Greater transport efficiencies of the membrane fatty acid transporters FAT/CD36 and FATP4 compared with FABPpm and FATP1 and differential effects on fatty acid esterification and oxidation in rat skeletal muscle.

In selected mammalian tissues, long chain fatty acid transporters (FABPpm, FAT/CD36, FATP1, and FATP4) are co-expressed. There is controversy as to whether they all function as membrane-bound transporters and whether they channel fatty acids to oxidation and/or esterification. Among skeletal muscles, the protein expression of FABPpm, FAT/CD36, and FATP4, but not FATP1, correlated highly with the capacities for oxidative metabolism (r>or=0.94), fatty acid oxidation (r>or=0.88), and triacylglycerol esterification (r>or=0.87). We overexpressed independently FABPpm, FAT/CD36, FATP1, and FATP4, within a normal physiologic range, in rat skeletal muscle, to determine the effects on fatty acid transport and metabolism. Independent overexpression of each fatty acid transporter occurred without altering either the expression or plasmalemmal content of other fatty acid transporters. All transporters increased fatty acid transport, but FAT/CD36 and FATP4 were 2.3- and 1.7-fold more effective than FABPpm and FATP1, respectively. Fatty acid transporters failed to alter the rates of fatty acid esterification into triacylglycerols. In contrast, all transporters increased the rates of long chain fatty acid oxidation, but the effects of FABPpm and FAT/CD36 were 3-fold greater than for FATP1 and FATP4. Thus, fatty acid transporters exhibit different capacities for fatty acid transport and metabolism. In vivo, FAT/CD36 and FATP4 are the most effective fatty acid transporters, whereas FABPpm and FAT/CD36 are key for stimulating fatty acid oxidation.

Niacin deficiency alters p53 expression and impairs etoposide-induced cell cycle arrest and apoptosis in rat bone marrow cells.

One focus of chemoprevention research is the interaction of nutrients with specific molecular targets associated with the maintenance of genomic stability. This study tested the impact of dietary niacin status on bone marrow NAD+ and poly(ADP-ribose) (pADPr) levels, p53 expression, and etoposide (ETO)-induced apoptosis and cell cycle arrest. After 3 wk on niacin-deficient (ND), pair-fed niacin-replete (PF), or nicotinic acid-supplemented (4 g/kg diet) (NA) diets, Long-Evans rats were gavaged with ETO (25 mg/kg) or vehicle. ND and NA diets caused a 72% decrease and a 240% increase in bone marrow NAD+, respectively. Basal and ETO-induced pADPr levels differed dramatically among ND, PF, and NA diets (undetectable, 42 and 216 fmol/million cells, respectively; basal and undetectable, 119 and 484 fmol/million cells, respectively, following ETO). ND diet alone caused overexpression of two distinct isoforms of p53. Levels of p53 in PF and NA marrow increased in response to ETO treatment, but this did not occur in ND bone marrow. Quantitative polymerase chain reaction of regular and alternative spliced variants of p53 mRNA revealed that niacin deficiency actually decreased both forms of p53 message, implicating protein stability in the accumulation of p53 in ND marrow. ETO-induced apoptosis (TUNEL) was suppressed during niacin deficiency and enhanced by supplementation. G1 arrest was also impaired in ND bone marrow relative to PF and NA. Despite a poor G1 arrest, p21waf1 was overexpressed in the ND bone marrow and dramatically induced following ETO treatment. In conclusion, dietary niacin deficiency causes changes in NAD+ and pADPr metabolism, alters p53 expression, and impairs cellular responses to DNA damage.

Metformin and exercise reduce muscle FAT/CD36 and lipid accumulation and blunt the progression of high-fat diet-induced hyperglycemia.

Derangements in skeletal muscle fatty acid (FA) metabolism associated with insulin resistance in obesity appear to involve decreased FA oxidation and increased accumulation of lipids such as ceramides and diacylglycerol (DAG). We investigated potential lipid-related mechanisms of metformin (Met) and/or exercise for blunting the progression of hyperglycemia/hyperinsulinemia and skeletal muscle insulin resistance in female Zucker diabetic fatty rats (ZDF), a high-fat (HF) diet-induced model of diabetes. Lean and ZDF rats consumed control or HF diet (48 kcal %fat) alone or with Met (500 mg/kg), with treadmill exercise, or with both exercise and Met interventions for 8 wk. HF-fed ZDF rats developed hyperglycemia (mean: 24.4 +/- 2.1 mM), impairments in muscle insulin-stimulated glucose transport, increases in the FA transporter FAT/CD36, and increases in total ceramide and DAG content. The development of hyperglycemia was significantly attenuated with all interventions, as was skeletal muscle FAT/CD36 abundance and ceramide and DAG content. Interestingly, improvements in insulin-stimulated glucose transport and increased GLUT4 transporter expression in isolated muscle were seen only in conditions that included exercise training. Reduced FA oxidation and increased triacylglycerol synthesis in isolated muscle were observed with all ZDF rats compared with lean rats (P < 0.01) and were unaltered by therapeutic intervention. However, exercise did induce modest increases in peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor-gamma coactivator-1alpha, citrate synthase, and beta-hydroxyacyl-CoA dehydrogenase activity. Thus reduction of skeletal muscle FAT/CD36 and content of ceramide and DAG may be important mechanisms by which exercise training blunts the progression of diet-induced insulin resistance in skeletal muscle.

The sequence of the largest subunit of RNA polymerase II is a useful marker for inferring seed plant phylogeny.

We used RT-PCR to sequence approximately 3 kb of the gene coding for the largest subunit of RNA polymerase II (rpb1) from nine land plants. Our results show that plant rpb1 genes all have a similar GC-content and that their amino acid sequences evolve at a similar rate in most species we examined, except for the Arabidopsis thaliana and rice sequences which evolve faster. This gene also exists as a single copy in most species and contains enough phylogenetically informative sites to resolve the evolutionary relationships among seed plants. Protein maximum parsimony, as well as neighbor-joining and maximum likelihood analyses of DNA and protein sequences, all generated identical tree topologies with similar strong support values at each node. The angiosperms are a clade comprising Amborella as a sister group to all other angiosperms, followed by Nymphaea, Magnolia, Arabidopsis, and a monocot clade containing maize and rice. The gymnosperms also form a monophyletic clade with Welwitschia and pine grouped together and sister to a Cycas and Zamia clade. These findings concur with recent studies that refute the Anthophyte Hypothesis and place Amborella at the base of the angiosperm tree. These rpb1 sequences also give a more consistent picture of seed plant relationships than similar analyses performed on data sets made of 18S rDNA, atpB, and rbcL sequences from the same species. These sequences therefore show great promise to help further resolve the phylogenetic relationships of seed plants.