Sensorineural hearing loss (SNHL) is one of the most common causes of disability, affecting over 466 million people worldwide. However, prevention or therapy of SNHL has not been widely studied. Avocado oil has shown many health benefits but it has not yet been studied in regards to SNHL. Therefore, we aimed to investigate the efficacy of avocado oil on SNHL in vitro and in vivo and elucidate its mode of action. For the present study, we used enhanced functional avocado oil extract (DKB122). DKB122 led to recovery of otic hair cells in zebrafish after neomycin-induced otic cell damage. Also, DKB122 improved auditory sensory transmission function in a mouse model of noise induced-hearing loss and protected sensory hair cells in the cochlea. In addition, RNA sequencing was performed to elucidate the mechanism involved. KEGG pathway enrichment analysis of differentially expressed genes showed that DKB122 protected House Ear Institute-Organ of Corti 1 (HEI-OC1) cells against neomycin-related alterations in gene expression due to oxidative stress, cytokine production and protein synthesis.

Background: Preeclampsia, a pregnancy disorder characterized by hypertension and proteinuria, represents the leading cause of fetal and maternal morbidity and mortality in developing countries. The identification of novel and accurate biomarkers that are predictive of preeclampsia is necessary to improve the prognosis of patients with preeclampsia. Objective: To evaluate the preeclampsia predictive value of 34 angiogenic-related proteins. Methods: We performed a nested cohort case-control study of pregnant women. The profile of the 34 proteins was evaluated at 12, 16, and 20 gestational weeks (GWs), using urine/plasma from 16 women who developed preeclampsia and 20 normotensive pregnant controls by Bio-Plex Pro^TM Human Cancer Biomarker Panels 1 and 2. Results: The urine concentration of soluble epidermal growth factor receptor (sEGFR), hepatocyte growth factor (HGF), angiopoietin-2 (ANG-2), endoglin (ENG), soluble fas ligand (sFASL), interleukin 6 (IL-6), placental growth factor (PLGF), and vascular endothelial growth factor A (VEGF-A) at 12 GW, prolactin (PRL), ANG-2, transforming growth factor alpha (TGF-α), and VEGF-A at 16 GW, and soluble IL-6 receptor alpha (sIL-6Rα), ANG-2 and sFASL at 20 GW, were different between groups (p < 0.05). The concentration cut-off values calculated in this study for the mentioned proteins, predicted an increased risk to developing preeclampsia in a range of 3.8–29.8 times in the study population. Conclusion: The proteins sEGFR, HGF, ANG-2, sFASL, IL-6, PLGF, VEGF-A, PRL, TGF-α FGF-b, sHER2/Neu sIL-6Rα, ENG, uPA, and insulin-like growth factor binding protein 1 (IGFBP-1), were predictive of the development of preeclampsia and their use as markers for this disease should be considered.