Suchergebnisse

Glial cells perform critical functions that alter the metabolism and activity of neurons, and there is increasing interest in their role in appetite and energy balance. Leptin, a key regulator of appetite and metabolism, has previously been reported to influence glial structural proteins and morphology. Here, we demonstrate that metabolic status and leptin also modify astrocyte-specific glutamate and glucose transporters, indicating that metabolic signals influence synaptic efficacy and glucose uptake and, ultimately, neuronal function. We found that basal and glucose-stimulated electrical activity of hypothalamic proopiomelanocortin (POMC) neurons in mice were altered in the offspring of mothers fed a high-fat diet. In adulthood, increased body weight and fasting also altered the expression of glucose and glutamate transporters. These results demonstrate that whole-organism metabolism alters hypothalamic glial cell activity and suggest that these cells play an important role in the pathology of obesity ; This work was supported by grants from the Spanish Government (FIS PI100747, BFU2011-27492, and CIBER de Obesidad y Nutrición, Instituto de Salud Carlos III, Madrid, Spain). E. Fuente-Martín is supported by a postdoctoral fellowship from CIBERobn. T.L. Horvath was supported by NIH grants DK080000 and DK006850 and an ADA Fellowship grant