Obesity is quickly becoming a worldwide epidemic, and there are currently no effective therapies. Despite their promise, early treatment strategies failed to demonstrate clinical efficacy, which has prompted researchers to focus on the development of combinatorial therapies. Some of the earlier strategies relied on stimulation of β3-adrenergic receptors, and there is recent evidence that the effect of β3-adrenergic activation could be potentiated by combining it with PPARβ-receptor activation. To explore this possibility in vivo, Fernando Rodríguez de Fonseca and colleagues subjected rats to co-treatment with a β3-adrenergic agonist and a PPARβ-activating ligand. This had an effect on multiple processes involved in energy balance, including feeding, thermogenesis and fatty acid oxidation, promoting an overall increase in energy expenditure and decrease in energy intake. These results suggest that pharmacological combination of PPARβ and β3-adrenergic receptor agonists could represent a promising therapy for treating obesity. Page 129
Development/DMM Virtual Meeting 2021
Welcoming new Editors to DMM
Editor-in-Chief Liz Patton wants DMM to strengthen its presence in the field of translational biology and to focus on the importance of disease mechanisms, just as much as models. To implement this vision, we are pleased to welcome new Editors Sally Dunwoodie (Victor Chang Cardiac Research Institute, Australia), Monkol Lek (Yale School of Medicine, USA) and Rickie Patani (Francis Crick Institute, London, UK) to the team.
Roles of the gut microbiome in colorectal cancer development
Going hand-in-hand, a new Perspective by Foegeding et al. explores the Western diet as a driver of dysbiosis in colorectal cancer while a new Review by Wang et al. focuses on microbiota-driven mechanisms that initiate sporadic colorectal cancer.
preLights – the latest disease modelling preprints
Head over to preLights for the digests of the latest preprints:
Erin McGregor highlights work by Nowicka et al. that suggests a potential connection between mitochondrial dysfunction and neurodegeneration.
Emma Wilson discusses work by Dagra et al., which highlights D2 receptors as a potential target that could be used to alleviate alpha-Synuclein pathology in Parkinson’s disease.
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