Biological membranes are non-covalent assembly of lipids and proteins. Lipids play critical role in determining membrane physical properties and regulate the function of membrane associated proteins. Budding yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae offers an exceptional advantage to understand the lipid-protein interactions since lipid metabolism and homeostasis are relatively simple and well characteriz...

AIMS Among the pathological findings in Alzheimer's disease (AD), the temporal and spatial profiles of granulovacuolar degeneration (GVD) bodies are characteristic in that they seem to be related to those of neurofibrillary tangles (NFTs), suggesting a common mechanism underlying the pathogenesis of these structures. Flotillin-1, a marker of lipid rafts, accumulates in lysosomes of tangle-beari...

This presentation will review highlights from the 12th International Workshop on Adverse Drug Reactions and Co-morbidities in HIV that will be held in London on 4-6 November 2010. As in the past, the meeting will consist of plenary lectures by experts from outside the field of HIV medicine as well as oral presentations and posters selected from abstracts submitted by attendees. The plenary spea...

BACKGROUND Urinary betaine excretion positively correlated with plasma homocysteine in outpatients attending a lipid disorders clinic (lipid clinic study). We aimed to confirm this in subjects with established vascular disease. METHODS The correlation between betaine excretion and homocysteine was compared in samples collected from subjects 4 months after hospitalization for an acute coronary...

In recent years, microRNAs (miRNA) have emerged as important posttranscriptional regulators of gene expression in a wide variety of biological pathways. Since the discovery of the liver-specific miRNA-122 (miR-122) and its critical role in hepatic function, numerous additional miRNAs have been implicated in lipid metabolism. It is now apparent that lipid homeostasis is governed in part by an in...

As the specific composition of lipids is essential for the maintenance of membrane integrity, enzyme function, ion channels, and membrane receptors, an alteration in lipid composition or metabolism may be one of the crucial changes occurring during skeletal and cardiac myopathies. Although the inheritance (autosomal dominant, autosomal recessive, and X-linked traits) and underlying/defining mut...

Tangier disease is a rare genetic disorder of lipid metabolism characterized by low concentrations of plasma high density lipoprotein (HDL) and low density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol with normal or elevated levels of triglycerides. In this case report we describe a patient with diabetes who experienced an episode of urosepsis with a plasma lipid profile resembling Tangier disease. Experiment...

Lipid metabolism is important for cellular energy homeostasis. Excessive cellular lipid accumulation is associated with various human diseases such as obesity, cardiovascular disease or even cancer. It has been recognized that miR-181a is an important modulator in regulating T lymphocyte differentiation, vascular development and cerebellar neurodegeneration. Here we reports a novel function of ...

There has been much evidence demonstrating the involvement of oxidative stress in the pathology of neurological disorders. Moreover, the vulnerability of the central nervous system to reactive oxygen species mediated injury is well established since neurons consume large amounts of oxygen, the brain has many areas containing high iron content, and neuronal mitochondria generate large amounts of...

Psychiatric disorders like mood disorders, schizophrenia, or drug addiction affect a sizeable proportion of the human population and severely compromise quality of life. Therefore, measures to prevent the manifestation, and treatments to ameliorate the symptoms, of these disorders are in high demand. Brain lipids determine the localization and function of proteins in the cell membrane of neuron...