Obesity as a Neuroendocrine Reprogramming

Association of serum trefoil factor 3 and leptin levels with obesity: A case-control study

BACKGROUND

Obesity has a detrimental impact on individuals, communities, and healthcare systems. Trefoil factor 3 is a secretory protein involved in metabolic processes related to weight regulation. However, its relation with obesity is not fully understood.

OBJECTIVE

We aimed to assess the serum trefoil factor 3 level and to immunohistochemical detect the leptin in obese patients to evaluate their relation to obesity pathogenesis.

METHODS

As a case-control study, we enrolled 83 non-obese persons as a control group with a BMI (18.5-24.9) and 83 obese persons as a patient group with a BMI > 30. All the study volunteers are subjected to anthropometric measurements, glucose, and lipid profile analysis by colorimetric methods. Serum trefoil factor 3 level was estimated by ELISA and leptin hormone was detected immunohistochemically in the blood using cell block technique.

RESULTS

ROC curve analysis for TFF3 showed a good relation with obesity with an AUC of 0.891 and a cut-off value of > 96 ng/ml. There was a significant positive correlation between TFF3 and fasting blood sugar, total cholesterol, and triglycerides. The logistic regression analysis showed that TFF3 is a good risk factor for obesity incidence [p = 0.008; OR = 1.117; (95 % CI): 1.029-1.213]. This was confirmed by multiple linear regression that gave an equation for the possibility of predicting BMI using several factors including TFF3 [BMI = 0.821 + 0.051 × TFF3 + 0.044 × FBS + 0.85 × TC]. The more surprising was the ability of the immunohistochemistry cell block technique to detect leptin antigens associated with an obese person blood not only adipose tissue or serum.

CONCLUSION

Leptin hormone and TFF3 could be good indicators for obesity incidence. Further research with a larger sample size and in different populations could completely approve our results.

The Effects of Obesity on the Inflammatory, Cardiovascular, and Neurobiological Responses to Exercise in Older Adults

Obesity with advancing age leads to increased health complications that are involved in various complex physiological processes. For example, inflammation is a critical cardiovascular disease risk factor that plays a role in the stages of atherosclerosis in both aging and obesity. Obesity can also induce profound changes to the neural circuitry that regulates food intake and energy homeostasis with advancing age. Here we discuss how obesity in older adults impacts inflammatory, cardiovascular, and neurobiological functions with an emphasis on how exercise mediates each topic. Although obesity is a reversible disorder through lifestyle changes, it is important to note that early interventions are crucial to prevent pathological changes seen in the aging obese population. Lifestyle modifications such as physical activity (including aerobic and resistance training) should be considered as a main intervention to minimize the synergistic effect of obesity on age-related conditions, such as cerebrovascular disease.

Methionine sulfoxide suppresses adipogenic differentiation by regulating the mitogen-activated protein kinase signaling pathway

In this study, methionine sulfoxide (MetO) was identified as an active metabolite that suppresses adipogenesis after screening obese individuals versus the normal population. MetO suppressed the gene and protein expression of CCAAT/enhancer binding protein (C/EBP) α, adipocyte fatty acid binding protein 4 (FABP4), and the nuclear receptor peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor γ (PPARγ) during human preadipocyte (HPA) differentiation. Adipogenesis decreased following MetO treatment; however, the preadipocyte number, proliferation, and apoptosis were unaffected. The activity of phosphorylated extracellular signal-related kinase (P-ERK) of the mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) pathway was significantly inhibited in HPA after MetO treatment. Furthermore, treatment of preadipocytes with the selective P-ERK1/2 agonist Ro 67-7476 abolished the effect of MetO against adipogenesis suggesting that MetO function is dependent on the MAPK pathway. The mechanistic insights of adipogenesis suppression by MetO presented in this study shows its potential as an antiobesity drug.

DNA Damage as a Mechanistic Link between Air Pollution and Obesity?

It has been shown that the risk of developing obesity, a serious modern health problem, increases with air pollution. However, the molecular links are yet to be fully elucidated. Herein, we propose a hypothesis via which air pollution-induced DNA damage would be the mechanistic link between air pollution and the enhanced risk of obesity and overweight. Indeed, whereas air pollution leads to DNA damage, DNA damage results in inflammation, oxidative stress and metabolic impairments that could be behind energy balance changes contributing to obesity. Such thoughts, worth exploring, seems an important starting point to better understand the impact of air pollution on obesity development independently from the two main energy balance pillars that are diet and physical activity. This could possibly lead to new applications both for therapies as well as for policies and regulations.

In Vitro Mimicking of Obesity-Induced Biochemical Environment to Study Obesity Impacts on Cells and Tissues

Obesity represents a heavy burden for modern healthcare. The main challenge facing obesity research progress is the unknown underlying pathways, which limits our understanding of the pathogenesis and developing therapies. Obesity induces specific biochemical environments that impact the different cells and tissues. In this piece of writing, we suggest mimicking obesity-induced in vivo biochemical environments including pH, lipids, hormones, cytokines, and glucose within an in vitro environment. The concept is to reproduce such biochemical environments and use them to treat the tissue cultures, explant cultures, and cell cultures of different biological organs. This will allow us to clarify how the obesity-induced biochemistry impacts such biological entities. It would also be important to try different environments, in terms of the compositions and concentrations of the constitutive elements, in order to establish links between the effects (impaired regeneration, cellular inflammation, etc.) and the factors constituting the environment (hormones, cytokines, etc.) as well as to reveal dose-dependent effects. We believe that such approaches will allow us to elucidate obesity mechanisms, optimize animal models, and develop therapies as well as novel tissue engineering applications.

The molecular signaling of exercise and obesity in the microbiota-gut-brain axis

Obesity is one of the major pandemics of the 21st century. Due to its multifactorial etiology, its treatment requires several actions, including dietary intervention and physical exercise. Excessive fat accumulation leads to several health problems involving alteration in the gut-microbiota-brain axis. This axis is characterized by multiple biological systems generating a network that allows bidirectional communication between intestinal bacteria and brain. This mutual communication maintains the homeostasis of the gastrointestinal, central nervous and microbial systems of animals. Moreover, this axis involves inflammatory, neural, and endocrine mechanisms, contributes to obesity pathogenesis. The axis also acts in appetite and satiety control and synthesizing hormones that participate in gastrointestinal functions. Exercise is a nonpharmacologic agent commonly used to prevent and treat obesity and other chronic degenerative diseases. Besides increasing energy expenditure, exercise induces the synthesis and liberation of several muscle-derived myokines and neuroendocrine peptides such as neuropeptide Y, peptide YY, ghrelin, and leptin, which act directly on the gut-microbiota-brain axis. Thus, exercise may serve as a rebalancing agent of the gut-microbiota-brain axis under the stimulus of chronic low-grade inflammation induced by obesity. So far, there is little evidence of modification of the gut-brain axis as a whole, and this narrative review aims to address the molecular pathways through which exercise may act in the context of disorders of the gut-brain axis due to obesity.

Exercise, Diet and Sleeping as Regenerative Medicine Adjuvants: Obesity and Ageing as Illustrations

Regenerative medicine uses the biological and medical knowledge on how the cells and tissue regenerate and evolve in order to develop novel therapies. Health conditions such as ageing, obesity and cancer lead to an impaired regeneration ability. Exercise, diet choices and sleeping pattern have significant impacts on regeneration biology via diverse pathways including reducing the inflammatory and oxidative components. Thus, exercise, diet and sleeping management can be optimized towards therapeutic applications in regenerative medicine. It could allow to prevent degeneration, optimize the biological regeneration and also provide adjuvants for regenerative medicine.

Diet Impact on Obesity beyond Calories and Trefoil Factor Family 2 (TFF2) as an Illustration: Metabolic Implications and Potential Applications

Obesity is a health problem with increasing impacts on public health, economy and even social life. In order to reestablish the energy balance, obesity management focuses mainly on two pillars; exercise and diet. Beyond the contribution to the caloric intake, the diet nutrients and composition govern a variety of properties. This includes the energy balance-independent properties and the indirect metabolic effects. Whereas the energy balance-independent properties are close to "pharmacological" effects and include effects such as antioxidant and anti-inflammatory, the indirect metabolic effects represent the contribution a diet can have on energy metabolism beyond the caloric contribution itself, which include the food intake control and metabolic changes. As an illustration, we also described the metabolic implication and hypothetical pathways of the high-fat diet-induced gene Trefoil Factor Family 2. The properties the diet has can have a variety of applications mainly in pharmacology and nutrition and further explore the "pharmacologically" active food towards potential therapeutic applications.

Ageing and Obesity Shared Patterns: From Molecular Pathogenesis to Epigenetics

In modern societies, ageing and obesity represent medical challenges for healthcare professionals and caregivers. Obesity and ageing share common features including the related cellular and molecular pathways as well as the impacts they have as risk factors for a variety of diseases and health problems. Both of these health problems also share exercise and a healthy lifestyle as the best therapeutic options. Importantly, ageing and obesity also have common epigenetic changes (histone modification, DNA methylation, noncoding RNAs, and chromatin remodeling) that are also impacted by exercise. This suggests that epigenetic pathways are among the mechanisms via which exercise induces its benefits, including ageing and obesity improvements. Exploring these interrelations and based on the fact that both ageing and obesity represent risk factors for each other, would lead to optimizing the available therapeutic approaches towards improved obesity management and healthy ageing.

Measuring Exercise-Induced Secreted Protein Acidic and Rich in Cysteine Expression as a Molecular Tool to Optimize Personalized Medicine

The numerous exercise benefits for health as well as applications for diseases has lead to exercise being prescribed in many pathological conditions. Secreted protein acidic and rich in cysteine (SPARC) gene expression is stimulated by exercise and SPARC has been suggested as a molecular mediator of exercise. Therefore, we suggest using this property for personalized medicine. This can be achieved by prescribing the exercise with a pattern (duration, intensity, etc.) that corresponds to the optimum SPARC/Sparc expression. We expect this approach to optimize the exercise therapy in both the preventive and curative contexts. In the research field, measuring exercise -dependent expression of Sparc would represent a molecular tool to further optimize the selection of exercise animal models as well.

Post-Coronavirus Disease-2019 (COVID-19): Toward a Severe Multi-Level Health Crisis?

There were already numerous challenges facing the healthcare system prior to the ongoing coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. Although we look forward to ending this pandemic, it is still expected that the healthcare system will face further challenges leading to a multi-level health crisis. Indeed, after the COVID-19 pandemic, there will still be COVID-19 active cases and those left with health problems following COVID-19 infection who will be of a particular impact. In addition, we also have the health problems that either emerged or worsened during COVID-19, especially with the reduced ability of the healthcare system to take care of many non COVID-19 patients during the COVID-19 pandemic. Such expected evolution of the situation highlights the necessity for the decision-makers to consider applying serious reforms and take quick measures to prevent a post-COVID-19 health crisis.

Impact of Adiposity and Fat Distribution, Rather Than Obesity, on Antibodies as an Illustration of Weight-Loss-Independent Exercise Benefits

Obesity represents a risk factor for a variety of diseases because of its inflammatory component, among other biological patterns. Recently, with the ongoing COVID-19 crisis, a special focus has been put on obesity as a status in which antibody production, among other immune functions, is impaired, which would impact both disease pathogenesis and vaccine efficacy. Within this piece of writing, we illustrate that such patterns would be due to the increased adiposity and fat distribution pattern rather than obesity (as defined by the body mass index) itself. Within this context, we also highlight the importance of the weight-loss-independent effects of exercise.

Trefoil Factor Family Member 2 Expression as an Indicator of the Severity of the High-Fat Diet-Induced Obesity

Trefoil Factor Family Member 2 (TFF2) belongs to TFF family peptides that includes TFF1, TFF2, TFF3. TFF2 is mainly known for its roles in the mucosal protection. In the context of obesity and high fat diet (HFD), Tff2 has been characterized as a HFD-induced gene. The knock-out of Tff2 in mice lead to the protection from HFD-induced obesity with a metabolic profile towards a negative energy balance. Such HFD-specific expression gives Tff2 a pattern worth exploring in biomedical research. Indeed, measuring TFF2/TFF2/Tff2 expression in biological samples following the ingestion of high-fat diet reflects the biological "responsiveness" to the lipids ingestion and would reflect the severity of obesity establishment afterwards. Such property could be explored for instance to screen animal models, evaluate the predisposition to HFD-induced obesity as well as in biomedical and clinical applications. Results might advance obesity research especially in terms of understanding lipid-induced signals, appetite control and adiposity storage.

Trefoil Factor Family Member 2: From a High-Fat-Induced Gene to a Potential Obesity Therapy Target

Obesity has its epidemiological patterns continuously increasing. With controlling both diet and exercise being the main approaches to manage the energy metabolism balance, a high-fat (HF) diet is of particular importance. Indeed, lipids have a low satiety potential but a high caloric density. Thus, focusing on pharmacologically targetable pathways remains an approach with promising therapeutic potential. Within this context, trefoil factor family member 2 (Tff2) has been characterized as specifically induced by HF diet rather than low-fat diet. TFF2 has also been linked to diverse neurological mechanisms and metabolic patterns suggesting its role in energy balance. The hypothesis is that TFF2 would be a HF diet-induced signal that regulates metabolism with a focus on lipids. Within this review, we put the spotlight on key findings highlighting this line of thought. Importantly, the hypothetical mechanisms pointed highlight TFF2 as an important contributor to obesity development via increasing lipids intestinal absorption and anabolism. Therefore, an outlook for future experimental activities and evaluation of the therapeutic potential of TFF2 inhibition is given. Indeed, its knockdown or downregulation would contribute to an antiobesity phenotype. We believe this work represents an addition to our understanding of the lipidic molecular implications in obesity, which will contribute to develop therapies aiming to manage the lipidic metabolic pathways including the absorption, storage and metabolism via targeting TFF2-related pathways. We briefly discuss important relevant concepts for both basic and clinical researchers.

Obese Animals as Models for Numerous Diseases: Advantages and Applications

With the advances in obesity research, a variety of animal models have been developed to investigate obesity pathogenesis, development, therapies and complications. Such obese animals would not only allow us to explore obesity but would also represent models to study diseases and conditions that develop with obesity or where obesity represents a risk factor. Indeed, obese subjects, as well as animal models of obesity, develop pathologies such as cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, inflammation and metabolic disorders. Therefore, obese animals would represent models for numerous diseases. Although those diseases can be induced in animals by chemicals or drugs without obesity development, having them developed as consequences of obesity has numerous advantages. These advantages include mimicking natural pathogenesis processes, using diversity in obesity models (diet, animal species) to study the related variabilities and exploring disease intensity and reversibility depending on obesity development and treatments. Importantly, therapeutic implications and pharmacological tests represent key advantages too. On the other hand, obesity prevalence is continuously increasing, and, therefore, the likelihood of having a patient suffering simultaneously from obesity and a particular disease is increasing. Thus, studying diverse diseases in obese animals (either induced naturally or developed) would allow researchers to build a library of data related to the patterns or specificities of obese patients within the context of pathologies. This may lead to a new branch of medicine specifically dedicated to the diseases and care of obese patients, similar to geriatric medicine, which focuses on the elderly population.

High-Fat Diet-Induced Trefoil Factor Family Member 2 (TFF2) to Counteract the Immune-Mediated Damage in Mice

Simple Summary

High-fat (HF) diet induces both immune-mediated damage and trefoil factor family member 2 (Tff2) expression. As TFF2 has tissue repair and protection properties, this suggests that HF diet-induced Tff2 production and the resulting TFF2 mucosal protective effects would be a mechanism to counteract the HF diet-induced tissue damage. On the other hand, the induction of Tff2 by HF diet could indicate that TFF2 is a food intake regulator (appetite control) since Tff2 is also expressed in the brain. This highlights the importance of exploring TFF2-related pathways in the context of obesity management towards potential therapies.

Abstract

Physiological homeostasis requires a balance between the immunological functions and the resulting damage/side effects of the immunological reactions including those related to high-fat (HF) diet. Within this context, whereas HF diet, through diverse mechanisms (such as inflammation), leads to immune-mediated damage, trefoil factor family member 2 (Tff2) represents a HF diet-induced gene. On the other hand, TFF2 both promotes tissue repair and reduces inflammation. These properties are towards counteracting the immune-mediated damage resulting from the HF diet. These observations suggest that the HF diet-induction of Tff2 could be a regulatory pathway aiming to counteract the immune-mediated damage resulting from the HF diet. Interestingly, since Tff2 expression increases with HF diet and with Tff2 also expressed in the brain, we also hypothesize that TFF2 could be a HF diet-induced food intake-control signal that reduces appetite. This hypothesis fits with counteracting the immune damage since reducing the food intake will reduce the HF intake and therefore, reduces the HF diet-induced tissue damage. Such food intake signaling would be an indirect mechanism by which TFF2 promotes tissue repair as well as a pathway worth exploring for potential obesity management pharmacotherapies.