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Query: UMLS:C0029713 (immaturity)
 4,335 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

Restriction of protein calories during stages of immaturity has a major influence on glucose metabolism and increases the risk of type 2 diabetes in adulthood. However, it is known that reduction of food intake alleviates insulin resistance. We previously demonstrated an improved insulin-induced glucose uptake in skeletal muscle of chronically undernourished adult rats. The purpose of this work was to investigate whether this condition is present during suckling, a period characterized by physiological insulin resistance as well as elucidate some of the underlying mechanisms. With this aim, 10-d-old pups from food-restricted dams were studied. We showed that undernourished suckling rats are glucose normotolerants, despite their depressed insulin secretion capacity. The content of the main glucose transporters in muscle, GLUT-4 and GLUT-1, was not affected by undernutrition, but fractionation studies showed an improved insulin-stimulated GLUT-4 translocation. p38MAPK protein, implicated in up-regulation of intrinsic activity of translocated GLUT-4, was increased. These changes suggest an improved insulin-induced glucose uptake associated with undernutrition. Insulin receptor content as well as that of both regulatory and catalytic phosphoinositol 3-kinase subunits was increased by food restriction. Insulin receptor substrate-1-associated phosphoinositol 3-kinase activity after insulin was enhanced in undernourished rats, as was phospho-glycogen synthase kinase-3, in line with insulin hypersensitivity. Surprisingly, protein tyrosine phosphatase-1B association with insulin receptor was also increased by undernutrition. These adaptations to a condition of severely limited nutritional resources might result in changes in the development of key tissues and be detrimental later in life, when a correct amount of nutrients is available, as the thrifty phenotype hypothesis predicts.
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PMID:Maternal food restriction enhances insulin-induced GLUT-4 translocation and insulin signaling pathway in skeletal muscle from suckling rats. 1590 22

Respiratory distress syndrome (RDS), which is induced by insufficient production of surfactant, is the leading cause of mortality in preterm babies. Although several transcription factors are known to be involved in surfactant protein expression, the molecular mechanisms and signaling pathways upstream of these transcription factors have remained elusive. Here, using mammalian Hippo kinases (Mst1/2, mammalian sterile 20-like kinase 1/2) conditional knockout mice, we demonstrate that Mst1/2 kinases are critical for orchestration of transcription factors involved in surfactant protein homeostasis and prevention of RDS. Mice lacking Mst1/2 in the respiratory epithelium exhibited perinatal mortality with respiratory failure and their lungs contained fewer type I pneumocytes and more immature type II pneumocytes lacking microvilli, lamellar bodies, and surfactant protein expression, pointing to peripheral lung immaturity and RDS. In contrast to previous findings of YAP (Yes-associated protein)-mediated canonical Hippo signaling in the liver and intestine, loss of Mst1/2 kinases induced the defects in pneumocyte differentiation independently of YAP hyperactivity. We instead found that Mst1/2 kinases stabilized and phosphorylated the transcription factor Foxa2 (forkhead box A2), which regulates pneumocyte maturation and surfactant protein expression. Taken together, our results suggest that the mammalian Hippo kinases play crucial roles in surfactant homeostasis and coordination of peripheral lung differentiation through regulation of Foxa2 rather than of YAP.
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PMID:Hippo-Foxa2 signaling pathway plays a role in peripheral lung maturation and surfactant homeostasis. 2362 May 11