Assessment of Lipid Metabolism In Vitro and In Vivo

TOPICAL COLLECTIONS

Guest Editor

Clair Crewe

The University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center

Dr. Clair Crewe received her PhD in 2015 at the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. Her doctoral work defined the initiating events in the development of cardiac metabolic inflexibility during high fat feeding in mice. She is currently an Assistant Instructor in Dr. Philipp Scherer’s laboratory at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas. Dr. Crewe uses genetic mouse models to understand the metabolic consequences of adaptive and mal-adaptive expansion of adipose tissue in obesity. Under the condition of chronic overnutrition the ability of adipose tissue to store excess energy as lipid is essential for the maintenance of whole-body glucose and lipid homeostasis. Thus, unhealthy adipose expansion in obesity has been implicated in multiple obesity-linked conditions including type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease. Dr. Crewe’s work seeks to understand and manipulate the crosstalk between energetically stressed adipocytes and other organ systems to improve systemic lipid and glucose metabolism.

Collection Overview

Metabolic regulation is essential for maintenance of cellular homeostasis under environmental stresses. The anabolic and catabolic pathways associated with lipid metabolism are indispensable for production of biological membranes, storage of energy, signaling, fasting response, and exercise performance. Consequently, dysregulation of lipid metabolism can cause or worsen the progression of multiple disease states. The most severe pathologies associated with aberrant lipid metabolism are those resulting in an overabundance of systemic free lipids, which is toxic to most organ systems. This lipotoxic state is generally the result of inappropriate mobilization of triglyceride stores (lipolysis) and/or unrestrained production of lipids (lipogenesis). This is exemplified in diseases such as type 2 diabetes, non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, cardiovascular disease, Alzheimer’s, and cancer. Therefore, it is crucial to have access to reliable experimental techniques to assess the impact of lipid metabolism on a wide range of pathologies as well as determine the efficacy of interventions to treat such diseases.

This collection aims to bring together standardized techniques that can be used to study lipid metabolism in vitro and in vivo. Methods will include, but are not limited to, those that assess lipogenesis, lipid oxidation, fatty acid uptake, lipolysis, and disease models of lipid dysregulation.