La Junta Directiva de la SEBBM aprobó la resolución del Premio ‘Profesora María Teresa Miras’ al Mejor Artículo de Jóvenes de la SEBBM que reconoce los mejores artículos publicados por los jóvenes investigadores / as de la SEBBM. En esta edición se han otorgado un primer premio de 1.000 € y un accésit de 500 €.
El primer premio ha sido para María Agustina Domínguez Martín (Departamento de Bioquímica y Biología Molecular, Universidad de Córdoba, Córdoba) por el artículo Structures of a phycobilisome in light-harvesting and photoprotected states publicado en la revista Nature 609, 835–845 (2022).
Veronica Pena-Leon, Cintia Folgueira, Silvia Barja-Fernández, Raquel Pérez-Lois, Natália Da Silva Lima, Marion Martin, Violeta Heras, Sara Martinez-Martinez, Paola Valero, Cristina Iglesias, Mannon Duquenne, Omar Al-Massadi, Daniel Beiroa, Yara Souto, Miguel Fidalgo, Rasika Sowmyalakshmi, Diana Guallar, Juan Cunarro, Cecilia Castelao, Ana Senra, Patricia González-Saenz, Rocío Vázquez-Cobela, Rosaura Leis, Guadalupe Sabio, Helge Mueller-Fielitz, Markus Schwaninger, Miguel López, Sulay Tovar, Felipe F Casanueva, Emmanuel Valjent, Carlos Diéguez, Vincent Prevot, Rubén Nogueiras & Luisa M Seoane.
Early-life determinants are thought to be a major factor in the rapid increase of obesity. However, while maternal nutrition has been extensively studied, the effects of breastfeeding by the infant on the reprogramming of energy balance in childhood and throughout adulthood remain largely unknown.
Prolonged breastfeeding increases interscapular temperature (Image: Cintia Folgueira).
Here we show that delayed weaning in rat pups protects them against diet-induced obesity in adulthood, through enhanced brown adipose tissue thermogenesis and energy expenditure. In-depth metabolic phenotyping in this rat model as well as in transgenic mice reveals that the effects of prolonged suckling are mediated by increased hepatic fibroblast growth factor 21 (FGF21) production and tanycyte-controlled access to the hypothalamus in adulthood. Specifically, FGF21 activates GABA-containing neurons expressing dopamine receptor 2 in the lateral hypothalamic area and zona incerta.
Prolonged breastfeeding thus constitutes a protective mechanism against obesity by affecting long-lasting physiological changes in liver-to-hypothalamus communication and hypothalamic metabolic regulation.
María Crespo, Barbara Gonzalez-Teran, Ivana Nikolic, Alfonso Mora, Cintia Folgueira, Elena Rodríguez, Luis Leiva-Vega, Aránzazu Pintor-Chocano, Macarena Fernández-Chacón, Irene Ruiz-Garrido, Beatriz Cicuéndez, Antonia Tomás-Loba, Noelia A-Gonzalez, Ainoa Caballero-Molano, Daniel Beiroa, Lourdes Hernández-Cosido, Jorge L Torres, Norman J Kennedy, Roger J Davis, Rui Benedito, Miguel Marcos, Ruben Nogueiras, Andrés Hidalgo, Nuria Matesanz, Magdalena Leiva & Guadalupe Sabio.
Liver metabolism follows diurnal fluctuations through the modulation of molecular clock genes. Disruption of this molecular clock can result in metabolic disease but its potential regulation by immune cells remains unexplored.
3-D image of liver section showing the distribution on infiltrated neutrophils in red (Image: Magdalena Leiva).
Here, we demonstrated that in steady state, neutrophils infiltrated the mouse liver following a circadian pattern and regulated hepatocyte clock-genes by neutrophil elastase (NE) secretion. NE signals through c-Jun NH2-terminal kinase (JNK) inhibiting fibroblast growth factor 21 (FGF21) and activating Bmal1 expression in the hepatocyte. Interestingly, mice with neutropenia, defective neutrophil infiltration or lacking elastase were protected against steatosis correlating with lower JNK activation, reduced Bmal1 and increased FGF21 expression, together with decreased lipogenesis in the liver. Lastly, using a cohort of human samples we found a direct correlation between JNK activation, NE levels and Bmal1 expression in the liver.
This study demonstrates that neutrophils contribute to the maintenance of daily hepatic homeostasis through the regulation of the NE/JNK/Bmal1 axis.
