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Life
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Aquaporins and Human Health
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Aquaporins and Human Health

A special issue of Life (ISSN 2075-1729). This special issue belongs to the section "Proteins and Proteomics".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (15 December 2021) | Viewed by 16644

Special Issue Editor

Dr. Nobutomo Ikarashi

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Biomolecular Pharmacology, Hoshi University, Tokyo 142-8501, Japan
Interests: cosmetics; skin physiology; microbiota; melanogenesis; aquaporins; skin barrier function; skin ageing; contact dermatitis; natural products; polyphenol

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Aquaporins (AQPs) were discovered to be membrane proteins that transport water in the body, and 13 kinds, AQP0 to AQP12, have been found in mammals. AQPs have been shown to transport not only water, but also glycerol, reactive oxygen species, gas, and small molecules. As it has become clear that abnormalities in AQPs can be the cause of various diseases, the control of their expression and function is considered to be useful in the prevention and treatment of diseases. In this Special Issue titled in "Aquaporins and Human Health", we are waiting for submissions from a wide range of fields, with the aim of finding new functions of AQP and its relationship with diseases, as well as the mechanism of its expression regulation.

Dr. Nobutomo Ikarashi
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Life is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • aquaporins
  • disease
  • water metabolism
  • glycerol metabolism
  • reactive oxygen species
  • gas
  • cell migration and proliferation
  • structure-function relationship
  • natural products

Published Papers (3 papers)

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Research

11 pages, 15444 KiB  
Article
Lactic Acid Permeability of Aquaporin-9 Enables Cytoplasmic Lactate Accumulation via an Ion Trap
by Katharina Geistlinger, Jana D. R. Schmidt and Eric Beitz
Life 2022, 12(1), 120; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/life12010120 - 14 Jan 2022
Cited by 5 | Viewed by 2093
Abstract
(1) Background: Human aquaporin-9 (AQP9) conducts several small uncharged metabolites, such as glycerol, urea, and lactic acid. Certain brain tumors were shown to upregulate AQP9 expression, and the putative increase in lactic acid permeability was assigned to severity. (2) Methods: We expressed AQP9 [...] Read more.
(1) Background: Human aquaporin-9 (AQP9) conducts several small uncharged metabolites, such as glycerol, urea, and lactic acid. Certain brain tumors were shown to upregulate AQP9 expression, and the putative increase in lactic acid permeability was assigned to severity. (2) Methods: We expressed AQP9 and human monocarboxylate transporter 1 (MCT1) in yeast to determine the uptake rates and accumulation of radiolabeled l-lactate/l-lactic acid in different external pH conditions. (3) Results: The AQP9-mediated uptake of l-lactic acid was slow compared to MCT1 at neutral and slightly acidic pH, due to low concentrations of the neutral substrate species. At a pH corresponding to the pKa of l-lactic acid, uptake via AQP9 was faster than via MCT1. Substrate accumulation was fundamentally different between AQP9 and MCT1. With MCT1, an equilibrium was reached, at which the intracellular and extracellular l-lactate/H+ concentrations were balanced. Uptake via AQP9 was linear, theoretically yielding orders of magnitude of higher substrate accumulation than MCT1. (4) Conclusions: The selectivity of AQP9 for neutral l-lactic acid establishes an ion trap for l-lactate after dissociation. This may be physiologically relevant if the transmembrane proton gradient is steep, and AQP9 acts as the sole uptake path on at least one side of a polarized cell. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Aquaporins and Human Health)
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18 pages, 1887 KiB  
Article
Manuka Honey Induces Apoptosis of Epithelial Cancer Cells through Aquaporin-3 and Calcium Signaling
by Simona Martinotti, Giorgia Pellavio, Mauro Patrone, Umberto Laforenza and Elia Ranzato
Life 2020, 10(11), 256; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/life10110256 - 27 Oct 2020
Cited by 9 | Viewed by 9212
Abstract
Honey is a natural product with a long use in traditional medicine and is well recognized to regulate different biological events. It is an important source of various biological or pharmacological molecules and, therefore, there is a strong interest to explore their properties. [...] Read more.
Honey is a natural product with a long use in traditional medicine and is well recognized to regulate different biological events. It is an important source of various biological or pharmacological molecules and, therefore, there is a strong interest to explore their properties. Evidence is growing that honey may have the potential to be an anticancer agent acting through several mechanisms. Here we observed for the first time in a cancer cell line a possible mechanism through which honey could induce an alteration in the intracellular reactive oxygen species and homeostatic balance of intracellular calcium concentration leading to cell death by apoptosis. This mechanism seems to be enhanced by manuka honey’s ability to maintain high H2O2 permeability through aquaporin-3. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Aquaporins and Human Health)
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8 pages, 841 KiB  
Article
Effect of Astaxanthin on the Expression and Activity of Aquaporin-3 in Skin in an In-Vitro Study
by Nobutomo Ikarashi, Risako Kon, Chika Nagoya, Airi Ishikura, Yuri Sugiyama, Jiro Takahashi and Kiyoshi Sugiyama
Life 2020, 10(9), 193; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/life10090193 - 11 Sep 2020
Cited by 11 | Viewed by 4587
Abstract
Astaxanthin (3,3′-dihydroxy-β,β-carotene-4,4′-dione) is a red lipophilic pigment with strong antioxidant action. Oral or topical administration of astaxanthin has been reported to improve skin function, including increasing skin moisture. In this study, we examined the mechanism by which astaxanthin improves skin function by focusing [...] Read more.
Astaxanthin (3,3′-dihydroxy-β,β-carotene-4,4′-dione) is a red lipophilic pigment with strong antioxidant action. Oral or topical administration of astaxanthin has been reported to improve skin function, including increasing skin moisture. In this study, we examined the mechanism by which astaxanthin improves skin function by focusing on the water channel aquaporin-3 (AQP3), which plays important roles in maintaining skin moisture and function. When astaxanthin was added to PHK16-0b or HaCaT cells, the mRNA expression level of AQP3 increased significantly in a concentration-dependent manner in both cell lines. The AQP3 protein expression level was also confirmed to increase when astaxanthin was added to HaCaT cells. Similarly, when astaxanthin was added to 3D human epidermis model EpiSkin, AQP3 expression increased. Furthermore, when glycerol and astaxanthin were simultaneously added to EpiSkin, glycerol permeability increased significantly compared with that observed for the addition of glycerol alone. We demonstrated that astaxanthin increases AQP3 expression in the skin and enhances AQP3 activity. This result suggests that the increased AQP3 expression in the skin is associated with the increase in skin moisture by astaxanthin. Thus, we consider astaxanthin useful for treating dry skin caused by decreased AQP3 due to factors such as diabetes mellitus and aging. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Aquaporins and Human Health)
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