neuropeptide-y and Retinal-Degeneration

Tub is a member of a small gene family, the tubby-like proteins (TULPs), with predominant expression in neurons. Mice carrying a mutation in Tub develop retinal and cochlear degeneration as well as late-onset obesity with insulin resistance. During behavioral and metabolic testing, we found that homozygous C57BL/6J-Tub(tub) mice have a lower respiratory quotient than C57BL/6J controls before the onset of obesity, indicating that tubby homozygotes fail to activate carbohydrate metabolism and instead rely on fat metabolism for energy needs. In concordance with this, tubby mice show higher excretion of ketone bodies and accumulation of glycogen in the liver. Quantitation of liver mRNA levels shows that, during the transition from light to dark period, tubby mice fail to induce glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase (G6pdh), the rate-limiting enzyme in the pentose phosphate pathway that normally supplies NADPH for de novo fatty acid synthesis and glutathione reduction. Reduced G6PDH protein levels and enzymatic activity in tubby mice lead accordingly to lower levels of NADPH and reduced glutathione (GSH), respectively. mRNA levels for the lipolytic enzymes acetyl-CoA synthetase and carnitine palmitoyltransferase are increased during the dark cycle and decreased during the light period, and several citric acid cycle genes are dysregulated in tubby mice. Examination of hypothalamic gene expression showed high levels of preproorexin mRNA leading to accumulation of orexin peptide in the lateral hypothalamus. We hypothesize that abnormal hypothalamic orexin expression leads to changes in liver carbohydrate metabolism and may contribute to the moderate obesity observed in tubby mice.

Topics: Acetate-CoA Ligase; Adaptor Proteins, Signal Transducing; Agouti-Related Protein; Animals; Brain Chemistry; Carbohydrate Metabolism; Carbon Dioxide; Carnitine O-Palmitoyltransferase; Circadian Rhythm; Citric Acid Cycle; Cochlear Diseases; Eating; Energy Metabolism; Enzyme Induction; Genes, Recessive; Glucosephosphate Dehydrogenase; Glutathione; Homozygote; Hypothalamus; Insulin Resistance; Intercellular Signaling Peptides and Proteins; Intracellular Signaling Peptides and Proteins; Lipid Metabolism; Lipolysis; Liver; Liver Glycogen; Mice; Mice, Inbred C57BL; Mice, Mutant Strains; Motor Activity; NADP; Neuropeptide Y; Neuropeptides; Obesity; Orexins; Oxygen; Oxygen Consumption; Pentose Phosphate Pathway; Proteins; Retinal Degeneration

In the Royal College of Surgeons (RCS) rat, characterized by inherited retinal dystrophy, retinal projections to the brain were studied using anterograde neuronal transport of cholera toxin B subunit upon injection into one eye. The respective immunoreactivity was found predominantly contralateral to the injection site in the lateral geniculate nucleus, superior colliculus, nucleus of the optic tract, medial terminal nucleus of the accessory optic tract, and bilateral hypothalamic suprachiasmatic nuclei. Although terminal density was somewhat reduced in dystrophic rats, the projection patterns in these animals appeared similar to those seen in their congenic controls and were comparable to the visual pathways described for the rat previously. In dystrophic rats, the number of cell bodies exhibiting immunoreactivity to vasoactive intestinal polypeptide, viz. a population of suprachiasmatic neurons receiving major retinohypothalamic input, was reduced by one-third, and some differences were observed in the termination pattern of the geniculohypothalamic tract, as revealed by immunoreactivity to neuropeptide Y in the suprachiasmatic nucleus.

Topics: Afferent Pathways; Animals; Cholera Toxin; Female; Geniculate Bodies; Hypothalamus; Male; Neuropeptide Y; Rats; Rats, Inbred Strains; Retina; Retinal Degeneration; Suprachiasmatic Nucleus; Vasoactive Intestinal Peptide