking kills more than 7 million people/year worldwide and more than 890,000 of deaths resulted from exposure to Second Hand Smoke (SHS). SHS is associated to cardiovascular and respiratory diseases, including coronary heart disease and lung cancer, through pathological and molecular mechanisms not yet understood. In Portugal, the partial tobacco smoking ban legislation in public venues allows smoking in restaurants with designed rooms larger than 100m2. We aimed to investigate the SHS effects on the respiratory tract proteome from exposed workers. Methods: Nasal epithelia was collected from hospitality workers (non-smokers=40; smokers=12), long-term exposed and non-exposed to SHS at the workplace. All subjects were healthy with normal spirometry values (FVE1/FVC <70%) for pulmonary diseases. Non-smokers exposed presented higher levels of urinary cotinine after working, confirming SHS exposure. Samples were analyzed by shotgun proteomics using ESI-LQT Orbitrap XL MS and the generated MS raw data by the PatternLab for Proteomics. Proteins were investigated by DAVIDv6.8 and Reactome Pathway databases. Results: Two proteins were found to be differentially expressed in the nonsmokers exposed to SHS compared with control: Heat shock Protein Beta-1 (HSPB1) and BPI fold-containing family A member 1 (BPIFA1). HSPB1 plays a role in the stress resistance and actin organization and BPIFA1 is involved in the airway inflammatory response after exposure to irritants by attracting macrophages and neutrophils, and it is also associated with tumor progression. Conclusions: In health non-smokers, prolonged exposure to SHS can lead to respiratory tract proteome modulation associated with airway inflammatory/stress response to toxic substances. When validated, the uncovered proteins can be promising candidate biomarkers of exposure/effect for clinical assessment of workers occupationally exposed to SHS.
- Overview of proteomics studies in obstructive sleep apneaPublication . Feliciano, Amélia; Torres, Vukosava M.; Vaz, Fatima; Carvalho, Ana Sofia; Matthiesen, Rune; Pinto, Paula; Malhotra, Atul; Bárbara, Cristina; Penque, DeborahObstructive sleep apnea (OSA) is an underdiagnosed common public health concern causing deleterious effects on metabolic and cardiovascular health. Although much has been learned regarding the pathophysiology and consequences of OSA in the past decades, the molecular mechanisms associated with such processes remain poorly defined. The advanced high-throughput proteomics-based technologies have become a fundamental approach for identifying novel disease mediators as potential diagnostic and therapeutic targets for many diseases, including OSA. Here, we briefly review OSA pathophysiology and the technological advances in proteomics and the first results of its application to address critical issues in the OSA field.
- Plasma and red blood cell proteome in sickle-cell diseasePublication . Charro, Nuno; Vaz, Fatima; Morais, Anabela; Lavinha, João; Penque, DeborahSickle-cell disease (SCD) is a clinically heterogeneous autosomal recessive monogenic chronic anaemia characterized by recurrent episodes of severe vaso-occlusion, haemolysis and infection. Painful crises are the major SCD clinical manifestation probably due to significant increase in dense red blood cells (RBC) and reduction of their ability to pass through capillaries. Using proteomic strategies, we aim to discover novel and better SCD prognosis biomarkers as early predictors of the transition from steady-state to crisis namely vaso-occlusive episodes, thus, allowing a prompt and specific therapeutic intervention
- Proteoforms of transthyretin - candidate biomarkers in diagnosis of obstructive sleepPublication . Torres, VM; Feliciano, Amélia; Antunes, Marilia; Vaz, Fatima; Penque, DeborahObstructive sleep apnea (OSA) is a common sleep-related breathing disorder which is characterized by recurrent occurrence of partial or complete closure of the upper airway during sleep, despite ongoing efforts to breathe. The majority of patients with OSA remain undiagnosed since most of them only come to the attention of a clinician when they complain of daytime sleepiness or when their bed partners report loud snoring or witnessed apnea episodes.Epidemiological studies have indicated that OSA affects 6–13% of the adult population. OSA is multifactorial disease, also considered as metabolic syndrome, which diagnosis in early stages is challenging thus often remain undiagnosed. Recently was found connection between transthyretin (TTR) protein modifications present in human plasma samples and appearance of sleep apnea syndrome1,2 . Mass Spectrometric Immunoassay (MSIA) was successfully applied previously on identification of and quantification of TTR variants present in human serum3. We took advantage on this powerful method to investigate possible modifications of TTR proteoforms in patients with OSAS.
- Proteomics in biomarkers discovery for Obstructive Sleep ApneaPublication . Feliciano, Amelia; Bozanic, Vesna; Sofia Carvalho, Ana; Almeida, Andreia; Vaz, Fatima
- Proteomics in the assessment of the therapeutic response of antineoplastic drugs: strategies and practical applicationsPublication . Torres, Vukosava Milic; Popovic, Lazar; Vaz, Fatima; Penque, DeborahUncovering mechanisms of unknown pathological mechanisms and body response to applied medication are the drive forces toward personalized medicine. In this post-genomic era, all eyes are tuned to proteomic field, searching for the answers and explanations by investigating the final physiological functional units – proteins and their proteoforms. Development of cutting-edge mass spectrometric technologies and powerful bioinformatics tools, allowed life-science community mining of disease-specific proteins as biomarkers, which are often hidden by high complexity of the samples and/or small abundance. Nowadays, there are several proteomics-based approaches to study the proteome. This chapter focuses on gold standard proteomics strategies and related issues towards candidate biomarker discovery, which may have diagnostic/prognostic as well as mechanistic utility.
- Second-hand smoke exposure effects on nasal epithelia proteomePublication . Neves, Sofia; Pacheco, Solange; Vaz, Fatima; James, Peter; Penque, DeborahEnvironmental second-hand smoke exposure (SHS) results in a statistically significant increase in the risk of diseases such cardiovascular diseases and lung cancer. Cigarette smoke contains thousands of constituents, including several carcinogens and cytotoxic chemicals that orchestrate chronic inflammatory responses and destructive remodeling events1,2. In this work, our main objective is to uncover biomarkers of SHS exposure effects by investigating the proteome of nasal epithelia from health subjects occupationally long–term exposed to SHS.
- Second-hand tobacco smoke effects evaluated by proteomicsPublication . Pacheco, Solange; Vaz, Fatima; penque, deborah; Neves, Sofia; Torres, VukosavaSecond-hand smoke (SHS) is responsible for more then 600000 premature year deaths. In the European Union, 14% of Non-Smokers (NS) are exposed to other individuals’ tobacco smoke at home and 30% are exposed at the workplace. Towards their protection several European countries, except Portugal, move to a total tobacco ban in indoor public places. In 2008, a project aiming to analyze the impact of partial smoking ban in Portuguese public venues started. After our previously evidence of both SHS air contamination in non-smoking areas and inhalation of tobacco smoke by the venues workers, we aimed to study resultant biochemical and molecular changes at both systemic and respiratory level.
- Shotgun proteomics of red blood cells from obstructive sleep apnea patients under positive airway pressure (PAP) treatmentPublication . Coelho, Cristina Valentim; Osório, Hugo; Vaz, Fatima; Neves, Sofia; Pinto, Paula; Barbara, Cristina; Penque, DeborahObstructive Sleep Apnea (OSA) syndrome is characterized by recurrent episodes of apneas and hypopneas during sleep, leading to recurrent intermittent hypoxia and sleep fragmentation. No treated OSA can result in metabolic and cardiovascular diseases. By 2D gel-based proteomics approach we have demonstrated that OSA can cause alterations in the red blood cells (RBC) proteome that may be associated with OSA outcomes. OSA induces alterations in the redox/oligomeric states of RBC proteins such as gyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase (GAPDH) and peroxiredoxin-2 (PRDX2) that can be reverted or modulated by PAP treatment. In this study, we applied a shotgun proteomics strategy to further investigate the RBC proteome from patients with OSA before and after PAP treatment to better understand the regulation of RBC homeostasis in the context of OSA and/or under effect of PAP treatment. As a first approach, RBCs samples, corresponding to Snorers patients as control (n=23) and patients with OSA before and after six months of PAP treatment (n=33/condition) were selected from our biobank1. Samples were randomly pooled (n=3 per group/condition) and lysed 1:6 with 5mM sodium phosphate buffer containing 100 mM of N-ethylmaleimide, a reagent that alkylates free sulfhydryl groups, before haemoglobin depletion by using HemovoidTM system. Depleted samples were alkylated, reduced and digested with trypsin and chymotrypsin. The resulting peptides were cleaned with C18 columns and analysed in triplicate by a Nano High Performance Liquid Chromatography (nanoHPLC) on-line coupled to a high-resolution accurate-mass Orbitrap mass spectrometer (Q Exactive, Thermo Scientific) with a nano electrospray ionization source (nanoESI). The acquired mass spectrometry data were analysed by MaxQuant v1.5.8.3 and Perseus v2.0.3.1 software. The preliminary results corroborated our previous findings by showing that proteins associated with stress response and antioxidant regulatory system were the most changed in OSA RBC compared with Snorers ones. The active catalytic cysteine (Cys 51) in the PRDX2 was identified trioxidized –SO3H almost exclusively in OSA RBC before PAP treatment. Further analyses and validation of these data are in progress, which will certainly provide a better understanding of RBC molecular mechanisms and their proteins/PTMs associated with OSA pathology and/or response to PAP therapy.