Hypothalamus–Muscle Parallel Induction of Metabolic Pathways Following Physical Exercise

The modern lifestyle requires less physical activity and skills during our daily routine, leading to multiple pathologies related to physical disabilities and energy accessibility. Thus, exploring the mechanisms underlying the metabolic regulation of exercise is crucial. Here, we characterized the effect of forced and voluntary endurance exercises on three key metabolic signaling pathways, sirtuins, AMPK, and mTOR, across several metabolic tissues in mice: brain, muscles, and liver. Both voluntary and forced exercises induced AMPK with higher intensity in the first. The comparison between those metabolic tissues revealed that the hypothalamus and the hippocampus, two brain parts, showed different metabolic signaling activities. Strikingly, despite the major differences in the physiology of muscles and hypothalamic tissues, the hypothalamus replicates the metabolic response of the muscle in response to physical exercise. Specifically, muscles and hypothalamic tissues showed an increase and a decrease in AMPK and mTOR signaling, respectively. Overall, this study reveals new insight into the relation between the hypothalamus and muscles, which enhances the coordination within the muscle–brain axis and potentially improves the systemic response to physical activity performance and delaying health inactivity disorders

Microwave Spectroscopy as a Potential Tool for Color Grading Diamonds

A diamond’s color grading is a dominant property that determines its market value. Its color quality is dependent on the light transmittance through the diamond and is largely influenced by nitrogen contamination, which induces a yellow/brown tint within the diamond, as well as by structural defects in the crystal (in rare cases boron contamination results in a blue tint). Generally, spectroscopic instrumentation (in the infrared or UV–visible spectral range) is used in industry to measure polished and rough diamonds, but the results are not accurate enough for precise determination of color grade. Thus, new methods should be developed to determine the color grade of diamonds at longer wavelengths, such as microwave (MV). No difference exists between rough and polished diamonds regarding stray light when the MW frequency is used. Thus, several waveguides that cover a frequency range of 3.95–26.5 GHz, as well as suitable resonator mirrors, have been developed using transmission/reflection and resonator methods. A good correlation between the S12 parameter and the nitrogen contamination content was found using the transmission/reflection method. It was concluded that electromagnetic property measurements of diamonds in the MW frequency range can be used to determine their nitrogen content and color grading. The MW technique results were in good agreement with those obtained from the infrared spectra of diamonds

Synaptojanin 2 is a druggable mediator of metastasis and the gene is overexpressed and amplified in breast cancer

Amplified HER2, which encodes a member of the epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) family, is a target of effective therapies against breast cancer. In search for similarly targetable genomic aberrations, we identified copy number gains in SYNJ2, which encodes the 5'-inositol lipid phosphatase synaptojanin 2, as well as overexpression in a small fraction of human breast tumors. Copy gain and overexpression correlated with shorter patient survival and a low abundance of the tumor suppressor microRNA miR-31. SYNJ2 promoted cell migration and invasion in culture and lung metastasis of breast tumor xenografts in mice. Knocking down SYNJ2 impaired the endocytic recycling of EGFR and the formation of cellular lamellipodia and invadopodia. Screening compound libraries identified SYNJ2-specific inhibitors that prevented cell migration but did not affect the related neural protein SYNJ1, suggesting that SYNJ2 is a potentially druggable target to block cancer cell migration