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Örebro University School of Medicine Degree project, 30 ECTS 19th January 2018

Discovering Bone Morphogenetic Protein Signaling

Pathways in Obesity in Male Mice

Version 2

Author: Isabelle Nodby, Bachelor of medicine Supervisors: Kristina I. Bostrom MD, PhD

Professor of Medicine / Cardiology Division of Cardiology, David Geffen School of Medicine

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Abstract

Introduction: The bone morphogenetic protein (BMP) pathway is one of the multiple signaling pathways part of the adipose lineage differentiation. The BMP signaling components have been linked to white adipogenic differentiation.

Aim: To identify alterations in gene expression patterns for BMP signaling components with regards to obesity and link these alterations to genetic phenotypes.

Method: This retrospective study was conducted by analyzing data from the Hybrid Mouse Diversity Panel database. Specifically, the data retrieved consisted of adipose tissue gene expression of known BMP signaling components and genetic phenotypes; total mass growth, body fat, subcutaneous fat and plasma insulin (pg/ml), of control mice and mice fed a high fat/high sucrose (HF/HS) diet.

Results: The adipose tissue from obese mice had high gene expression of the ligands BMP-2 and BMP-4 and the inhibitors Gremlin-2, Chordin and Matrix gla protein. BMP-2 was the ligand that increased when comparing between HF/HS-fed and control mice. The expression of Gremlin-2 decreased in the HF/HS-fed mice, whereas the expression of Chordin increased. The strongest negative correlation was between Chordin expression and insulin level in plasma. Other negative correlations were found between the phenotypes and BMP-4 respectively Gremlin-2.

Conclusions: The BMP genes are differentially expressed in mice fed a HF/HS diet; especially the ligand BMP-2, which showed the largest increase among the ligands in the obese mice. The BMP inhibitors showed a different expression pattern in the HF/HS-fed mice than the BMPs. Together, our data suggest that the BMP system has a protective effect on obesity and insulin resistance.

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Abbreviations

BAT – Brown adipose tissue

BMP – Bone morphogenetic protein BSA – Bovine serum albumin

DAPI – 4’,6-diamidino-2-phenylindole HF/HS – High-fat/high-sucrose

HMDP – Hybrid mouse diversity panel MGP – Matrix gla protein

MRI – Magnetic resonance imaging PBS – Phosphate-buffered saline

PPARγ – Proliferator–activated receptor γ UCLA – University of California, Los Angeles. WAT – White adipose tissue

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Table of Content

Introduction ... 2

Aim ... 4

Materials and method ... 4

3.1 Hybrid Mouse Diversity Panel ... 4 3.2 Immunofluorescence ... 5 3.3 Statistics ... 6 3.4 Ethics ... 6 Results ... 6 4.1 Abundance of BMP ligands and inhibitors ... 6 4.2 Immunofluorescence ... 8 4.3 Bivariate correlations between phenotypes and BMP signaling components. ... 9 Discussion ... 10 Conclusion ... 12 Acknowledgements ... 13 References ... 14 Supplemental data ... 17

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Introduction

The global epidemic of obesity results from a plethora of causative factors. These include maternal, genetic and perinatal factors as well as sedentary lifestyle and a high-caloric diet. In addition, obesity is a risk factor for chronic diseases, such as type 2-diabetes, cardiovascular disease and certain forms of cancer, which result in increased health care costs worldwide [1– 3]. Although lifestyle changes e.g., exercise and dieting, are methods aimed at the prevention and treatment of obesity they have been proven to be insufficient [1,2,4]. Therefore, targeted treatment for individuals with high risk for obesity and obesity-related diseases may be highly beneficial, both on the individual and group level. Insight into the pathophysiology of adipose tissue could possibly be used to design such treatments [1,2].

The adipose tissue is essential for energy storage and also serves as an endocrine organ. The adipocytes produce adipokines, such as adiponectin and leptin, which participate in the regulation of energy metabolism. In brief, these are key mediators in controlling appetite, digestion, energy storage and energy expenditure as well as insulin sensitivity and lipid and glucose metabolism [5]. Adipose tissue in mammals exists in two basic forms, white and brown adipose tissue, which have different functions and regulation [5].

White adipose tissue (WAT) is the primary location for energy/triglyceride storage and is characterized by the presence of the hormone leptin. Leptin regulates appetite by stimulating the hypothalamus, and it also affects several other organ systems, including bone and the reproductive and immune systems. Brown adipose tissue (BAT) is an important part of thermogenesis, especially during the neonatal period, and functions through the expression of uncoupling protein-1 [6,7]. In adults, it is located in the thorax as well as in WAT depots following cold exposure [7–9].

The bone morphogenetic protein (BMP) pathway is one of the multiple signaling pathways that are part of adipose lineage differentiation [6,10]. Together with the growth and

differentiation factors (GDFs), the large subfamily of the BMPs (at present > 30 members [11]) make up the transforming growth factor beta (TGF-β) superfamily. The BMPs were first observed in bone development, but are now known to be crucial for differentiation and

development of cells in multiple tissues [5]. To activate BMP signaling, a BMP ligand binds two types of BMP receptors (BMPRs), which generate a hetero-oligomeric complex [5,11]. In brief, the ligand binding results in phosphorylation of the receptor, which activates

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transcriptional factors referred to as SMADs (SMAD1/5/8). The Smad pathway is the canonical pathway for BMPs. It is the main pathway in adipogenesis, although alternative pathways exist [5]. Upon the activation of the Smad pathway, the phosphorylated Smad enters the nucleus, affecting downstream targets [5,11]. The BMP signaling pathway is summarized in Figure 1 [12]. Particular genotypes of the BMPR isoforms, BMPR1A and BMPR2, have been associated with obesity in humans [10].

The BMP signaling components BMP-4 and BMP-7, have been linked to white and brown adipogenic differentiation. BMP-7 promotes brown adipogenesis during early embryonic development [5]. It is widely accepted that adipose tissue is derived from the mesoderm, though the specific lineage tracing is still unknown [5]. During the differentiation of mesenchymal stem cells to white preadipocytes, it has been shown that both BMP-2 and BMP-4 promote white adipogenesis in white preadipocytes [5,6,11]. The observation that BMPR1A and BMPR2 polymorphisms are associated with obesity may be linked to the ability of BMP-4 to stimulate differentiation of adipose precursor cells and lipid accumulation [10]. BMP-4 is also known to participate in the browning (beige adipogenesis) and WAT transitioning to BAT, also referred to as “brite” (brown-in-white), i.e. depots of BAT in WAT [13,14]. Even though BMP-2 is not known to increase during differentiation in human

preadipocytes, studies suggest that genetic ablation of targets downstream of BMP-2 reduces WAT in mice [15]. In addition Guiu-Jurado et al. [16] found that the expression of BMP-2 was significantly higher in the adipose tissue from obese and overweight human subjects than from lean subjects. Furthermore, BMP-2 causes an upregulation of proliferator–activated

Figure 1. Bone morphogenetic protein (BMP) receptors mediate BMP signaling by activating Smad transcription factors, Liu et al. [12]

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receptor γ (PPAR-γ) [16], which is a nuclear receptor that is expressed in progenitor cells and an early marker of adipogenesis [5,6].

Known BMP antagonists are Chordin, Gremlin-1, Gremlin-2 and Matrix gla protein (MGP). Chordin binds BMP-2, -4 and -7 whereas Gremlin-1, secreted by preadipocytes, is a potent inhibitor of BMP-4 and -7 in the extra- and intracellular space [14]. Gremlin-2 is known to inhibit BMP-6, which has been shown to be a vascular endothelial growth factor [17]. MGP is known to bind calcium ions as well as BMPs, and has been shown to act as a vascular

calcification inhibitor [18]. Interestingly, adipose tissue releases MGP and its expression increases during the differentiation of preadipocytes, which suggests that MGP is a adipokine [18]. An additional inhibitor is Noggin, whose function is still undetermined [14], though an increase in Noggin has been seen to reduce preadipogenesis, contrary to BMP-4 [10]. Taken together, much is unknown about the BMP response in the induction of obesity and genetic variations in this response.

Aim

The aim of the study is to identify alterations in gene expression patterns for BMP signaling components with regards to obesity and link these alterations to genetic phenotypes.

Materials and method

This study is a retrospective study conducted by analyzing data from the Hybrid Mouse Diversity Panel (HMDP) database, generated at the Department of Medicine, Division of Cardiology, David Geffen School of Medicine, University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) [19–21].

3.1 Hybrid Mouse Diversity Panel

The HMDP contains 30 classic and approximately 70 recombinant inbred mouse strains. The database comprises information on the expression of genes in different organs, including adipose tissue, and phenotype data. The information was from induced-diet adult obese female and male mice on a high-fat/high-sucrose (HF/HS) diet and adult control male mice, on chow diet. The HMDP was created more than 10 years ago to represent genetic diversity

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without the interactions of environmental factors. Microarrays were used to determine gene expression in samples of mouse adipose tissue. The expression was calculated using relative logarithms [19–21]. During the 8 weeks of diet, both chow and HF/HS diet fed mice were repeatedly assessed by magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) in each study. The mice in the HF/HS study were considered to be obese by the end of the study. Tissues were collected for different phenotypical analyses, as described previously [20,21]. For this study, we selected only male mice from the HF/HS study, to be able to compare gene expression between the control group, from the chow study, and the obese group.

Data analysis was focused on exploring the links between known ligands and inhibitors of the BMP signaling pathway in relation to the HF/HS feeding in various mouse strains. Results from the chow study was used as controls. We focused on following phenotypes; Total mass (% growth 0-8 weeks), body fat (% growth) and subcutaneous fat (% growth), all measured by MRI and plasma insulin (pg/ml).

3.2 Immunofluorescence

Sections of inguinal adipose tissue from 2-month-old male mice were previously prepared in laboratory of Dr. Bostrom. Sections from one lean control mouse and one obese mouse were examined for pSMAD1/5 and perilipin. The adipose tissue sections were processed and stained as previously described in detail [22,23]. In brief, after deparaffinization, the sections were washed one time with phosphate-buffered saline (PBS) and tissues were fixed with 4% paraformaldehyde (20mL 10% buffered formalin + 30mL PBS) in PBS for 10 min (room temperature) and then washed three times in PBS. Tissue sections were permeabilized for 20-30 minutes with 0.2% Triton X-100, followed by one wash with PBS. The sections were incubated for 60 minutes in blocking buffer (1% bovine serum albumin [BSA]), 10% goat serum in PBS) to block non-specific antibody binding sites. Primary antibodies were diluted in PBS with 1% BSA and sections were incubated with the antibodies over night at 4 degrees C. We used the following polyclonal antibodies for immunostaining: pSMAD1/5 S206 (1:200, Cell Signaling, 09/2016) and perilipin (1:200, Novus Biologicals, NB100-60554). The

following day sections were washedseveral times in PBS followed by the application of secondary antibodies diluted in PBS with 1% BSA (1:1000). 4’,6-diamidino-2-phenylindole (DAPI, Sigma-Aldrich) was included to stain the nuclei of cells. Alexa Flour 488-conjugated chick anti-goat (green fluorescence) and Alexa Flour 594-conjugated anti-rabbit (red

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fluorescence) secondary antibodies (Molecular Probes, Eugene, OR), were used, respectively, and incubated for 1 hour in the dark at room temperature and rinsed serval times in PBS. Images were visualized by a Nikon Eclipse Ti immunofluorescence microscope, and the acquisition software was NIS Elements Br. Potential false colocalization caused by emission filter bleed through was eliminated by only including images that showed clear signals as seen by the eye through the microscope when using the appropriate filters for the respective

antibodies. This was done by the author in consultation with Dr. Pierre J. Guihard, UCLA, United States of America.

3.3 Statistics

Students t-test (two-tailed distribution, two-sample heteroscedastic) was performed to evaluate differences in the gene expression of BMP components between HF/HS mice and controls. Pearson correlation and linear regression analysis were used to evaluate the

correlation of the BMP components with obesity phenotypes. The significance level was set at a p-value of 0.05 with a confidence interval with 95 % threshold.

3.4 Ethics

The Institutional Care and Use Committee at UCLA as well as the National Institute of Health approved the animal protocols used for the HMDP [24,25]. Dr. Bostrom and her laboratory have full access to the database.

Results

4.1 Abundance of BMP ligands and inhibitors

The results showed high expression of BMP signaling components in both chow-fed control mice and HF/HS-fed mice. The ligands BMP-2 and BMP-4 and the inhibitors MGP and Gremlin-2 were highly expressed in chow-fed mice (Figure 2 and 3). BMP-2, BMP-4, and the inhibitors MGP, Gremlin-2 and Chordin were highly expressed in the HF/HS-fed mice

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Figure 2. These scatter plots illustrate gene expression of Bone Morphogenetic Protein (BMP) signaling

components in white adipose tissue of male mice. The left scatter plot represents the expression of ligands after 8 weeks of chow diet (control) and the right scatter plot represents the expression of ligands after 8 weeks of high fat/high sucrose (HF/HS) diet.

The expression of BMP-4 did not change between control and HF/HS mice (Figure 4), whereas BMP-2 increased significantly (p-value < 0.01), as shown in figure 4. The remainder of the BMP ligands, BMP-5, -7. -8a, -8b, -9 and -10, showed low expression in control mice and were further suppressed in HF/HS-fed mice (p-value <0.05), (Figure 2 and Supplemental data).

Figure 3. The scatter plots illustrates gene expression of Bone Morphogenetic Protein (BMP) signaling

components in white adipose tissue of male mice. The left represents the expression of inhibitors after 8 weeks of chow diet (control) and the right represents the expression of inhibitors after 8 weeks of high fat/high sucrose (HF/HS) diet

Expression of all inhibitors decreased significantly (p-value <0.001) except for Chordin, which was significantly increased (p-value < 0.01). (Figure 4). The expression of MGP, however, increased significantly (p-value: 0.0031) as shown in figure 3.

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Figure 4. Box plots illustrating the differences in the levels of gene expression of Bone Morphogenetic Protein (BMP) signaling components between mice on control (chow) and high fat/high sucrose (HF/HS) diets. An addition to figure 2 and 3. NS = Non-significant.

4.2 Immunofluorescence

Immunofluorescence showed nuclear staining of pSMAD1/5 in inguinal adipose tissue from both lean and obese mice, suggesting that the BMP pathway was activated in both tissues (staining from obese mouse is shown in Figure 5). Staining for Perilipin was used to outline the lipid droplets in the adipocytes, and DAPI was used for visualization of the nuclei (Figure 5).

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Figure 5. 20x: Inguinal adipose tissue from obese mouse, stained with antibodies for adipose membrane, Perilipin (green). Downstream signaling pathway stained with antibodies pSmad 1/5 (red) and nuclei stained with DAPI

(blue). Scale bar = 50 µm.

4.3 Bivariate correlations between phenotypes and BMP signaling components.

Quantitative analysis of the relationship between the phenotypes and the BMP signaling components in WAT was performed in control and HF/HS mice. We selected only results with p-values less than 0.001 and bivariate correlations of more than ± 0.4. A second selection was made by observing the most common and highest bivariate correlation, using only

datasets on WAT in male mice.

Table 1. Bivariate correlations between phenotypes and Bone Morphogenetic Protein (BMP) signaling components in white adipose tissue in the high fat/ high sucrose-fed mice.

We detected no correlations between the phenotypes and the BMP signaling components in adipose tissue from the control mice. However, correlations were detected in WAT in the HF/HS-fed mice as shown in Table 1. BMP-4 was the only ligand with correlations using our selection criteria (p-value < 0.001 and bivariate correlations > ± 0.4). BMP-4 had strong

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correlations with insulin (pg/ml) and also with total mass growth (0-8 weeks). The strongest correlation for any phenotype was the negative correlation between insulin level (pg/ml) and Chordin expression. Chordin also showed a negative correlation to subcutaneous fat mass and body fat. Gremlin-2 showed negative correlations with the total mass growth (0-8 weeks), subcutaneous fat mass and body fat (Figure 6).

Figure 6. The scatter plot illustrates the correlations between gene expression of Bone Morphogenetic Protein (BMP) signaling components in white adipose tissue of male mice after 8 weeks of high fat/high sucrose diet and phenotypes. R= Pearson correlation coefficient.

Discussion

This study aimed to determine differences in the expression of BMP signaling components in with regards to obesity. The result showed that WAT from obese mice had the highest gene expression of the ligands BMP-2 and BMP-4, and the inhibitors Gremlin-2, Chordin and MGP. Furthermore, BMP-2 increased most in the HF/HS group. In contrast, BMP-4

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inhibitors Gremlin-2 and MGP was high in WAT of both the control and obese mice. However, the expression of Gremlin-2 decreased in the HF/HS-fed mice, whereas the expression of Chordin increased. In this study, the BMP signaling may have a protective effect given the negative correlations between phenotypes and known BMP signaling components in the HF/HS study.

As stated, many of the common BMP ligands were expressed at low levels in WAT in both control and HF/HS-fed mice. This was not surprising considering that the BMP growth factors function in many other tissues [5,11]. For example BMP-9 is mostly expressed in liver [26] and BMP-7 in BAT [5]. Interestingly BMP-4, did not differ in gene expression between WAT from the control and HF/HS-fed mice, which suggested that it was not affected by diet. Instead it was BMP-2 that showed a significant increase in WAT in the HF/HS-fed mice. This outcome may be controversial, since a number of studies show that BMP-2 is a part of

differentiation of WAT in mice and not in humans [15] On the other hand, it has been shown that BMP-2 has a higher expression in adipose tissue from overweight and obese human subjects than from lean subjects [16], which is consistent with our results that WAT from obese mice has a higher BMP-2 expression than lean mice.

Regarding the BMP antagonists, the different patterns were unexpected. The expression of Gremlin-2 decreased whereas that of Chordin increased when comparing control and HF/HS-fed mice. Gremlin-2 is known to be a BMP-6 antagonist, and since BMP-6 is a vascular endothelial growth factor, the activity of Gremlin-2 has mostly been studied in angiogenesis [17]. The role of Gremlin-2 in WAT remains unclear but may be associated with adipose angiogenesis, which is important during the adipose tissue growth. Chordin increased in the WAT of the HF/HS fed mice, as might be predicted, since it is known as an inhibitor of BMP-2, -4 and -7 [14]. MGP is another BMP inhibitor that might be considered as an adipokine [18], but the changes in MGP expression in this study were modest and therefore, no conclusion could be drawn about the effect of the HF/HS diet on MGP. We were also surprised to see that Noggin, commonly seen as a BMP-4 inhibitor, was poorly expressed in both control and HF/HS-fed animals. The function of Noggin is still unclear even though some studies have shown that enhanced Noggin expression reduces preadipogenesis [10].

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each other and therefore inherited together or that the ligands and inhibitors are linked through feedback mechanisms, i.e. with more ligands there is more inhibitors. There was no correlation between BMP-2 and the different phenotypes. We predicted that BMP-2 would have a positive correlation with body fat mass or total mass growth percentage, but no correlation was found. Unexpectedly, BMP-4 expression correlated negatively with plasma insulin and total mass growth (0-8 weeks, measured by MRI). It was surprising since BMP-4 has been reported to promote WAT development [5,6,11], and our results show that it may be protective in regards to insulin levels and obesity. However, the BMP-4 activity may also be altered by changing the levels of the BMP inhibitors, which would not be detected in our study. BMP-4 may also be participating in browning of fat [13] but more research is needed. Gremlin-2 showed a negative correlation with body fat mass and subcutaneous fat mass, which once again emphasizes the importance of inhibitors although their exact roles are unclear. Chordin also showed a negative correlation with insulin, suggesting that high expression of Chordin might be linked to low plasma insulin and hence be considered as protective.

The HMDP database was created over ten years ago to represent genetic diversity without the influence of the environment, which is a limitation in human genome-wide association studies (GWAS) [19–21]. The statistical power has furthermore been calculated in order to detect true associations. However, the control and HF/HS animals were from two different studies, and thus no true conclusions can be made. Instead these preliminary results should be validated in other well-planned mouse studies as well as human studies. Moreover, since this study was a retrospective and limitated to male mice, we could not evaluate patterns in the female mice. Future studies should evaluate patterns in both genders and potential gender differences. Lastly, it would be interesting to use various mouse models including Bmp2 and Gremlin2 knockout mice. In the immunofluorescence experiments, the BMP activity was demonstrated but we were unable to draw any conclusions about potential differences between the obese and lean mice. More samples would be necessary. It is a complex pathway and some parts of it are still unknown.

Conclusion

We conclude that the BMP genes are differentially expressed in mice fed a HF/HS diet; especially BMP-2 which showed the largest increase among the ligands in the obese mice.

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The BMP inhibitors showed a different expression pattern in the HF/HS-fed mice than the BMPs. Together, our data suggest that the BMP system has a protective effect on obesity and insulin resistance which has not been previously reported.

Acknowledgements

Firstly, we would like to thank the entire Bostrom lab team at UCLA, it was a great honour and experience. Especially thanks to Drs. Xiuju Wu and Pierre J. Guihard at UCLA, United States of America, for your endless patience and assistance regarding the lab and data base. Secondary, thanks to Dr. Marie Palmnäs-Bédard at the University of Calgary, Canada, for your guidance and invaluable help with proofreading the manuscript.

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8. Zingaretti MC, Crosta F, Vitali A, Guerrieri M, Frontini A, Cannon B, et al. The presence of UCP1 demonstrates that metabolically active adipose tissue in the neck of adult humans truly represents brown adipose tissue. FASEB J. 2009 Sep 1;23(9):3113–20.

9. Saito M, Okamatsu-Ogura Y, Matsushita M, Watanabe K, Yoneshiro T, Nio-Kobayashi J, et al. High Incidence of Metabolically Active Brown Adipose Tissue in Healthy Adult Humans: Effects of Cold Exposure and Adiposity. Diabetes. 2009 Jul 1;58(7):1526–31.

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and BMP7 induce the white-to-brown transition of primary human adipose stem cells. Am J Physiol - Cell Physiol. 2014 Mar 1;306(5):C431–40.

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Bone morphogenetic protein 2 (BMP2) may contribute to partition of energy storage into visceral and subcutaneous fat depots. Obesity. 2016 Oct

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Supplemental data

Supplemental figure 1. These scatter plots illustrate gene expression of Bone Morphogenetic Protein (BMP) signaling components in white adipose tissue of male mice. The left scatter plot represents the expression of ligands after 8 weeks of chow diet (control) and the right scatter plot represents the expression of ligands after 8 weeks of high fat/high sucrose (HF/HS) diet.

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Ethical considerations

January 4th, 2018. Corresponding author: Isabelle Nodby, Bachelor of medicine, Örebro University

This study was a retrospective study conducted by analysis of data collected as part of the Hybrid Mouse Diversity Panel (HMDP) database, generated at the University of California Los Angeles. Our study did not involve any new animal trials and all the earlier studies had approved animal protocols by National Institute of Health, United states of America. Since this project is retrospective it is beneficial and crucial to investigate all collected data so that no animal was unnecessary sacrificed.

The importance of research on obesity cannot be emphasizes enough. It is a growing global health issue. A solution would gain a great number of humans and the genetics is one causing factor to obesity. Therefore, it is of interest to study the genetics of protein signaling pathways in adipose tissue. At the moment, it is quite unethical to perform these types of studies on humans and if so environmental factors would be very hard exclude. The HMDP is a great tool to use instead, since all mice have lived under the same conditions and you can add your own environmental factor, for example a diet. Even though, the sacrifice of animal lives is part of the research it should be seen from a altruistic perspective for the greater good of humanity.

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Cover Letter

January 4th, 2018. Corresponding author: Isabelle Nodby, Bachelor of medicine, Örebro University

Dear editor,

Obesity is a major global health issue and it is important to find solutions for this growing problem. Known causes are overconsumption of food, physical inactivity and genetics. This study was a preliminary overview of the differences in gene expression of bone

morphogenetic protein (BMP) signaling components in the obese mouse. The BMP signaling pathway is part of the adipogenesis.

This study is a retrospective study conducted by analysis of data collected as part of the Hybrid Mouse Diversity Panel database, generated at University of California Los Angeles. Alterations of the BMP gene expression were found when comparing data between obese and lean mice. Moreover, the BMP system seemed to have a protective effect on obesity and insulin resistance, a finding that to the best of our knowledge has not been shown previously. These results need to be further evaluated and we suggest that a possible step forward would be to use knock-out mouse models for establishing causative factors.

In this study, we have attempted to show the genetic complexity of obesity and answer some of the basic questions regarding the regulation of adipose tissue differentiation. Therefore, we kindly propose that you consider this article for publication in your journal. We believe that a publication would raise awareness and favour this field of research.

The manuscript has not been published and there are no conflicts of interest.

Best regards, Isabelle Nodby

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Pressrelease:

Fett dåligt!

– Ett steg närmare behandling mot fetma?

Ett stort hälsoproblem i världen är att stora delar av befolkningen blir allt mer överviktiga och lider av fetma. Överkonsumtion av mat i samband med fysisk inaktivitet är en stor del av problemet, detta är dock inte hela sanningen. Detta vet vi då tidigare forskning har visat att människor som äter lika stor mängd mat ändå ökar olika mycket i vikt.

Från denna forskning kan vi förstå att våra kroppar styrs av olika mekanismer som är beroende av hur våra gener ser ut. Dessa mekanismer finns i samt styr våra celler. Mekanismerna kan kallas för protein-signaleringsvägar och består av flera olika proteiner som på olika sätt påverkar vår fettbildning.

Den aktuella studien har tittat på generna för en av dessa protein-signaleringsvägar

och hur mängden av genernas uttryck förändras hos feta möss jämfört med hos smala. Målet var att hitta de proteiner som styr fettbildning. Efter att ha genomfört en översikt av protein-signaleringsvägen hittade vi några proteiner som fanns i större mängd hos de feta mössen än de smala.

Framtida forskning kan förhoppningsvis gå vidare med detta för att i slutändan hitta ett sätt att förhindra de proteiner som styr i fett, till exempel i form av ett läkemedel, och på så vis hjälpa till att stoppa tillväxten av fett, samt förhindra fetma.

Isabelle Nodby, Örebro Universitet Populärvetenskaplig sammanfattning 4 Jan 2018

References

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