Meta-Inflammation and Metabolic Reprogramming of Macrophages in Diabetes and Obesity: The Importance of Metabolites.

Diabetes mellitus type II and obesity are two important causes of death in modern society. They are characterized by low-grade chronic inflammation and metabolic dysfunction (meta-inflammation), which is observed in all tissues involved in energy homeostasis. A substantial body of evidence has established an important role for macrophages in these tissues during the development of diabetes mellitus type II and obesity. Macrophages can activate into specialized subsets by cues from their microenvironment to handle a variety of tasks. Many different subsets have been described and in diabetes/obesity literature two main classifications are widely used that are also defined by differential metabolic reprogramming taking place to fuel their main functions. Classically activated, pro-inflammatory macrophages (often referred to as M1) favor glycolysis, produce lactate instead of metabolizing pyruvate to acetyl-CoA, and have a tricarboxylic acid cycle that is interrupted at two points. Alternatively activated macrophages (often referred to as M2) mainly use beta-oxidation of fatty acids and oxidative phosphorylation to create energy-rich molecules such as ATP and are involved in tissue repair and downregulation of inflammation. Since diabetes type II and obesity are characterized by metabolic alterations at the organism level, these alterations may also induce changes in macrophage metabolism resulting in unique macrophage activation patterns in diabetes and obesity. This review describes the interactions between metabolic reprogramming of macrophages and conditions of metabolic dysfunction like diabetes and obesity. We also focus on different possibilities of measuring a range of metabolites intra-and extracellularly in a precise and comprehensive manner to better identify the subsets of polarized macrophages that are unique to diabetes and obesity. Advantages and disadvantages of the currently most widely used metabolite analysis approaches are highlighted. We further describe how their combined use may serve to provide a comprehensive overview of the metabolic changes that take place intracellularly during macrophage activation in conditions like diabetes and obesity.

Mathematical model of glucose-insulin homeostasis in healthy rats.

According to the World Health Organization there are over 220 million people in the world with diabetes and 3.4 million people died in 2004 as a consequence of this pathology. Development of an artificial pancreas would allow to restore control of blood glucose by coupling an infusion pump to a continuous glucose sensor in the blood. The design of such a device requires the development and application of mathematical models which represent the gluco-regulatory system. Models developed by other research groups describe very well the gluco-regulatory system but have a large number of mathematical equations and require complex methodologies for the estimation of its parameters. In this work we propose a mathematical model to study the homeostasis of glucose and insulin in healthy rats. The proposed model consists of three differential equations and 8 parameters that describe the variation of: blood glucose concentration, blood insulin concentration and amount of glucose in the intestine. All parameters were obtained by setting functions to the values of glucose and insulin in blood obtained after oral glucose administration. In vivo and in silico validations were performed. Additionally, a qualitative analysis has been done to verify the aforementioned model. We have shown that this model has a single, biologically consistent equilibrium point. This model is a first step in the development of a mathematical model for the type I diabetic rat.