Background: Obesity and circadian rhythm disruption are significant global health concerns, contributing to an increased risk of metabolic disorders. Both adipose tissue and circadian rhythms play critical roles in maintaining energy homeostasis, and their dysfunction is closely linked to obesity. This study aimed to assess the effects of chronic low-dose SR9009, a REV-ERB ligand, on circadian disruption induced by constant light exposure in mice.
Material and methods: Mice were exposed to constant light for eight weeks (LL mice), resulting in increased body weight, insulin resistance, white fat mass, and altered circadian clock gene expression. Low-dose SR9009 (10 mg/kg daily) was administered chronically to assess its impact on these metabolic disruptions.
Results: LL mice treated with SR9009 for eight weeks showed reduced weight gain, insulin resistance, and white fat mass but no significant impact on overall energy homeostasis. SR9009 suppressed Bmal1 expression and restored Rev-erbα and Rev-erbβ expression in white and brown adipose tissue (WAT and BAT). In vitro studies using 3T3-L1 cells indicated that SR9009 inhibited adipogenesis, leading to further investigation in vivo. SR9009 restored ChREBP1a and Srebp-1c expression in BAT but did not affect inflammatory cytokine or adipokine gene expression, nor did it restore Fasn, Pparγ, and Prom1 expression in both WAT and BAT.
Conclusions: These findings suggest that SR9009 may be a potential therapeutic for preventing weight gain and insulin resistance caused by circadian disruptions, likely through adipogenesis inhibition, though its effects on other metabolic pathways remain limited at low doses.
Theileria parasites are known to induce the transformation of host bovine leukocytes, involved in rapid proliferation, evasion from apoptotic mechanisms, and increased dissemination. In this study, we reveal the involvement of m6A RNA modification in T. annulata infection-induced transformation of bovine leukocytes. We conducted m6A sequencing and bioinformatics analysis to map the mRNA methylation patterns of T. annulata-infected host leukocytes. We observe specific mRNA modifications for T. annulata-infected leukocytes and a strong correlation between the proliferation rate of the infected Leukocytes with m6A modifications We observe that the increased amounts of m6A seem to impact some cell cycle dynamics, potentially via modifications of E2F4 mRNA. Moreover, we further identify HIF-1α as a possible driver of these m6A RNA modifications that have clear relevance to cellular proliferation dynamics. Overall, our results provide insights into the role of m6A mRNA methylation in the molecular crosstalk between Theileria and their host leukocytes, emphasizing the critical role of mRNA methylation in host-parasite interaction.
The circadian system is composed by a central hypothalamic clock at the suprachiasmatic nuclei (SCN) that communicates with peripheral circadian oscillators for daily coordination of behavior and physiology. The SCN entrain to the environmental 24-h light-dark (LD) cycle and drive daily rhythms of internal synchronizers such as core body temperature, hypothalamic-hypophysary hormones, sympathetic/parasympathetic activity, as well as behavioral and feeding-fasting rhythms, which supply signals setting core molecular clocks at central and peripheral tissues. Steady phase relationships between the SCN and peripheral oscillators keep homeostatic processes such as microbiota/microbiome composition/activity, metabolic supply/demand, energy balance, immunoinflammatory process, sleep amount and quality, psychophysiological stress, etc. Indeed, the risk of health alterations increase when these phase relationships are chronically changed prompting circadian disruption (CD), as occurring after sudden LD cycle changes (so-called jet-lag), or due to changes of activity/feeding-rest/fasting rhythm with respect to LD cycles (as humans subjected to nightwork, or restricting food access at rest in mice). Typical pathologies observed in animal models of CD and epidemiological studies include metabolic syndrome, type-2 diabetes, obesity, chronic inflammation, cancer, sleep disruption, decrease in physical and cognitive performance, and mood, among others. The present review discusses different aspects of such physiological dysregulations observed in animal models of CD having altered feeding-fasting rhythms, with potential translation to human health.