Young Kyung Ko, Suhyuk Chi, Gyu-Hwi Nam, Kyung-Wan Baek, Kung Ahn, Yongju Ahn, June Kang, Moon-Soo Lee, Jeong-An Gim. Clin Psychopharmacol Neurosci 2024;22:295-305. https://doi.org/10.9758/cpn.23.1099

The human skin sebum suggests that it (along with other epidermal surface lipids) plays a role in skin barrier formation, the moderation of cutaneous inflammation, and antimicrobial defense. Various methods have been developed for collecting and measuring skin sebum. We tested methods of detection using “color intensity”, by staining the skin casual sebum. This process was conducted in three steps; first, the selection of materials for sebum collection; second, staining the collected sebum; third, the development of a device that can measure the level of stained sebum. A plastic film was used to effectively collect sebum that increased with the replacement time of the sebum. In addition, the collected sebum was stained with Oil Red O (ORO) and checked with RGB; as a result, the R² value was higher than 0.9. It was also confirmed that the correlation value was higher than 0.9 in the comparison result with Sebumeter^®, which is a common standard technology. Finally, it was confirmed that the R² value was higher than 0.9 in the detection value using the sensor. In conclusion, we have proven the proof of concept (PoC) for this method, and we would like to introduce an effective sebum measurement method that differs from the existing method.

The current approaches for detecting most colorectal polyps and early neoplasms lack sufficient sensitivity and specificity, potentially hindering treatment and ultimately reducing survival rates. Here, we performed a metagenomic analysis to identify microbiome markers in stool samples from patients with early-stage colorectal cancer (CRC). We compared the composition of gut microbiota between patients with CRC and healthy individuals, specifically focusing on patients with early-stage CRC, defined as those without core mutations (KRAS, BRAF) for CRC diagnosis, stable microsatellite instability, and distant metastasis. The aim of our study is to identify potential biomarkers from gut microbiota at different cancer stages in colorectal cancer (CRC) patients through 16S rRNA amplicon sequencing, thereby proposing a novel non-invasive method for the early diagnosis of CRC. Specific microbes were detected from groups divided based on the TNM criteria, with one group classified by tumour size only (named the T group) and another group with lymph node metastasis (named the TN group). Aerobic bacteria, such as Delftia, Stenotrophomonas, Sphingobacterium, Rhodococcus, Devosia, Ensifer, and Psychrobacter were predominantly detected in patients with CRC without lymph node metastasis. The diagnostic prediction was evaluated using the CatBoost algorithm; these microbes presented high diagnostic accuracy with a receiver operating characteristics-area under curve of 0.8, which was validated using qPCR. In conclusion, this study identified specific aerobic microbial groups as non-invasive biomarkers for early diagnosis in patients with CRC without genetic or environmental factors.

PURPOSE: To suggest future research directions and current research trends based on representative studies of existing exercises and the gut microbiome. In addition, we reviewed methodologies to study the relationship between exercise and the gut microbiome.METHODS: The research methodologies and results were integrated through a literature review of the latest “exercise and gut microbiome” studies and a narrative review.RESULTS: Although exercise is indirectly related to the gut microbiome or immunity, evidence for a direct effect is still lacking. However, with the recent discovery of gut microbiomes that can help improve exercise performance, it is clear that exercise can positively alter the gut microbiome.CONCLUSIONS: Strong evidence suggests that regular moderate exercise improves overall immune function and lowers the incidence of inflammation-related disease. In addition, certain microorganisms affect exercise performance.

Background: Tuberculosis is the leading infectious killer, yet over a third of cases go undiagnosed. Small non-coding RNAs in blood extracellular vesicles (EVs) are candidate biomarkers, but M. tuberculosis insertion-sequence (IS) elements remain unmined.Methods: We predicted 752 microRNA-like hairpin candidates from IS elements of the H37Rv reference and screened their variants against drug-resistance and lineage phenotypes in 12,285 CRyPTIC isolates. Candidates were profiled in three host-free cultures, four public EV small RNA-seq cohorts (), and two whole-blood cohorts (). Six were then measured by U6-normalised RT-qPCR in serum EVs from 50 retrospectively sampled active-TB patients (25 drug-resistant, 25 pan-susceptible), with EV size by nanoparticle tracking.Findings: All 752 were detected in host-free culture, confirming bacterial origin. Detection depended on specimen type: EV fractions recovered roughly 100-fold more candidates than whole-blood RNA. Three were enriched in active-TB EVs in two cohorts but not a third, Peruvian cohort, where ISmir_0009 was instead latency-enriched; none survived panel-wide Benjamini–Hochberg correction. All six were less abundant in drug-resistant than pan-susceptible patients, but EV diameter differed in the same direction (median 101 versus 120 nm) and alone separated the groups (AUROC 0·787), so the two effects cannot be disentangled.Interpretation: IS-derived microRNA-like small RNAs form a distinct class of blood-detectable M. tuberculosis biomarker with confirmed bacterial origin. All associations are directional and hypothesis-generating; no diagnostic performance is claimed; prospective validation with uninfected and latent-infection controls is required.