Ghrelin and LEAP-2: Rivals in Energy Metabolism Al-Massadi, Omar; Müller, Timo; Tschöp, Matthias ...
Trends in pharmacological sciences (Regular ed.),
August 2018, 2018-08-00, 20180801, Letnik:
39, Številka:
8
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Liver-expressed antimicrobial peptide 2 (LEAP-2), the endogenous noncompetitive allosteric antagonist of the growth hormone secretagogue receptor 1a (GHSR1a), was recently identified as a key ...endocrine factor regulating systemic energy metabolism. This antagonist impairs the ability of ghrelin to activate GHSR1a and diminishes ghrelin-induced Ca2+ release in vitro. The physiological relevance of the molecular LEAP-2-GHSR1a interaction was subsequently demonstrated in vivo. LEAP-2 is therefore a promising therapeutic target in the treatment of obesity and other metabolic diseases. Here, we discuss not only the current understanding of LEAP-2 in metabolic regulation, but also the potential of this peptide in the treatment of obesity and other diseases that involve dysregulation of the ghrelin system.
Ghrelin is a gastric hormone that stimulates food intake, adiposity, and growth hormone (GH) secretion and maintains glucose levels during caloric restriction. It binds to its receptor, the growth hormone secretagogue receptor 1a (GHSR1a).
LEAP-2 is a noncompetitive antagonist of the GHSR1a and can be considered as the first endogenous peptide able to antagonize metabolic actions of ghrelin in vitro and in vivo.
LEAP-2 overexpression impairs the ability of ghrelin to maintain the body weight and blood glucose levels in a period of extreme food shortage.
The characterization of LEAP-2 will provide novel insights in the pursuit of new therapies to tackle metabolic disorders such as obesity and other nutritional or eating disorders.
Glucagon exerts pleiotropic actions on energy balance and has emerged as an attractive target for the treatment of diabetes and obesity in the last few years. Glucagon reduces body weight and ...adiposity by suppression of appetite and by modulation of lipid metabolism. Moreover, this hormone promotes weight loss by activation of energy expenditure and thermogenesis. In this review, we cover these metabolic actions elicited by glucagon beyond its canonical regulation of glucose metabolism. In addition, we discuss recent developments of therapeutic approaches in the treatment of obesity and diabetes by dual- and tri-agonist molecules based on combinations of glucagon with other peptides. New strategies using these unimolecular polyagonists targeting the glucagon receptor (GCGR), have become successful approaches to evaluate the multifaceted nature of glucagon signaling in energy balance and metabolic syndrome.
Ghrelin is a multifaceted regulator of metabolism. Ghrelin regulates energy balance in the short term via induction of appetite and in the long term via increased body weight and adiposity. Recently, ...several central pathways modulating the metabolic actions of ghrelin were unmasked, and it was shown to act through different hypothalamic nuclei to induce feeding. Ghrelin also modulates glucose homeostasis, but the central mechanisms responsible for this action have not been studied in detail. Although ghrelin also acts through extrahypothalamic areas to promote feeding, this review specifically dissects hypothalamic control of ghrelin’s orexigenic and adipogenic actions and presents current understanding of the intracellular ghrelin orexigenic pathways, including their dependence on other relevant systems implicated in energy balance.
Brown adipose tissue (BAT) has been also considered as the main thermogenic organ responsible of maintenance body temperature through heat production. However, a new type of thermogenic fat has been ...characterized during the last years, the beige or brite fat, that is developed from white adipose tissue (WAT) in response to different stimuli by a process known as browning. The activities of brown and beige adipocytes ameliorate metabolic disease, including obesity in mice and correlate with leanness in humans. Many genes and pathways that regulate brown and beige adipocyte biology have now been identified, providing a variety of promising therapeutic targets for metabolic disease. The hypothalamus is the main central place orchestrating the outflow signals that drive the sympathetic nerve activity to BAT and WAT, controlling heat production and energy homeostasis. Recent data have revealed new hypothalamic molecular mechanisms, such as hypothalamic AMP-activated protein kinase (AMPK), that control both thermogenesis and browning. This review provides an overview of the factors influencing BAT and WAT thermogenesis, with special focus on the integration of peripheral information on hypothalamic circuits controlling thermoregulation.
•The hypothalamus regulates brown fat thermogenesis and browning of white fat.•Hormones signal at the hypothalamus to regulate BAT and WAT through the SNS.•The AMPK(VMH)-SNS-BAT is a canonical pathway regulating energy balance.•Targeting BAT or browning of WAT might be suitable strategies to treat obesity.
Since its discovery twenty-five years ago, the fat-derived hormone leptin has provided a revolutionary framework for studying the physiological role of adipose tissue as an endocrine organ. Leptin ...exerts pleiotropic effects on many metabolic pathways and is tightly connected with the liver, the major player in systemic metabolism. As a consequence, understanding the metabolic and hormonal interplay between the liver and adipose tissue could provide us with new therapeutic targets for some chronic liver diseases, an increasing problem worldwide. In this review, we assess relevant literature regarding the main metabolic effects of leptin on the liver, by direct regulation or through the central nervous system (CNS). We draw special attention to the contribution of leptin to the non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) pathogenesis and its progression to more advanced stages of the disease as non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH). Likewise, we describe the contribution of leptin to the liver regeneration process after partial hepatectomy, the mainstay of treatment for certain hepatic malignant tumors.
Nicotine’ actions on energy balance: Friend or foe? Seoane-Collazo, Patricia; Diéguez, Carlos; Nogueiras, Rubén ...
Pharmacology & therapeutics,
March 2021, 2021-03-00, 20210301, Letnik:
219
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
Obesity has reached pandemic proportions and is associated with severe comorbidities, such as type 2 diabetes mellitus, hepatic and cardiovascular diseases, and certain cancer types. However, the ...therapeutic options to treat obesity are limited. Extensive epidemiological studies have shown a strong relationship between smoking and body weight, with non-smokers weighing more than smokers at any age. Increased body weight after smoking cessation is a major factor that interferes with their attempts to quit smoking. Numerous controlled studies in both humans and rodents have reported that nicotine, the main bioactive component of tobacco, exerts a marked anorectic action. Furthermore, nicotine is also known to modulate energy expenditure, by regulating the thermogenic activity of brown adipose tissue (BAT) and the browning of white adipose tissue (WAT), as well as glucose homeostasis. Many of these actions occur at central level, by controlling the activity of hypothalamic neuropeptide systems such as proopiomelanocortin (POMC), or energy sensors such as AMP-activated protein kinase (AMPK). However, direct impact of nicotine on metabolic tissues, such as BAT, WAT, liver and pancreas has also been described. Here, we review the actions of nicotine on energy balance. The relevance of this interaction is interesting, because considering the restricted efficiency of obesity treatments, a possible complementary approach may focus on compounds with known pharmacokinetic profile and pharmacological actions, such as nicotine or nicotinic acetylcholine receptors signaling.
Brown adipose tissue (BAT) is a specialized tissue critical for non-shivering thermogenesis producing heat through mitochondrial uncoupling; whereas white adipose tissue (WAT) is responsible of ...energy storage in the form of triglycerides. Another type of fat has been described, the beige adipose tissue; this tissue emerges in existing WAT depots but with thermogenic ability, a phenomenon known as browning. Several peripheral signals relaying information about energy status act in the brain, particularly the hypothalamus, to regulate thermogenesis in BAT and browning of WAT. Different hypothalamic areas have the capacity to regulate the thermogenic process in brown and beige adipocytes through the sympathetic nervous system (SNS). This review discusses important concepts and discoveries about the central control of thermogenesis as a trip that starts in the hypothalamus, and taking the sympathetic roads to reach brown and beige fat to modulate thermogenic functions.
The chaperone GRP78/BiP (glucose-regulated protein 78 kDa/binding immunoglobulin protein) modulates protein folding in reply to cellular insults that lead to endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress. This ...study investigated the role of hypothalamic GRP78 on energy balance, with particular interest in thermogenesis and browning of white adipose tissue (WAT). For this purpose, we used diet-induced obese rats and rats administered thapsigargin, and by combining metabolic, histologic, physiologic, pharmacologic, thermographic, and molecular techniques, we studied the effect of genetic manipulation of hypothalamic GRP78. Our data showed that rats fed a high-fat diet or that were centrally administered thapsigargin displayed hypothalamic ER stress, whereas genetic overexpression of GRP78 specifically in the ventromedial nucleus of the hypothalamus was sufficient to alleviate ER stress and to revert the obese and metabolic phenotype. Those effects were independent of feeding and leptin but were related to increased thermogenic activation of brown adipose tissue and induction of browning in WAT and could be reversed by antagonism of β3 adrenergic receptors. This evidence indicates that modulation of hypothalamic GRP78 activity may be a potential strategy against obesity and associated comorbidities.
Hypothalamic endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress is a key mechanism leading to obesity. Here, we demonstrate that ceramides induce lipotoxicity and hypothalamic ER stress, leading to sympathetic ...inhibition, reduced brown adipose tissue (BAT) thermogenesis, and weight gain. Genetic overexpression of the chaperone GRP78/BiP (glucose-regulated protein 78 kDa/binding immunoglobulin protein) in the ventromedial nucleus of the hypothalamus (VMH) abolishes ceramide action by reducing hypothalamic ER stress and increasing BAT thermogenesis, which leads to weight loss and improved glucose homeostasis. The pathophysiological relevance of this mechanism is demonstrated in obese Zucker rats, which show increased hypothalamic ceramide levels and ER stress. Overexpression of GRP78 in the VMH of these animals reduced body weight by increasing BAT thermogenesis as well as decreasing leptin and insulin resistance and hepatic steatosis. Overall, these data identify a triangulated signaling network involving central ceramides, hypothalamic lipotoxicity/ER stress, and BAT thermogenesis as a pathophysiological mechanism of obesity.
Glucagon, GLP-1 and Thermogenesis González-García, Ismael; Milbank, Edward; Diéguez, Carlos ...
International journal of molecular sciences,
07/2019, Letnik:
20, Številka:
14
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
Brown adipose tissue (BAT) thermogenesis is a conserved mechanism to maintain body temperature in mammals. However, since BAT contribution to energy expenditure can represent a relevant modulator of ...metabolic homeostasis, many studies have focused on the nervous system and endocrine factors that control the activity of this tissue. There is long-established evidence that the counter-regulatory hormone glucagon negatively influences energy balance, enhances satiety, and increases energy expenditure. Despite compelling evidence showing that glucagon has direct action on BAT thermogenesis, recent findings are questioning this conventional attribute of glucagon action. Glucagon like peptide-1 (GLP-1) is an incretin secreted by the intestinal tract which strongly decreases feeding, and, furthermore, improves metabolic parameters associated with obesity and diabetes. Therefore, GLP-1 receptors (GLP-1-R) have emerged as a promising target in the treatment of metabolic disorders. In this short review, we will summarize the latest evidence in this regard, as well as the current therapeutic glucagon- and GLP-1-based approaches to treating obesity.
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