INVESTIGADORES
PIROLA Carlos Jose
artículos
Título:
Alanine and aspartate aminotransferase and glutamine-cycling.
Autor/es:
SILVIA SOOKOIAN; CARLOS JOSE PIROLA
Revista:
WORLD JOURNAL OF GASTROENTEROLOGY
Editorial:
W J G PRESS
Referencias:
Lugar: Beijing; Año: 2012 vol. 18 p. 3775 - 3781
ISSN:
1007-9327
Resumen:
Although new research technologies are constantly
used to look either for genes or biomarkers in the
prediction of metabolic syndrome (MS), the pathogenesis
and pathophysiology of this complex disease
remains a major challenge. Interestingly, Cheng et alet al
recently investigated possible pathways underlying MS
by high-throughput metabolite profiling in two large
and well characterized community-based cohorts.
The authors explored by liquid chromatography and
mass spectrometry the plasma concentrations of 45
distinct metabolites and examined their relation to
cardiometabolic risk, and observed that metabolic risk
factors such as obesity, insulin resistance (IR), high
blood pressure, and dyslipidemia were associated with
several metabolites, including branched-chain amino
acids, other hydrophobic amino acids, tryptophan
breakdown products, and nucleotide metabolites. In
addition, the authors found a significant association of
IR traits with glutamine, glutamate and the glutamineto-
glutamate ratio. These data provide new insight into
the pathogenesis of MS-associated phenotypes and introduce
a crucial role of glutamine-cycling pathway as
prominently involved in the development of metabolic
risk. We consider that the hypothesis about the role of
abnormal glutamate metabolism in the pathogenesis of
the MS is certainly challenging and suggests the critical
role of the liver in the global metabolic modulation
as glutamate metabolism is linked with aminotransferase
reactions. We discuss here the critical role of
the ?liver metabolism? in the pathogenesis of the MS
and IR, and postulate that before fatty liver develops,
abnormal levels of liver enzymes, such as alanine and
aspartate aminotransferases might reflect high levels
of hepatic transamination of amino acids in the liver.