Leen Oyoun Alsoud's research while affiliated with University of Sharjah and other places

The COVID-19 pandemic, caused by the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), has captivated the globe’s attention since its emergence in 2019. This highly infectious, spreadable, and dangerous pathogen has caused health, social, and economic crises. Therefore, a worldwide collaborative effort was made to find an efficient strategy to overcome and develop vaccines. The new vaccines provide an effective immune response that safeguards the community from the virus’ severity. WHO has approved nine vaccines for emergency use based on safety and efficacy data collected from various conducted clinical trials. Herein, we review the safety and effectiveness of the WHO-approved COVID-19 vaccines and associated immune responses, and their impact on improving the public’s health. Several immunological studies have demonstrated that vaccination dramatically enhances the immune response and reduces the likelihood of future infections in previously infected individuals. However, the type of vaccination and individual health status can significantly affect immune responses. Exposure of healthy individuals to adenovirus vectors or mRNA vaccines causes the early production of antibodies from B and T cells. On the other hand, unhealthy individuals were more likely to experience harmful events due to relapses in their existing conditions. Taken together, aligning with the proper vaccination to a patient’s case can result in better outcomes.

Cancer of the central nervous system (CNS) is ranked as the 19th most prevalent form of the disease in 2020. This study aims to identify candidate biomarkers and metabolic pathways affected by paclitaxel and etoposide, which serve as potential treatments for glioblas-toma, and are linked to the pathogenesis of glioblastoma. We utilized an untargeted metabo-lomics approach using the highly sensitive ultra-high-performance liquid chromatography-electrospray ionization quadrupole time-of-flight mass spectrometry (UHPLC-ESI-QTOF-MS) for identification. In this study, 92 and 94 metabolites in U87 and U373 cell lines were profiled, respectively. The produced metabolites were then analyzed utilizing t-tests, volcano plots, and enrichment analysis modules. Our analysis revealed distinct metabolites to be significantly dysregulated (nutriacholic acid, L-phenylalanine, L-arginine, guanosine, ADP, hypoxanthine, and guanine), and to a lesser extent, mevalonic acid in paclitaxel and/or etoposide treated cells. Furthermore, both urea and citric acid cycles, and metabolism of polyamines and amino acids (aspartate, arginine, and proline) were significantly enriched. These findings can be used to create a map that can be utilized to assess the antitumor effect of paclitaxel and/or etoposide within the studied cancer cells.

Metabolic syndrome (MetS) is a disorder characterized by a group of factors that can increase the risk of chronic diseases, including cardiovascular diseases and type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2D). Metabolomics has provided new insight into disease diagnosis and biomarker identification. This cross-sectional investigation used an untargeted metabolomics-based technique to uncover metabolomic alterations and their relationship to pathways in normoglycemic and prediabetic MetS participants to improve disease diagnosis. Plasma samples were collected from drug-naive prediabetic MetS patients (n = 26), normoglycemic MetS patients (n = 30), and healthy (normoglycemic lean) subjects (n = 30) who met the inclusion criteria for the study. The plasma samples were analyzed using highly sensitive ultra-high-performance liquid chromatography electrospray ionization quadrupole time-of-flight mass spectrometry (UHPLC-ESI-QTOF-MS). One-way ANOVA analysis revealed that 59 metabolites differed significantly among the three groups (p < 0.05). Glutamine, 5-hydroxy-Ltryptophan, L-sorbose, and hippurate were highly associated with MetS. However, 9-methyluric acid, sphinganine, and threonic acid were highly associated with prediabetes/MetS. Metabolic pathway analysis showed that arginine biosynthesis and glutathione metabolism were associated with MetS/prediabetes, while phenylalanine, D-glutamine and D-glutamate, and lysine degradation were highly impacted in MetS. The current study sheds light on the potential diagnostic value of some metabolites in metabolic syndrome and the role of their alteration on some of the metabolic pathways. More studies are needed in larger cohorts in order to verify the implication of the above metabolites on MetS and their diagnostic value.