bims-mimbat 2024-07-21 papers

Issue of 2024‒07‒21
six papers selected by
José Carlos de Lima-Júnior, Washington University

Nat Metab. 2024 Jul 15.

Reduced adipocyte glutaminase activity promotes energy expenditure and metabolic health.

Glutamine and glutamate are interconverted by several enzymes and alterations in this metabolic cycle are linked to cardiometabolic traits. Herein, we show that obesity-associated insulin resistance is characterized by decreased plasma and white adipose tissue glutamine-to-glutamate ratios. We couple these stoichiometric changes to perturbed fat cell glutaminase and glutamine synthase messenger RNA and protein abundance, which together promote glutaminolysis. In human white adipocytes, reductions in glutaminase activity promote aerobic glycolysis and mitochondrial oxidative capacity via increases in hypoxia-inducible factor 1α abundance, lactate levels and p38 mitogen-activated protein kinase signalling. Systemic glutaminase inhibition in male and female mice, or genetically in adipocytes of male mice, triggers the activation of thermogenic gene programs in inguinal adipocytes. Consequently, the knockout mice display higher energy expenditure and improved glucose tolerance compared to control littermates, even under high-fat diet conditions. Altogether, our findings highlight white adipocyte glutamine turnover as an important determinant of energy expenditure and metabolic health.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s42255-024-01083-y

Cell Rep. 2024 Jul 13. pii: S2211-1247(24)00810-6. [Epub ahead of print]43(7): 114481

Exercise training and cold exposure trigger distinct molecular adaptations to inguinal white adipose tissue.

Maria Vamvini, Pasquale Nigro, Tiziana Caputo, Kristin I Stanford, Michael F Hirshman, Roeland J W Middelbeek, Laurie J Goodyear.

Exercise training and cold exposure both improve systemic metabolism, but the mechanisms are not well established. Here, we tested the hypothesis that inguinal white adipose tissue (iWAT) adaptations are critical for these beneficial effects and determined the impact of exercise-trained and cold-exposed iWAT on systemic glucose metabolism and the iWAT proteome and secretome. Transplanting trained iWAT into sedentary mice improves glucose tolerance, while cold-exposed iWAT transplantation shows no such benefit. Compared to training, cold leads to more pronounced alterations in the iWAT proteome and secretome, downregulating >2,000 proteins but also boosting the thermogenic capacity of iWAT. In contrast, only training increases extracellular space and vesicle transport proteins, and only training upregulates proteins that correlate with favorable fasting glucose, suggesting fundamental changes in trained iWAT that mediate tissue-to-tissue communication. This study defines the unique exercise training- and cold exposure-induced iWAT proteomes, revealing distinct mechanisms for the beneficial effects of these interventions on metabolic health.

Keywords: CP: Metabolism; adipose tissue; cold; exercise; glucose; proteomics; secretome; spatial transcriptomics; transplantation

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.celrep.2024.114481

Cell Rep. 2024 Jul 17. pii: S2211-1247(24)00802-7. [Epub ahead of print]43(8): 114473

ATAD1 prevents clogging of TOM and damage caused by un-imported mitochondrial proteins.

John Kim, Madeleine Goldstein, Lauren Zecchel, Ryan Ghorayeb, Christopher A Maxwell, Hilla Weidberg.

Mitochondria require the constant import of nuclear-encoded proteins for proper functioning. Impaired protein import not only depletes mitochondria of essential factors but also leads to toxic accumulation of un-imported proteins outside the organelle. Here, we investigate the consequences of impaired mitochondrial protein import in human cells. We demonstrate that un-imported proteins can clog the mitochondrial translocase of the outer membrane (TOM). ATAD1, a mitochondrial ATPase, removes clogged proteins from TOM to clear the entry gate into the mitochondria. ATAD1 interacts with both TOM and stalled proteins, and its knockout results in extensive accumulation of mitochondrial precursors as well as decreased protein import. Increased ATAD1 expression contributes to improved fitness of cells with inefficient mitochondrial protein import. Overall, we demonstrate the importance of the ATAD1 quality control pathway in surveilling protein import and its contribution to cellular health.

Keywords: AAA ATPase; ATAD1; CP: Cell biology; CP: Metabolism; TOM clogging; mitochondrial protein import; mitochondrial stress; protein quality control; proteotoxicity

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.celrep.2024.114473

bioRxiv. 2024 Jul 05. pii: 2024.07.04.601975. [Epub ahead of print]

Robustness of mitochondrial biogenesis and respiration explain aerobic glycolysis.

Easun Arunachalam, Felix C Keber, Richard C Law, Chirag K Kumar, Yihui Shen, Junyoung O Park, Martin Wühr, Daniel J Needleman.

A long-standing observation is that in fast-growing cells, respiration rate declines with increasing growth rate and is compensated by an increase in fermentation, despite respiration being more efficient than fermentation. This apparent preference for fermentation even in the presence of oxygen is known as aerobic glycolysis, and occurs in bacteria, yeast, and cancer cells. Considerable work has focused on understanding the potential benefits that might justify this seemingly wasteful metabolic strategy, but its mechanistic basis remains unclear. Here we show that aerobic glycolysis results from the saturation of mitochondrial respiration and the decoupling of mitochondrial biogenesis from the production of other cellular components. Respiration rate is insensitive to acute perturbations of cellular energetic demands or nutrient supplies, and is explained simply by the amount of mitochondria per cell. Mitochondria accumulate at a nearly constant rate across different growth conditions, resulting in mitochondrial amount being largely determined by cell division time. In contrast, glucose uptake rate is not saturated, and is accurately predicted by the abundances and affinities of glucose transporters. Combining these models of glucose uptake and respiration provides a quantitative, mechanistic explanation for aerobic glycolysis. The robustness of specific respiration rate and mitochondrial biogenesis, paired with the flexibility of other bioenergetic and biosynthetic fluxes, may play a broad role in shaping eukaryotic cell metabolism.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1101/2024.07.04.601975

bioRxiv. 2024 Jul 12. pii: 2024.07.09.602707. [Epub ahead of print]

Amino acids trigger MDC-dependent mitochondrial remodeling by altering mitochondrial function.

Nidhi Raghuram, Adam Hughes.

Cells utilize numerous pathways to maintain mitochondrial homeostasis, including a recently identified mechanism that adjusts the content of the outer mitochondrial membrane (OMM) through formation of OMM-derived multilamellar domains called mitochondrial-derived compartments, or MDCs. MDCs are triggered by perturbations in mitochondrial lipid and protein content, as well as increases in intracellular amino acids. Here, we sought to understand how amino acids trigger MDCs. We show that amino acid-activation of MDCs is dependent on the functional state of mitochondria. While amino acid excess triggers MDC formation when cells are grown on fermentable carbon sources, stimulating mitochondrial biogenesis blocks MDC formation. Moreover, amino acid elevation depletes TCA cycle metabolites in yeast, and preventing consumption of TCA cycle intermediates for amino acid catabolism suppresses MDC formation. Finally, we show that directly impairing the TCA cycle is sufficient to trigger MDC formation in the absence of amino acid stress. These results demonstrate that amino acids stimulate MDC formation by perturbing mitochondrial metabolism.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1101/2024.07.09.602707