Publications by authors named "Hayley Burm"
Article Synopsis
- - The study highlights the potential of activating the neurokinin 2 receptor (NK2R) as a dual approach to combat obesity and type 2 diabetes by suppressing appetite and increasing energy expenditure, representing a significant advancement over current multi-drug strategies.
- - Researchers developed long-acting NK2R agonists that can be administered weekly, which showed promising results in mice, leading to weight loss and improved insulin sensitivity without relying on traditional leptin signaling.
- - In tests with diabetic, obese macaques, NK2R activation resulted in substantial reductions in body weight, blood glucose, and cholesterol levels, suggesting a single-target therapeutic option that enhances energy balance and addresses cardiometabolic issues across different species.
Article Synopsis
- Midbrain dopaminergic neurons (DANs) have a variety of G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs), and this study aims to create a comprehensive GPCR atlas for these neurons.
- Researchers identified 41 unique receptors in DANs, with many specifically expressed in these neurons compared to others in the midbrain, including FFAR4.
- The study highlights FFAR4 as a key receptor that affects food and water intake as well as body weight, linking fatty acid sensing to the dopamine-reward pathway.
Objective: The goal of this study was to investigate the importance of central hormone-sensitive lipase (HSL) expression in the regulation of food intake and body weight in mice to clarify whether intracellular lipolysis in the mammalian hypothalamus plays a role in regulating appetite.
Methods: Using pharmacological and genetic approaches, we investigated the role of HSL in the rodent brain in the regulation of feeding and energy homeostasis under basal conditions during acute stress and high-fat diet feeding.
Results: We found that HSL, a key enzyme in the catabolism of cellular lipid stores, is expressed in the appetite-regulating centers in the hypothalamus and is activated by acute stress through a mechanism similar to that observed in adipose tissue and skeletal muscle.
Article Synopsis
- Dopamine-producing TH neurones in the hypothalamic arcuate nucleus regulate ghrelin signaling and body weight, with RhoA playing a crucial role in this process.
- Increased obesity correlates with heightened phosphorylation of TH, suggesting more active TH neurones linked to higher body weight.
- TH-RhoA mice show greater sensitivity to ghrelin, impaired response to leptin, and gain more weight on a high-fat high-sucrose diet, highlighting RhoA's impact on ghrelin resistance and food intake regulation.
Ionic "vital dyes" are commonly used to assess cell viability based on the idea that their permeation is contingent on a loss of membrane integrity. However, the possibility that dye entry is conducted into live cells by endogenous membrane transporters must be recognized and controlled for. Several cation-selective plasma membrane-localized ion channels, including the adenosine 5'-triphosphate (ATP)-gated P2X receptors, have been reported to conduct entry of the DNA-binding fluorescence dye, YO-PRO-1, into live cells.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe causal contribution of glial pathology to Huntington disease (HD) has not been heavily explored. To define the contribution of glia to HD, we established human HD glial chimeras by neonatally engrafting immunodeficient mice with mutant huntingtin (mHTT)-expressing human glial progenitor cells (hGPCs), derived from either human embryonic stem cells or mHTT-transduced fetal hGPCs. Here we show that mHTT glia can impart disease phenotype to normal mice, since mice engrafted intrastriatally with mHTT hGPCs exhibit worse motor performance than controls, and striatal neurons in mHTT glial chimeras are hyperexcitable.
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