FLI Colloquium with Janin Henkel-Oberländer

Seminars Science

Janin Henkel-Oberländer, Chair of Biochemistry of Nutrition, Faculty of Life Sciences: Food, Nutrition and Health, University of Bayreuth, will speak on December 12 about the "Role of dietary lipid mediators on inflammatory response in metabolic diseases".

The prevalence of obesity is increasing rapidly worldwide and is associated with the development of metabolic diseases such as fatty liver disease, type-2-diabetes and cardiovascular diseases such as atherosclerosis. These non-communicable diseases are now responsible for almost 75% of all deaths worldwide. Our lifestyle with our diet and exercise behavior contributes significantly to the development of these diseases.

The first part of the talk from Janin Henkel-Oberländer will summarize the pathophysiological mechanisms how diet can cause metabolic diseases including the development of insulin resistance and its consequences. In the second part, results were presented investigating the influence of lipid quantity and lipid quality on the development of diet-induced fatty liver disease.

The resacher team could show that a soybean oil-based high-fat high-cholesterol diet could provoke the progression from a fatty liver to the more severe form of non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) in wildtype mice representing a phenotype similar to diet-induced NASH in human.

Lipid-derived signaling molecules such as prostaglandins were primarily produced in resident and tissue infiltrating macrophages and can modulate the immune response in acute and chronic inflammatory processes. Next to several in vitro studies with primary macrophages and macrophage cell lines investigating the interplay and crosstalk of inflammatory mediators, they performed mice feeding interventions with models deficient in Prostaglandin E2 (PGE2) synthesis to investigate the physiological role of this lipid mediator in vivo.

Global and cell-specific deficiency in PGE2-generating enzymes resulted in a more severe diet-induced hepatic inflammation and systemic insulin resistance, which might be caused by increased synthesis of the prominent pro-inflammatory cytokine tumor necrosis factor α (TNFα) as the PGE2-mediated inhibition of TNFα synthesis was abrogated in these genotypes.

In summary the results describe a protective role of lipid mediators such as prostaglandin E2 in diet-induced fatty liver disease.

Talk:Role of dietary lipid mediators on inflammatory response in metabolic diseases
Speaker:Prof. Dr. Janin Henkel-Oberländer
Chair of Biochemistry of Nutrition; Faculty of Life Sciences: Food, Nutrition and Health; University of Bayreuth
Date:Thursday, December 12, 2024 at 3 pm
Location:Seminar room „Nucleus“, FLI 1, Beutenbergstraße 11, Jena
Host:Helen Morrison

The talk will take place as a hybrid event. For external guests: Please email Gundula Bergner for details.