Abstract
Obesity promotes the development of insulin resistance and increases the incidence of colitis-associated cancer (CAC), but whether a blunted insulin action specifically in intestinal epithelial cells (IECs) affects CAC is unknown. Here, we show that obesity impairs insulin sensitivity in IECs and that mice with IEC-specific inactivation of the insulin and IGF1 receptors exhibit enhanced CAC development as a consequence of impaired restoration of gut barrier function. Blunted insulin signalling retains the transcription factor FOXO1 in the nucleus to inhibit expression of Dsc3, thereby impairing desmosome formation and epithelial integrity. Both IEC-specific nuclear FoxO1ADA expression and IEC-specific Dsc3 inactivation recapitulate the impaired intestinal integrity and increased CAC burden. Spontaneous colonic tumour formation and compromised intestinal integrity are also observed upon IEC-specific coexpression of FoxO1ADA and a stable Myc variant, thus suggesting a molecular mechanism through which impaired insulin action and nuclear FOXO1 in IECs promotes CAC.
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Data availability
The authors declare that the data supporting the findings of this study are available within the article and its supplementary information files, or are available upon reasonable request to the authors. Microarray expression data for tumours of C57BL/6 NCD and C57BL/6 HFD mice are available at gene expression omnibus website (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/geo/) with accession number GSE113303. Microarray expression data for tumours of FoxO1ADAFL and FoxO1ADAIEC mice are available with accession number GSE118639.
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Acknowledgements
A.L.O. was supported by the Cologne CECAD graduate school of ageing, the MPI for Metabolism research and received a ‘Köln Fortune’ grant from the medical faculty of the University of Cologne. FTW received grants from CECAD and from an associated project of the SFB670 funded by the DFG. C.M.W. was supported by CMMC grant of JCB. RCS received support from R01 CA129040. We are grateful for technical assistance from A. Lietzau, C. Baitzel, H. Krämer, P. Scholl, N. Spenrath, C. Schäfer, B. Hampel, A. Fromm and I.-F. Lee. We thank H. Fenselau for critical proofreading.
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A.L.O., C.M.W., L.S., M.A.W., A.N. and N.H. performed experiments and analysed data. M.C.V. and P.F. helped with microarray analysis. B.M. and A.S. helped with electron microscopy. D.G. performed Ussing chamber experiments. B.F.B., R.C.S. and P.J.K. provided conditional mouse strains. C.M.N., P.J.K. and J.C.B. provided expertise and essential materials. A.L.O. and F.T.W. designed experiments and wrote the paper.
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Ostermann, A.L., Wunderlich, C.M., Schneiders, L. et al. Intestinal insulin/IGF1 signalling through FoxO1 regulates epithelial integrity and susceptibility to colon cancer. Nat Metab 1, 371–389 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1038/s42255-019-0037-8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s42255-019-0037-8
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