With the advent of the direct oral anticoagulants (DOACs), patients requiring anticoagulation for common conditions such as atrial fibrillation and venous thromboembolism no longer need to worry about dietary restrictions or regular monitoring of the international normalized ratio which complicated warfarin treatment.

Being a sophisticated and highly organized living system, mammals harbor a large number of biomolecular machineries which represent a dynamic and complex network of interconnections responsible for the effective operation, development and survivability of their body cells. Sphingolipids are a special class of lipids in eukaryotic cells, which have recently gained the attention of researchers because of their involvement in several fundamental processes of living cells, including proliferation

Acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) is the major cause of mortality among hospitalized acute lung injury (ALI) patients. Lung macrophages play an important role in maintaining the tissue-fluid homeostasis following injury. We recently showed that circulating monocytes recruited into the alveolar space suppressed the stimulator of type 1 interferon genes (STING) signaling in alveolar macrophages through sphingosine-1-phosphate (S1P). 

In mammalian cells, ceramides are central lipids in sphingolipid metabolism and serve both as signaling lipids and as precursors for other bioactive sphingolipids, ranging from complex glycosphingolipids to “simpler” lipids such as ceramide-1-phosphate, sphingomyelin (SM), sphingosine and sphingosine-1-phosphate (S1P).

Diabetic kidney disease (DKD) is a common complication of diabetes, characterized by kidney damage. Podocytes are specialized, terminally differentiated cells in the kidney’s filtration barrier that are key responders to the metabolic and environmental changes that occur in diabetes. Change in the function and in the number of podocytes is the main signature of the development and progression of DKD.