Nutrition and Rheumatoid Arthritis in the 'Omics' Era.

Manuela Cassotta,Sandra Sumalla Cano,Tamara Y Forbes-Hernandez,Irma Dominguez,Danila Cianciosi,Josè Miguel Alvarez-Suarez,Beatriz Bullon,Lucia Regolo,Maurizio Battino,Francesca Giampieri,Maria Elexpuru Zabaleta

doi:10.3390/nu13030763

Abstract

Modern high-throughput ‘omics’ science tools (including genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics, metabolomics and microbiomics) are currently being applied to nutritional sciences to unravel the fundamental processes of health effects ascribed to particular nutrients in humans and to contribute to more precise nutritional advice. Diet and food components are key environmental factors that interact with the genome, transcriptome, proteome, metabolome and the microbiota, and this life-long interplay defines health and diseases state of the individual. Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is a chronic autoimmune disease featured by a systemic immune-inflammatory response, in genetically susceptible individuals exposed to environmental triggers, including diet. In recent years increasing evidences suggested that nutritional factors and gut microbiome have a central role in RA risk and progression. The aim of this review is to summarize the main and most recent applications of ‘omics’ technologies in human nutrition and in RA research, examining the possible influences of some nutrients and nutritional patterns on RA pathogenesis, following a nutrigenomics approach. The opportunities and challenges of novel ‘omics technologies’ in the exploration of new avenues in RA and nutritional research to prevent and manage RA will be also discussed.

Highlights

Recent advances in high-throughput/high-content techniques have led to a new framework in biomedical research, the so-called ‘Omics era’, which combines the opportunity to gather great amounts of data and details at the molecular level together with the evolution of new computational models and statistical tools that are able to analyze and filter such data
Transcriptomics, proteomics, metabolomics, and microbiomics analysis make it possible to improve the understanding of the pathogenesis of complex diseases such as Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) as well as to study the relationship between nutrition, microbiota, health and disease at a molecular level
Robust associations between dietary intake and population health or disease are evident from conventional observational epidemiology, the outcomes of large-scale intervention studies examining the causality of those links have often proved unconvincing or have failed to demonstrate causality, including nutritional interventional studies related to RA [222,223]

Summary

Introduction

Recent advances in high-throughput/high-content techniques have led to a new framework in biomedical research, the so-called ‘Omics era’, which combines the opportunity to gather great amounts of data and details at the molecular level together with the evolution of new computational models and statistical tools that are able to analyze and filter such data. Microbiomics is an emerging rapidly-growing field in which all the microbes of a particular community (for e.g., gut microbiota) are analyzed together, harnessing ‘omics’ approaches and technologies, including metagenomics, metatranscriptomics, metaproteomics and metabolomics These technologies, which investigate respectively the collective genome, transcriptome, proteome, and metabolome of microorganisms from a sample (e.g., human stools or saliva), are providing information concerning the structure and function of the entire microbial community as well as the identification and assessment of regulatory and metabolic machinery by which host and microbes interact among themselves to determine a healthy or diseased state in the human host [87].

The Contribution of ‘Omics’ in Elucidating Rheumatoid Arthritis Pathogenesis

Nutrigenomics Approach to Rheumatoid Arthritis

Discussion

Conclusions

Findings

Methods