Project description:Associated with numerous metabolic and behavioral abnormalities, obesity is classified by metrics reliant on body weight (such as body mass index). However, overnutrition is the common cause of obesity, and may independently contribute to these obesity-related abnormalities. The goal of this study is to isolate ‘diet/energy balance’ effects independent from ‘body weight’ effects on various metabolic and behavioral parameters using the Diet Switch feeding paradigm in mice. [We conducted] unbiased gene expression analysis of the nutrient-sensing circumventricular hypothalamus [using RNA-seq]. Remarkably, only two genes responded to diet/energy balance (neuropeptide y [npy] and agouti-related peptide [agrp]), while others were related only to body weight. Furthermore, linear regression models revealed that npy and agrp showed similar modifiability by diet/energy balance and body weight compared to electroencephalographic-measured sleep/wake behavior.
Project description:Increasing evidences indicate diet-induced metabolic disorder could be paternally inherited, but the exact sperm epigenetic carrier remains unclear. Here, in a paternal high-fat diet (HFD) mouse model, we revealed that a highly enriched subset of sperm small RNAs (30-34 nt) that derived from the 5â halves of tRNAs (tsRNAs), exhibit changes in both expression profiles and RNA modifications. Injection of sperm tsRNAs from HFD male but not synthetic tsRNAs lacking RNA modifications, into normal zygotes generated metabolic disorders in the F1 offspring. Injection of HFD sperm tsRNAs derails gene expression in both early embryos and islets of F1 offspring, enriched in metabolic pathways, but unrelated to DNA methylation at CpG-enriched region. Collectively, we uncover sperm tsRNAs as a type of âepigenetic carrierâ that mediate intergenerational inheritance of acquired traits. Mature sperm small-RNA profiles between High-fat-diet (HFD) and Normal-diet (ND) males; Transcriptional profiles of 8-cell embryos and balstocysts that developed from zygotes that injected with sperm RNAs from HFD vs ND males. Transcriptional profiles and RRBS profiles of islets of F1 offsrping that generated from zygotes that injected with sperm RNAs from HFD vs ND males.
Project description:A number of studies have proposed that excess food intake, particularly of high fat diets arise due dysregulation of homeostatic mechanisms regulating neuroendocrine control of appetite and energy balance. Current dogma suggests high fat diets invoke hypothalamic inflammation which reduces hypothalamic sensitivity to metabolic and hormonal cues of conveying peripheral status of energy balance, such as leptin and insulin. A hypothesis for the mechanism leading to hypothalamic inflammation is based on high fat diet mediated changes in gut microbiota which are then proposed to increase circulating levels of lipopolysaccharide (LPS). This in turn activates a hypothalamic inflammatory response via the toll-like receptor (TLR4) and CD14. The aim of this study was to determine hypothalamic gene expression in response to long term feeding of a high fat diet, taking into account the importance of using a control diet with a similar composition and balanced for sucrose content.
Project description:The main aim of this experiment was to investigate gene expression on human adipose tissue after two different 4-week energy-restricted diets. Our questions consisted in understanding how gene expression was linked to clinical parameters of obese patients and whether the two diets were discriminated this data. The subjects were randomly allocated, in a cross-over design, to two periods of 4 weeks of an energy restricted isocaloric diet of 1200 kcal as either a conventional diet (LC-CONV) or a special energy restricted diet compensated by proteins (LC-P-LGI). The two nutritional periods were separated by a wash-out interval of 8 weeks. The samples who contain a K in their name correspond to the LC-P-LGI diet while those who contain a C correspond to LC-CONV diet. Total RNA obtained from isolated human adipose tissue of 12 subjects at 6 different time points (0, 5, 30, 90, 95 and 120 days).
Project description:The main aim of this experiment was to investigate gene expression on human adipose tissue after two different 4-week energy-restricted diets. Our questions consisted in understanding how gene expression was linked to clinical parameters of obese patients and whether the two diets were discriminated this data. The subjects were randomly allocated, in a cross-over design, to two periods of 4 weeks of an energy restricted isocaloric diet of 1200 kcal as either a conventional diet (LC-CONV) or a special energy restricted diet compensated by proteins (LC-P-LGI). The two nutritional periods were separated by a wash-out interval of 8 weeks. The samples who contain a K in their name correspond to the LC-P-LGI diet while those who contain a C correspond to LC-CONV diet.
Project description:Increasing evidences indicate diet-induced metabolic disorder could be paternally inherited, but the exact sperm epigenetic carrier remains unclear. Here, in a paternal high-fat diet (HFD) mouse model, we revealed that a highly enriched subset of sperm small RNAs (30-34 nt) that derived from the 5’ halves of tRNAs (tsRNAs), exhibit changes in both expression profiles and RNA modifications. Injection of sperm tsRNAs from HFD male but not synthetic tsRNAs lacking RNA modifications, into normal zygotes generated metabolic disorders in the F1 offspring. Injection of HFD sperm tsRNAs derails gene expression in both early embryos and islets of F1 offspring, enriched in metabolic pathways, but unrelated to DNA methylation at CpG-enriched region. Collectively, we uncover sperm tsRNAs as a type of “epigenetic carrier” that mediate intergenerational inheritance of acquired traits.