Focus & Scope

The Biochemical Fundamental Biomarkers of The Status of Health Against Cancer and Cardiovascular Diseases: Presence of Cortisol and Melatonin Circadian Rhythms, Normal Blood Levels of Fatty Acid Amide Hydrolase (FAAH) and Transforming Growth Factor-Beta (TGF-Beta), and Normal Values of Lymphocyte-to-Monocyte Ratio (LMR) and Atrial Natriuretic Peptide (ANP)-to-Endothelin-1 (Et-1) Ratio

Paolo Lissoni*, Giusy Messina, Franco Rovelli, Nicoletta Merli, Rosa Cusmai, Fernando Brivio, Arianna Lissoni, Giuseppe Di Fede

Institute of Biological Medicine, Milan, Italy

The future of laboratory analyses would require the identification of clinical parameters involving the main integrative biological functions including neuroendocrine, immune and cardiovascular systems, and capable of predicting the evidence of metabolic alterations and the possible occurrence of systemic diseases. According to the clinical data available up to now, the status of health may be identified by the following five major biomarkers, consisting of normal circadian rhythm of cortisol and the pineal hormone melatonin, normal blood concentrations of fatty acid amide hydrolase (FAAH), whose increase is associated with an endocannabinoid system deficiency, normal lymphocyte-to-monocyte ratio (LMR) values, normal blood levels of TGF-beta, the main immunosuppressive anti-inflammatory endogenous molecule, and normal values of ANP-to-ET-1 ratio. Since the evidence of alterations involving these five parameters may predispose to the onset of more severe metabolic disorders or systemic disease, the clinical evaluation of these five biomarkers could constitute the routinary laboratory analyses for realizing a real Preventive Medicine.

Neuroimmune Imbalance: The Key for the Treatment of Anxiety?

Bai Li, Tangxin Gao, Jing Du *

School of Medicine, Yunnan University, 2 Cuihu North Road, Kunming, 650091, Yunnan, China

Synaptic Compensatory Mechanism and its Impairment in Autoimmune Myasthenic Diseases

Masaharu Takamori*

Neurological Center, Kanazawa-Nishi Hospital, Kanazawa, Ishikawa, 920-0025, Japan

The neuromuscular junction (NMJ) is organized by a complex architecture and various signals orchestrated by sophisticated interactions. They include the presynaptic Ca²⁺ homeostasis for acetylcholine (ACh) release in the active zone organization, the post-synaptic ACh receptor (AChR) clustering at endplate membranes, the trans-synaptic communication from muscle to nerve, and the synaptic stabilization. The present data and discussions are concerned in an adaptive change of ACh release from the nerve terminal and its immunological impairment in the post-synaptic disease (myasthenia gravis, MG) and the presynaptic disease (Lambert-Eaton myasthenic syndrome, LEMS).?Discussions mainly focus the antibody-induced failure of the synaptic compensatory mechanisms that are brought about by the presynaptic autoreceptors (the M1-type muscarinic AChR [mAChR] cooperated with adenosine receptors), and the non-voltage-gated Ca²⁺-dominant influx channel (transient receptor potential canonical [TRPCs], particularly its phenotype TRPC3). Besides the synaptic transmission fatigue, the TRPC3 antibodies are discussed in terms of their implication in the muscle contraction fatigue that often occurs in the thymoma-associated MG and reflects a defect in the physiological association of TRPC3 with the ryanodine receptor-1 in the excitation-contraction coupling in which the sarcoplasmic Ca²⁺ release takes place. In addition to the modulating role in the NMJ functions, the mAChRs participate in the innate and adaptive inmmunity by MG thymus and in the lung cancer (often associated with LEMS) growth.