Neonicotinoid pesticides, including acetamiprid (ACE), are widely used in agriculture and pose increasing concerns due to their persistence in the environment and potential human exposure mainly throu Show more
Neonicotinoid pesticides, including acetamiprid (ACE), are widely used in agriculture and pose increasing concerns due to their persistence in the environment and potential human exposure mainly through diet. Available evidence suggests that ACE may disrupt adipocyte function and promote metabolic dysfunctions such as obesity; however, there is limited research on how ACE negatively affects adipose tissue (AT) in men and women. This study utilizes an Twenty-four subjects with severe obesity (11 men and 13 women) undergoing bariatric surgery were recruited from St. Andrea University Hospital (Rome, Italy). Visceral adipose tissue biopsies were collected and either treated with ACE or left untreated for further gene and protein expression analysis by RT-qPCR and Western blot, respectively. In addition, adipocytokines secretion, reactive oxygen species production, and free fatty acid release were measured in adipose tissue culture media using commercial or in house assays. Our findings demonstrate that ACE induces distinct sex-dependent alterations in lipid metabolism, Adipokines regulation, and inflammatory pathways. Specifically, it significantly lowers PPARγ gene expression but raises protein levels, particularly in men. Free fatty acid release increases and Hormone Sensitive Lipase (HSL) drops in both sexes, while Lipoprotein Lipase (LPL) decreases only in women. ACE also promotes inflammation mainly in women, increasing TNF-α, NF-κB, and reactive oxygen species. These results show that the neonicotinoid ACE worsens AT dysfunction via inflammatory and metabolic pathways in a sex-specific way, likely leading to different risks of obesity-related complications. Overall, these findings provide a mechanistic basis for understanding the toxicological risk of neonicotinoids, highlighting the importance of sex-specific assessment in evaluating metabolic risks of environmental pesticide exposure. Show less
Growth of Saccharomyces cerevisiae requires coordination of cell cycle events (e.g., new cell wall deposition) with constitutive functions like energy generation and duplication of protein mass. The l Show more
Growth of Saccharomyces cerevisiae requires coordination of cell cycle events (e.g., new cell wall deposition) with constitutive functions like energy generation and duplication of protein mass. The latter processes are stimulated by the phosphoprotein Gcr1p, a transcriptional activator that operates through two different Rap1p-mediated mechanisms to boost expression of glycolytic and ribosomal protein genes, respectively. Simultaneous disruption of both mechanisms results in a loss of glucose responsiveness and a dramatic drop in translation rate. Since a critical rate of protein synthesis (CRPS) is known to mediate passage through Start and determine cell size by modulating levels of Cln3p, we hypothesized that GCR1 regulates cell cycle progression by coordinating it with growth. We therefore constructed and analyzed gcr1delta cln3delta and gcr1delta cln1delta cln2delta strains. Both strains are temperature and cold sensitive; interestingly, they exhibit different arrest phenotypes. The gcr1delta cln3delta strain becomes predominantly unbudded with 1N DNA content (G1 arrest), whereas gcr1delta cln1delta cln2delta cells exhibit severe elongation and apparent M phase arrest. Further analysis demonstrated that the Rap1p/Gcr1p complex mediates rapid growth in glucose by stimulating both cellular metabolism and CLN transcription. Show less