Vol 21, No 1 (2023)

One of the most important tasks of modern medicine is to recognize diseases at the preclinical stage, as well as to assess their development risks and their possible prevention. This dictates the need to use new, modern technologies aimed at the early detection of biomarkers and the identification of new therapeutic targets.

The purpose to summarize the available data on metabolomic studies used in medicine.

Material and methods. The analysis of the main foreign and domestic sources in the PubMed/Medline, RSCI/elibrary databases over the past 5 years was carried out.

Results. Metabolomics is a rapidly developing research method used in biomedicine to illustrate in detail the pathological mechanisms that occur and to develop new disease biomarkers. Analytical approaches used to study the metabolome are not inferior to genetic studies in their specificity and sensitivity. Along with this, the ability to simultaneously quantify several thousand metabolites in samples makes metabolomics a method oriented towards personalized medicine.

Relevance: COVID-19 is the accepted name for an acute respiratory disease caused by the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus. The suddenness, speed of spread, severity, and high lethality of COVID-19 have led many of the drugs used in the early stages of a pandemic to be based on emergency clinical observations rather than preclinical and clinical studies. Therefore, there is no doubt the relevance of systematizing effective therapeutic agents that prevent the severe course of a COVID-19 infection and reduce mortality, the creation of which is based on fundamental knowledge not only of the biology of the virus, but also of the patient’s response, which requires large-scale studies of pathogenesis and the study of predictors of a possible transition of the disease to severe and even the terminal phase.

Objective: A structured description of currently accepted medicines, vaccines, and approaches for the treatment of COVID-19.

Material and methods: a search was conducted in the PubMed database and the scientific electronic library eLIBRARY.RU. The selection of articles was carried out manually. This review includes 69 sources, including methodological recommendations of the Ministry of Health of the Russian Federation and data from ongoing clinical trials.

Results: medicines, vaccines and approaches to the treatment of COVID-19, currently adopted in different countries, are systematized, indicating the effectiveness and mechanisms of their action, as well as identified side effects that limit their use in certain groups of patients.

Introduction. Iron is one of the main elements for the vital activity of the body. Iron deficiency leads to the development of iron deficiency anemia, one of the most common diseases in the Russian Federation; excess iron induces oxidative stress. In this way, the diagnostics of iron metabolism is an important applied problem.

The aim of the study. The aim of the study was to establish reference intervals for serum iron, measured not by the routine method, but by the ICP-MS method, on a large sample; study of gender and age fluctuations of the level of serum iron; study of the relationship between the concentration of iron and the levels of ferritin and transferrin in the blood serum.

Material and methods. The study was performed on the basis of a database of laboratory analyzes. The number of laboratory tests for ferritin, transferrin, iron in serum was 6786, 1809, 13161, respectively. When determining the reference intervals, the Hoffman method was used.

Results. It was found that the concentration of iron in the blood serum among women is lower than among men, and this tendency persists up to 45–50 years, there are no differences in the later age period. The concentration of serum iron positively and statistically significantly correlates with the level of ferritin in all age groups in the total sample and in the group of women; among men, statistically significant positive correlations were found only in the age groups of 18–25 years and older than 56 years. Correlations of iron concentration with the level of transferrin are less intense: statistically significant correlations were found in the total sample in the age groups of 26–35 years and 46–55 years.

Conclusion. When calculating the reference intervals of serum iron, it is necessary to consider the gender and age dynamics of deviations. Aging processes have a greater impact on iron metabolism for women than for men.

Introduction. An experimental study of the pathogenetic mechanisms of the development of inflammatory-destructive changes in the joints in animal models was carried out in order to develop new diagnostic strategies for further implementation of the results obtained in clinical practice, determination of morphometric and metabolic features of the skeletal connective tissue of the rat knee joints.

Material and methods. The authors studied histological preparations of knee joints stained with Mayer’s hematoxylin and eosin, alcian blue (pH 1.0 and 2.5) according to Van Gieson, Masson and Mallory. The metabolic properties of cartilage and bone tissue were studied by determining the concentration of hyaluronic acid, osteocalcin, and type I collagen in the blood serum of laboratory animals.

Results. In rats with osteoarthritis induced by the administration of dexamethasone and talc, a 50% decrease in the thickness of the articular cartilage in its loaded areas was noted. There was also a violation of the spatial distribution of chondrocytes, a decrease (p<0.01) in the nuclear-cytoplasmic ratio of chondrocytes to 0.3 and an increase in the serum concentration of hyaluronic acid (p<0.001) to 110.2 ng/ml, fragments of type I collagen (p<0.001) to 217.9 ng/ml and osteocalcin (p<0.001) to 231.1 ng/ml.

Conclusion. The main pathogenetic features of experimental osteoarthritis induced by dexamethasone and talc are a violation of the density of distribution, morphological features and functional activity of chondrocytes. All this leads to inhibition of the synthesis of the components of the extracellular matrix of the articular cartilage, and is also accompanied by the activation of the destruction of proteoglycans containing non-sulfated glycosaminoglycans.

Introduction. The formation of effective bioregulators for the maintenance of the basic physiological functions, so as polypeptide complexes (PPCs), is one of the actual task of modern biology and medicine.

Purpose of study. Effect of combination of polypeptide complexes (PPCs) from thymus (Thymalin) with PPC from liver (Ventvil), PPC from kidney (Nephropept) and PPC from brain, (Сortexin) on the cellular proliferation of rat corresponding tissues.

Methods. Organotypic tissue culture of rat spleen, liver, kidney and brain cortex under different PPCs and their combinations effect.

Results. All PPCs increase statistically reliable the square index (SI) of rat corresponding tissues explants of young rats skin explants on 20–27%, as compared to the control. There was no potentiate effect and the stimulation of the cellular proliferation was at the account of this PPC, which stimulated the proliferation by its single effect.

Conclusion. The obtained data create a basis for using by the patient combined pathology of two different PPCs, each of them will have effect on the regeneration stimulation only of corresponding tissue.