Expression of obesity- and type-2 diabetes-associated genes in omental adipose tissue of individuals with obesity

The thrombin receptor PAR4 supports visceral adipose tissue inflammation

Thrombin inhibition suppresses adiposity, WAT inflammation and metabolic dysfunction in mice. Protease-activated receptor (PAR)1 does not account for thrombin-driven obesity, so we explored the culprit role of PAR4 in this context. Male WT and PAR-4-/- mice received a high fat diet (HFD) for 8 weeks, WT controls received standard chow. Body fat was quantified by NMR. Epididymal WAT was assessed by histology, immunohistochemistry, qPCR and lipase activity assay. 3T3-L1 preadipocytes were differentiated ± thrombin, acutely stimulated ± PAR4 activating peptide (AP) and assessed by immunoblot, qPCR and U937 monocyte adhesion. Epicardial adipose tissue (EAT) from obese and lean patients was assessed by immunoblot. PAR4 was upregulated in mouse WAT under HFD. PAR4-/- mice developed less visceral adiposity and glucose intolerance under HFD, featuring smaller adipocytes, fewer macrophages and lower expression of adipogenic (leptin, PPARγ) and pro-inflammatory genes (CCL2, IL-1β) in WAT. HFD-modified activity and expression of lipases or perilipin were unaffected by PAR4 deletion. 3T3-L1 adipocytes differentiated with thrombin retained Ki67 expression, further upregulated IL-1β and CCL2 and were more adhesive for monocytes. In mature adipocytes, PAR4-AP increased phosphorylated ERK1/2 and AKT, upregulated Ki67, CCl2, IL-β and hyaluronan synthase 1 but not TNF-α mRNA, and augmented hyaluronidase-sensitive monocyte adhesion. Obese human EAT expressed more PAR4, CD68 and CD54 than lean EAT. PAR4 upregulated in obesity supports adipocyte hypertrophy, WAT expansion and thrombo-inflammation. The emerging PAR4 antagonists provide a therapeutic perspective in this context beyond their canonical antiplatelet action.

HDL levels modulate the impact of type 2 diabetes susceptibility alleles in older adults

BACKGROUND

Type 2 Diabetes (T2D) is influenced by genetic, environmental, and ageing factors. Ageing pathways exacerbate metabolic diseases. This study aimed to examine both clinical and genetic factors of T2D in older adults.

METHODS

A total of 2,909 genotyped patients were enrolled in this study. Genome Wide Association Study was conducted, comparing T2D patients to non-diabetic older adults aged ≥ 60, ≥ 65, or ≥ 70 years, respectively. Binomial logistic regressions were applied to examine the association between T2D and various risk factors. Stepwise logistic regression was conducted to explore the impact of low HDL (HDL < 40 mg/dl) on the relationship between the genetic variants and T2D. A further validation step using data from the UK Biobank with 53,779 subjects was performed.

RESULTS

The association of T2D with both low HDL and family history of T2D increased with the age of control groups. T2D susceptibility variants (rs7756992, rs4712523 and rs10946403) were associated with T2D, more significantly with increased age of the control group. These variants had stronger effects on T2D risk when combined with low HDL cholesterol levels, especially in older control groups.

CONCLUSIONS

The findings highlight a critical role of age, genetic predisposition, and HDL levels in T2D risk. The findings suggest that individuals over 70 years who have high HDL levels without the T2D susceptibility alleles may be at the lowest risk of developing T2D. These insights can inform tailored preventive strategies for older adults, enhancing personalized T2D risk assessments and interventions.

Health-aware food recommendation system with dual attention in heterogeneous graphs

Recommender systems (RS) have been increasingly applied to food and health. However, challenges still remain, including the effective incorporation of heterogeneous information and the discovery of meaningful relationships among entities in the context of food and health recommendations. To address these challenges, we propose a novel framework, the Health-aware Food Recommendation System with Dual Attention in Heterogeneous Graphs (HFRS-DA), for unsupervised representation learning on heterogeneous graph-structured data. HFRS-DA utilizes an attention technique to reconstruct node features and edges and employs a dual hierarchical attention mechanism for enhanced unsupervised learning of attributed graph representations. HFRS-DA addresses the challenge of effectively leveraging the heterogeneous information in the graph and discovering meaningful semantic relationships between entities. The framework analyses recipe components and their neighbours in the heterogeneous graph and can discover popular and healthy recipes, thereby promoting healthy eating habits. We compare HFRS-DA using the Allrecipes dataset and find that it outperforms all the related methods from the literature. Our study demonstrates that HFRS-DA enhances the unsupervised learning of attributed graph representations, which is important in scenarios where labelled data is scarce or unavailable. HFRS-DA can generate node embeddings for unused data effectively, enabling both inductive and transductive learning.

Influence of Protein Carbonylation on Human Adipose Tissue Dysfunction in Obesity and Insulin Resistance

BACKGROUND

Obesity is characterized by adipose tissue dysregulation and predisposes individuals to insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes. At the molecular level, adipocyte dysfunction has been linked to obesity-triggered oxidative stress and protein carbonylation, considering protein carbonylation as a link between oxidative stress and metabolic dysfunction. The identification of specific carbonylated proteins in adipose tissue could provide novel biomarkers of oxidative damage related to metabolic status (i.e prediabetes). Thus, we aimed at characterizing the subcutaneous and omental human adipose tissue carbonylome in obesity-associated insulin resistance.

METHODS

2D-PAGE was used to identify carbonylated proteins, and clinical correlations studies and molecular biology approaches including intracellular trafficking, reactive oxygen species assay, and iron content were performed using in vitro models of insulin resistance.

RESULTS

The carbonylome of human adipose tissue included common (serotransferrin, vimentin, actin, and annexin A2) and depot-specific (carbonic anhydrase and α-crystallin B in the subcutaneous depot; and α-1-antitrypsin and tubulin in the omental depot) differences that point out the complexity of oxidative stress at the metabolic level, highlighting changes in carbonylated transferrin expression. Posterior studies using in vitro prediabetic model evidence alteration in transferrin receptor translocation, linked to the prediabetic environment. Finally, ligand-receptor molecular docking studies showed a reduced affinity for carbonylated transferrin binding to its receptor compared to wild-type transferrin, emphasizing the role of transferrin carbonylation in the link between oxidative stress and metabolic dysfunction.

CONCLUSIONS

The adipose tissue carbonylome contributes to understanding the molecular mechanism driving adipocyte dysfunction and identifies possible adipose tissue carbonylated targets in obesity-associated insulin resistance.

Anthocyanins as Key Phytochemicals Acting for the Prevention of Metabolic Diseases: An Overview

Anthocyanins are water-soluble pigments present in fruits and vegetables, which render them an extensive range of colors. They have a wide distribution in the human diet, are innocuous, and, based on numerous studies, have supposed preventive and therapeutical benefits against chronic affections such as inflammatory, neurological, cardiovascular, digestive disorders, diabetes, and cancer, mostly due to their antioxidant action. Despite their great potential as pharmaceutical applications, they have a rather limited use because of their rather low stability to environmental variations. Their absorption was noticed to occur best in the stomach and small intestine, but the pH fluctuation of the digestive system impacts their rapid degradation. Urine excretion and tissue distribution also occur at low rates. The aim of this review is to highlight the chemical characteristics of anthocyanins and emphasize their weaknesses regarding bioavailability. It also targets to deliver an update on the recent advances in the involvement of anthocyanins in different pathologies with a focus on in vivo, in vitro, animal, and human clinical trials.