The obesogenic effects of Bisphenol A and its analogues are differentially regulated via PPARγ transactivation in mouse 3T3-L1 cells.

Exposure to environmental pollutants with obesogenic activity is being recognised as one of the contributing factors to the obesity epidemic. Bisphenol A (BPA) has been shown to stimulate adipogenesis in both human and mouse preadipocytes, to increase body weight and affect lipid metabolism in animal and epidemiological studies. Regulatory action and public concern has prompted industry to replace BPA with other structurally similar analogues that may have similar effects.

Consensus on the key characteristics of metabolism disruptors.

Metabolism-disrupting agents (MDAs) are chemical, infectious or physical agents that increase the risk of metabolic disorders. Examples include pharmaceuticals, such as antidepressants, and environmental agents, such as bisphenol A. Various types of studies can provide evidence to identify MDAs, yet a systematic method is needed to integrate these data to help to identify such hazards.

A transcriptomic biomarker predictive of cell proliferation for use in adverse outcome pathway-informed testing and assessment.

High-throughput transcriptomics (HTTr) is increasingly being used to identify molecular targets of chemicals that can be linked to adverse outcomes. Cell proliferation (CP) is an important key event in chemical carcinogenesis. Here, we describe the construction and characterization of a gene expression biomarker that is predictive of the CP status in human and rodent tissues.

HumanIslets: An integrated platform for human islet data access and analysis.

Comprehensive molecular and cellular phenotyping of human islets can enable deep mechanistic insights for diabetes research. We established the Human Islet Data Analysis and Sharing (HI-DAS) consortium to advance goals in accessibility, usability, and integration of data from human islets isolated from donors with and without diabetes at the Alberta Diabetes Institute (ADI) IsletCore. Here we introduce HumanIslets.