Constitutive Pleiotrophin Deletion Results in a Phenotype with an Altered Pancreatic Morphology and Function in Old Mice.

Pleiotrophin (PTN) is crucial for embryonic development and pancreas organogenesis as it regulates metainflammation, metabolic homeostasis, thermogenesis, and glucose tolerance. Pleiotrophin deletion is associated with a lipodystrophic phenotype in which adipose tissue plasticity is altered in late life. This study explored the impact of pleiotrophin deletion on pancreatic morphology and function in later life.

Deletion of pleiotrophin impairs glucose tolerance and liver metabolism in pregnant mice: Moonlighting role of glycerol kinase.

Pleiotrophin is a pleiotropic cytokine that has been demonstrated to have a critical role in regulating energy metabolism, lipid turnover and plasticity of adipose tissue. Here, we hypothesize that this cytokine can be involved in regulatory processes of glucose and lipid homeostasis in the liver during pregnancy. Using 18-days pregnant Ptn-deficient mice, we evaluated the biochemical profile (circulating variables), tissue mRNA expression (qPCR) and protein levels of key enzymes and transcription factors involved in main metabolic pathways.

Pleiotrophin Deficiency Induces Browning of Periovarian Adipose Tissue and Protects against High-Fat Diet-Induced Hepatic Steatosis.

(1) Background: Pleiotrophin preserves insulin sensitivity, regulates adipose tissue lipid turnover and plasticity, energy metabolism and thermogenesis. The aim of this study was to determine the role of pleiotrophin in hepatic lipid metabolism and in the metabolic crosstalk between the liver and brown and white adipose tissue (AT) in a high-fat diet-induced (HFD) obesity mice model. (2) Methods: We analyzed circulating variables, lipid metabolism (hepatic lipid content and mRNA expression), brown AT thermogenesis (UCP-1 expression) and periovarian AT browning (brown adipocyte markers mRNA and immunodetection) in mice either fed with standard-chow diet or with HFD and in their corresponding counterparts.

Pleiotrophin deletion alters glucose homeostasis, energy metabolism and brown fat thermogenic function in mice.

Aims/hypothesis: Pleiotrophin, a developmentally regulated and highly conserved cytokine, exerts different functions including regulation of cell growth and survival. Here, we hypothesise that this cytokine can play a regulatory role in glucose and lipid homeostasis.

Methods: To test this hypothesis, we performed a longitudinal study characterising the metabolic profile (circulating variables and tissue mRNA expression) of gene-targeted Ptn-deficient female mice and their corresponding wild-type counterparts at different ages from young adulthood (3 months) to older age (15 months).

Metabolic alterations associated with maternal undernutrition during the first half of gestation lead to a diabetogenic state in the rat.

Background: Although recent studies have investigated the effect of maternal nutrition on metabolic programming of the offspring, the question whether a nutritional insult during early gestation favours an altered metabolic state of the mother that persists during the remainder period of pregnancy, when foetal growth is maximal, remains to be answered.

Methods: To address this issue, we analysed the effect of 40% food restriction during the first 12 days of gestation on glucose tolerance, as well as on liver and adipose tissue metabolism, in Sprague-Dawley pregnant rats.

Results: We found that undernutrition at early gestation blocks pregnancy-associated accumulation of fat, leading to a net breakdown of lipids that may account for an increased delivery of fatty acids and glycerol to the liver.

Endoscopic resection as unique treatment for early colorectal cancer.

Colonoscopic screening in developed countries allows detection and resection of a great number of early colorectal cancers. There is a strong controversy to decide when endoscopic treatment is enough or when surgical resection is necessary. To this contributes the diverse names to define the lesions, the wide number of classifications and the different criteria of each author.

Lipid metabolism during the perinatal phase, and its implications on postnatal development.

During pregnancy, lipid metabolism plays a major role to warrant the availability of substrates to the foetus. By using different experimental designs in the rat we have been able to answer several questions that were open about the short- and long-term effects of alterations of lipid metabolism during the perinatal stage. The first one was to demonstrate the importance of maternal body fat depot accumulation during the first half of pregnancy.

[Results of defunctionalized jejunal loop after pancreaticoduodenectomy].

Introduction: Anastomotic leak continues to be a common cause of complications after pancreaticoduodenectomy. Numerous surgical techniques have been described to avoid this complication.

Objective: We evaluated the use of a defunctionalized jejunal loop for the pancreas after pancreaticoduodenectomy.

A randomized trial comparing two corticosteroid regimens combined with mycophenolate mofetil and cyclosporine for prevention of acute renal allograft rejection.

Introduction: The launching of mycophenolate mofetil (MMF) has reduced the incidence of acute rejection episodes. We sought to evaluate the efficacy of decreasing the steroid dose.

Materials And Methods: This was a quasiexperimental, randomized, prospective trial.

Experimental models for studying perinatal lipid metabolism. Long-term effects of perinatal undernutrition.

By using different experimental designs in the rat we have been able to answer several unanswered questions on the short- and long-term effects of alterations of lipid metabolism during the perinatal stage. The first was to demonstrate the importance of maternal body fat accumulation during the first half of pregnancy, since undernutrition in this critical period when fetal growth is slow, impedes fat depot accumulation and not only restrains intrauterine development but has long-term consequences, as shown by an impaired glucose tolerance when adults. Secondly, undernutrition during suckling has major long-term effect of decreasing body weight, even though food intake is kept normal from the weaning period.