Metabolism articles within Nature Communications

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  • Article
    | Open Access

    AgRP-expressing neurons regulate feeding, glucose homeostasis and locomotor activity, but the neurotransmitters that mediate these effects are unclear. Here the authors show that neuropeptide Y in these neurons regulates rapid feeding responses and insulin sensitivity, but not locomotor activity.

    • Linda Engström Ruud
    • , Mafalda M. A. Pereira
    •  & Jens C. Brüning

  • Article
    | Open Access

    A difference in the survival of respiratory chain complex III deficient Bcs1lp.S78G mice was observed between two congenic mouse strains. Here the authors show how in one of the strains the combined effects of a spontaneously arising non-pathogenic variant and the disease-causing Bcs1lp.S78G mutation exacerbate CIII deficiency and disease progression.

    • Janne Purhonen
    • , Vladislav Grigorjev
    •  & Jukka Kallijärvi

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Exercise improves metabolic health and physical condition, particularly important for health in aged individuals. Here, the authors identify that Sestrins, proteins induced by exercise, are key mediators of the metabolic adaptation to exercise and increase endurance through the AKT and PGC1a axes.

    • Myungjin Kim
    • , Alyson Sujkowski
    •  & Jun Hee Lee

  • Review Article
    | Open Access

    Mitochondrial metabolites contribute to more than biosynthesis, and it is clear that they influence multiple cellular functions in a variety of ways. Here, Martínez-Reyes and Chandel review key metabolites and describe their effects on processes involved in physiology and disease including chromatin dynamics, immunity, and hypoxia.

    • Inmaculada Martínez-Reyes
    •  & Navdeep S. Chandel

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Sarcopenia is the loss of muscle mass and strength associated with physical disability during ageing. Here, the authors analyse muscle biopsies from 119 patients with sarcopenia and age-matched controls of different ethnic groups and find transcriptional signatures indicating mitochondrial dysfunction, associated with reduced mitochondria numbers and lower NAD+ levels in older individuals with sarcopenia.

    • Eugenia Migliavacca
    • , Stacey K. H. Tay
    •  & Jerome N. Feige

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The edematous form of severe acute childhood malnutrition (ESAM) presents with more severe multi-organ dysfunction than non-edematous SAM (NESAM). Here the authors assess genome-wide DNA methylation in buccal cells of SAM children and find that ESAM is characterized by hypomethylation at genes associated with disorders of nutrition and metabolism, including fatty liver and diabetes.

    • Katharina V. Schulze
    • , Shanker Swaminathan
    •  & Neil A. Hanchard

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Psychiatric disorders are often accompanied by alterations in BMI and body composition due to changes in eating behaviour and physical activity. Here, Hübel et al. study the genetic overlap between these traits and find that genetic correlations between psychiatric disorders and body composition are sex-specific and evident only in adulthood.

    • Christopher Hübel
    • , Héléna A. Gaspar
    •  & Gerome Breen

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Histone deacetylase 3 (HDAC3) is a regulator of lipid homeostasis in several tissues, however, its role in intestinal lipid metabolism was not yet known. Here the authors study intestine specific HDAC3 knock out mice and report that these animals have increased fatty acid oxidation and undergo remodeling of the intestinal epithelial cell lipidome.

    • Mercedes Dávalos-Salas
    • , Magdalene K. Montgomery
    •  & John M. Mariadason

  • Article
    | Open Access

    During high-intensity exercise, muscles convert glucose to lactate, in a process that is energetically less efficient than respiration. Here the authors develop a computational model based on muscle proteomic data showing that bypassing mitochondrial complex I increases ATP production rates, and validate these model predictions in an exercise test on 5 subjects.

    • Avlant Nilsson
    • , Elias Björnson
    •  & Jens Nielsen

  • Article
    | Open Access

    It’s well known that hippocampal synaptic plasticity and memory are impaired in experimental models of metabolic diseases, however, it is unclear if maternal diet or metabolic alterations around the gestational age may multigenerationally affect learning and memory. In this study, authors demonstrate that maternal high fat diet-dependent insulin resistance affects synaptic plasticity and memory of descendants until the third generation via reduced exon specific brain-derived neurotrophic factor expression in the hippocampus of descendants

    • Salvatore Fusco
    • , Matteo Spinelli
    •  & Claudio Grassi

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Reactive oxygen species (ROS) stimulate GLUT4-mediated glucose transport following contraction of isolated muscle, but it is not clear if this occurs in vivo. Here, the authors show in human volunteers that exercise induces ROS increase in muscle and, using loss of-function animal models, they demonstrate that NOX2 is a major ROS source required to stimulate glucose uptake during exercise.

    • Carlos Henríquez-Olguin
    • , Jonas R. Knudsen
    •  & Thomas E. Jensen

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD+) sustains cellular energy metabolism, functions as a substrate of Sirt and PARP enzymes, and its supplementation is explored therapeutically in aging and other contexts. Here the authors provide insight into the role of endogenous NAD+ metabolism by studying nicotinamide riboside kinase 1 (NRK1) deficient mice.

    • Audrey Sambeat
    • , Joanna Ratajczak
    •  & Carles Canto

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Nicotine reduces food intake and increases energy expenditure in brown adipose tissue. Here the authors show that nicotine also induces white adipose tissue browning via central kappa opioid receptor action.

    • Patricia Seoane-Collazo
    • , Laura Liñares-Pose
    •  & Miguel López

  • Article
    | Open Access

    IL-36α,β and ɣ are IL-1-related cytokines promoting inflammation in the skin and intestine. Here the authors show they are elevated in individuals with obesity, and that mice lacking the IL-36 receptor antagonist are more resistant to diet-induced obesity and metabolic dysfunction, which depends on intestinal microbiota.

    • Eirini Giannoudaki
    • , Yasmina E. Hernandez-Santana
    •  & Patrick T. Walsh

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Pancreatic islets are composed of alpha-, beta-, as well as delta-cells and appropriate regulation of glucose homeostasis relies on auto- and paracrine cellular communication. Here, the authors study the role of delta-cell filopodia in this context by employing optogenetic and calcium imaging approaches.

    • Rafael Arrojo e Drigo
    • , Stefan Jacob
    •  & Per-Olof Berggren

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Insulin replacement is a valuable therapy for insulin deficiency, however, other therapies are being investigated to restore metabolic homeostasis. Here, the authors identify S100A9 as a leptin induced circulating cue that improves glucose and lipid homeostasis and extends survival in insulin deficient mice.

    • Giorgio Ramadori
    • , Sanda Ljubicic
    •  & Roberto Coppari

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Diabetes is associated with decreased PI3K activation in skeletal muscle. Here, the authors show that p110a is the predominant PI3K subunit in muscle, and show that its ablation in muscle, but not ablation of p110beta, leads to insulin resistance, increased proteosomal and autophagic activity, and altered mitochondria homeostasis in mice.

    • Mengyao Ella Li
    • , Hans P. M. M. Lauritzen
    •  & C. Ronald Kahn

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Rapamycin extends lifespan in model organisms by targeting mTORC1, but exerts off-target side effects via inhibition of mTORC2. Here, the authors report the identification of a selective mTORC1 inhibitor, and show that it inhibits mTORC1 activity both in vitro and in vivo, with reduced side effects on glucose homeostasis, lipid metabolism, and the immune system.

    • Katherine H. Schreiber
    • , Sebastian I. Arriola Apelo
    •  & Dudley W. Lamming

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Muscle loss is associated with altered expression of proteins involved in mitochondrial homeostasis, but whether this is causative remains unclear. Here, the authors show that genetic ablation of the pro-fission protein DRP1 leads to accumulation of abnormal mitochondria that induce muscle atrophy by altering Ca2+ homeostasis and cellular stress responses.

    • Giulia Favaro
    • , Vanina Romanello
    •  & Marco Sandri

  • Article
    | Open Access

    In human adipose tissue (AT), adipocytes are organized into units of lobules. Here the authors identify distinct fibrous septal and stromal compartments within AT lobules that differ in composition and potential between subcutaneous and visceral regions and are disturbed in obesity and metabolic syndrome.

    • D. Estève
    • , N. Boulet
    •  & J. Galitzky

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Pancreatic beta-cell glucose metabolism is coupled to insulin secretion. Here the authors set out to characterize changes in beta-cell metabolism in hyperglycemia which may contribute to insufficient insulin secretion in type 2 diabetes and, using a multi-omics approach, find that mitochondrial metabolism is perturbed.

    • Elizabeth Haythorne
    • , Maria Rohm
    •  & Frances M. Ashcroft

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Mitochondrial uncoupling is a treatment strategy for metabolic diseases that reduces the efficiency of mitochondrial oxidative phosphorylation and ATP generation. Here the authors characterize the pharmacokinetic and therapeutic properties of the liver-localized mitochondrial uncoupler OPC-163493, which leads to amelioration of diabetes and hypertension in several rodent disease models.

    • Naohide Kanemoto
    • , Takashi Okamoto
    •  & Seiji Sato

  • Review Article
    | Open Access

    Immune cells adapt distinct metabolic strategies to accommodate specific functions associated with cell types or differentiation stages. Here in this review the authors discuss the nutrients, sensors, and mediators of such a metabolic adaption in nutrient-limiting immune microenvironments such as tumors or infections.

    • Nidhi Kedia-Mehta
    •  & David K. Finlay

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The mechanisms by which organisms adapt their growth according to the availability of oxygen are incompletely understood. Here the authors identify the Drosophila fat body as a tissue regulating growth in response to oxygen sensing via a mechanism involving Hph inhibition, HIF1-a activation and insulin secretion.

    • Michael J. Texada
    • , Anne F. Jørgensen
    •  & Kim F. Rewitz

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Diabetes is a major cause of kidney disease. Here Kikuchi et al. show that phenol sulfate, a gut microbiota-derived metabolite, is increased in diabetic kidney disease and contributes to the pathology by promoting kidney injury, suggesting phenyl sulfate could be used a marker and therapeutic target for the treatment of diabetic kidney disease.

    • Koichi Kikuchi
    • , Daisuke Saigusa
    •  & Takaaki Abe

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Fasting is known for its beneficial effects on obesity and diabetes-related health complications. Here Zhang et al. show that fasting induces expression of arginase-2 (Arg2) in the liver, and that hepatic Arg2, by suppressing the expression of the regulator of G-protein signalling 16, recapitulates the positive effects of fasting in obesity and diabetes.

    • Yiming Zhang
    • , Cassandra B. Higgins
    •  & Brian J. DeBosch

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Peroxisome Proliferator Activated Receptor alpha (PPARα) drives fatty acid catabolism. Here, the authors show that in liver of autophagy deficient class 3 phosphoinositide 3-kinase mutant mice PPARα transcriptional repressors fail to degrade in lysosomes and accumulate leading to PPARα inhibition and blunted transcriptional responses during fasting.

    • Anton Iershov
    • , Ivan Nemazanyy
    •  & Ganna Panasyuk

  • Article
    | Open Access

    SREBP transcription factors activate lipid synthesis and generate raw materials to lipidate various proteins. Here, the authors show that a stiff cellular environment causes RhoA lipidation and acto-myosin contraction, which inhibits SREBP1 and connects the extracellular matrix to lipid metabolism.

    • Rebecca Bertolio
    • , Francesco Napoletano
    •  & Giannino Del Sal

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Chemically modified mRNA is a new approach for therapeutic protein expression that could be applied to angiogenesis. Here the authors show in a phase 1 clinical trial that a modified mRNA encoding VEGF-A is well tolerated in patients with type 2 diabetes.

    • Li-Ming Gan
    • , Maria Lagerström-Fermér
    •  & Regina Fritsche-Danielson

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Reduction in food intake elicits neuroendocrine adaptations to counterregulate the negative energy balance, e.g. via reduction in leptin levels. Here, the authors identify an additional starvation signal, growth hormone (GH). Blocking GH receptor attenuates the fall of whole body energy expenditure during food deprivation in mice.

    • Isadora C. Furigo
    • , Pryscila D. S. Teixeira
    •  & J. Donato Jr

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The use of sodium-glucose transport protein 2 (SGLT2) inhibitors for the treatment of diabetes has been associated with euglycemic ketoacidosis and increased glucose production and glucagon secretion. Here Perry et al. show that these effects rely on both insulinopenia and dehydration, and thus suggest ways to manage the side effects associated with the use of SGLT2 inhibitors.

    • Rachel J. Perry
    • , Aviva Rabin-Court
    •  & Gerald I. Shulman

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Individuals show large variability in their capacity to lose weight and maintain this weight. Here, the authors perform GWAS in two weight loss intervention cohorts and identify two genetic loci associated with weight loss that are taken forward for Bayesian fine-mapping and functional assessment in flies.

    • Armand Valsesia
    • , Qiao-Ping Wang
    •  & Jörg Hager

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Metabolic pathways are increasingly recognized as crucial determinants of T cell function. Here the authors show that the balance between IFNγ and IL-10 production in human CD4 T cells is modulated by the cholesterol biosynthetic pathway.

    • Esperanza Perucha
    • , Rossella Melchiotti
    •  & Andrew P. Cope

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Obesity is associated with altered N-acylethanolamine levels (NAE). Here the authors show that deletion of the gene encoding N-acylphosphatidylethanolamine phospholipase D, a key enzyme for NAE synthesis, in intestinal cells of mice leads to the development of obesity and hepatic steatosis via a mechanism involving the gut-brain axis.

    • Amandine Everard
    • , Hubert Plovier
    •  & Patrice D. Cani

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Obesity and the distribution of fat within the body are risk factors for cardiometabolic diseases. Here, Rask-Andersen et al. perform GWAS for bio-electrical impedance measurements in UK Biobank participants and identify 29 novel independent loci for fat distribution and a high degree of sex-heterogeneity.

    • Mathias Rask-Andersen
    • , Torgny Karlsson
    •  & Åsa Johansson

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Agouti-related peptide (AgRP) producing neurons regulate food intake and metabolic processes in peripheral organs. Here, the authors show that hypothalamic AgRP neurons alter whole body substrate utilization to favour carbohydrate usage and lipid storage.

    • João Paulo Cavalcanti-de-Albuquerque
    • , Jeremy Bober
    •  & Marcelo O. Dietrich

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Impaired glucagon secretion in patients with diabetes causes hypoglycemia. Here the authors show that therapeutic concentrations of insulin inhibit alpha-cell glucagon secretion by stimulating delta-cell insulin receptor and the release of somatostatin. Blocking somatostatin secretion or action ameliorates this effect.

    • Elisa Vergari
    • , Jakob G. Knudsen
    •  & Patrik Rorsman

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