Cardiometabolic risk factor clustering in patients with deficient branched‐chain amino acid catabolism: A case‐control study

AbstractClassical organic acidemias (OAs) result from defective mitochondrial catabolism of branched‐chain amino acids (BCAAs). Abnormal mitochondrial function relates to oxidative stress, ectopic lipids and insulin resistance (IR). We investigated whether genetically impaired function of mitochondrial BCAA catabolism associates with cardiometabolic risk factors, altered liver and muscle energy metabolism, and IR. In this case‐control study, 31 children and young adults with propionic acidemia (PA), methylmalonic acidemia (MMA) or isovaleric acidemia (IVA) were compared with 30 healthy young humans using comprehensive metabolic phenotyping including in vivo 31P/1H magnetic resonance spectroscopy of liver and skeletal muscle. Among all OAs, patients with PA exhibited abdominal adiposity, IR, fasting hyperglycaemia and hypertriglyceridemia as well as increased liver fat accumulation, despite dietary energy intake within recommendations for age and sex. In contrast, patients with MMA more frequently featured higher energy intake than recommended and had a different phenotype including hepatomegaly and mildly lower skeletal muscle ATP content. In skeletal muscle of patients with PA, slightly lower inorganic phosphate levels were found. However, hepatic ATP and inorganic phosphate concentrations were not different between all OA patients and controls. In patients with IVA, no abnormalities were detected. Impaired BCAA catabolism in PA, but not in MMA or IVA, was associated with a previously unrecognised, metabolic syndrome‐like phenotype with abdominal adiposity potentially resulting from ectopic lipid storage. These findings suggest the need for early cardiometabolic risk factor screening in PA

Mitochondrial respiration is decreased in visceral but not subcutaneous adipose tissue in obese individuals with fatty liver disease

Adipose tissue (commonly called body fat) can be found under the skin (subcutaneous) or around internal organs (visceral). Dysfunction of adipose tissue can cause insulin resistance and lead to excess delivery of fat to other organs such as the liver. Herein, we show that dysfunction specifically in visceral adipose tissue was associated with fatty liver disease

Meta-analysis of genome-wide DNA methylation and integrative omics of age in human skeletal muscle

International audienceBackground: Knowledge of age-related DNA methylation changes in skeletal muscle is limited, yet this tissue is severely affected by ageing in humans.Methods: We conducted a large-scale epigenome-wide association study meta-analysis of age in human skeletal muscle from 10 studies (total n = 908 muscle methylomes from men and women aged 18-89 years old). We explored the genomic context of age-related DNA methylation changes in chromatin states, CpG islands, and transcription factor binding sites and performed gene set enrichment analysis. We then integrated the DNA methylation data with known transcriptomic and proteomic age-related changes in skeletal muscle. Finally, we updated our recently developed muscle epigenetic clock (https://bioconductor.org/packages/release/bioc/html/MEAT.html).Results: We identified 6710 differentially methylated regions at a stringent false discovery rate <0.005, spanning 6367 unique genes, many of which related to skeletal muscle structure and development. We found a strong increase in DNA methylation at Polycomb target genes and bivalent chromatin domains and a concomitant decrease in DNA methylation at enhancers. Most differentially methylated genes were not altered at the mRNA or protein level, but they were nonetheless strongly enriched for genes showing age-related differential mRNA and protein expression. After adding a substantial number of samples from five datasets (+371), the updated version of the muscle clock (MEAT 2.0, total n = 1053 samples) performed similarly to the original version of the muscle clock (median of 4.4 vs. 4.6 years in age prediction error), suggesting that the original version of the muscle clock was very accurate.Conclusions: We provide here the most comprehensive picture of DNA methylation ageing in human skeletal muscle and reveal widespread alterations of genes involved in skeletal muscle structure, development, and differentiation. We have made our results available as an open-access, user-friendly, web-based tool called MetaMeth (https://sarah-voisin.shinyapps.io/MetaMeth/)

International Consensus Based Review and Recommendations for Minimum Reporting Standards in Research on Transcutaneous Vagus Nerve Stimulation (Version 2020)

Given its non-invasive nature, there is increasing interest in the use of transcutaneous vagus nerve stimulation (tVNS) across basic, translational and clinical research. Contemporaneously, tVNS can be achieved by stimulating either the auricular branch or the cervical bundle of the vagus nerve, referred to as transcutaneous auricular vagus nerve stimulation(VNS) and transcutaneous cervical VNS, respectively. In order to advance the field in a systematic manner, studies using these technologies need to adequately report sufficient methodological detail to enable comparison of results between studies, replication of studies, as well as enhancing study participant safety. We systematically reviewed the existing tVNS literature to evaluate current reporting practices. Based on this review, and consensus among participating authors, we propose a set of minimal reporting items to guide future tVNS studies. The suggested items address specific technical aspects of the device and stimulation parameters. We also cover general recommendations including inclusion and exclusion criteria for participants, outcome parameters and the detailed reporting of side effects. Furthermore, we review strategies used to identify the optimal stimulation parameters for a given research setting and summarize ongoing developments in animal research with potential implications for the application of tVNS in humans. Finally, we discuss the potential of tVNS in future research as well as the associated challenges across several disciplines in research and clinical practice