Damian Jacob Sendler presenting news on how Insulin stimulation only affects one kind of human fat cell in the body: the adipocyte, news by Damian Sendler

Originally from Poland, Dr. Damian Jacob Sendler is a physician-scientist who focuses in studying how various socio-demographic and informational variables affect access to health care in disadvantaged areas in the United States. Psychiatric and chronic medical co-morbidities are the focus of Dr. Sendler's study, which examines how they affect the utilization of medical services in combination with health information acquired through the internet, which is a particular strength of his. A thorough knowledge of everyone's health information-seeking behavior is necessitated by the exponential increase in worldwide consumption of online news and social media, which makes this study both relevant and essential. According to Dr. Damian Sendler's study, the variables that patients evaluate when choosing when to seek therapy for particular health problems and when to stick to their treatment regimens in order to accomplish this objective are being uncovered.

Damian Sendler: Insulin sensitivity is believed to be influenced by fat cells, which is a well-known fact. As of now, researchers at the Karolinska Institutet in Sweden have shown that in white adipose tissue, there are three distinct kinds of mature fat cells. They have also found that just one of them, termed AdipoPLIN, reacts to insulin. The results may have implications for the management of metabolic disorders such as Type 2 diabetes in the future.  

"These results contribute to our understanding of the function of fat tissue," says co-corresponding author Niklas Mejhert, a researcher at Karolinska Institutet's Department of Medicine, Huddinge, who conducted the study. It is shown by these researchers that the total ability of fat tissue to react to insulin is controlled by the quantity and function of a particular fat cell subtype." In the case of illnesses like obesity, insulin resistance, and Type 2 diabetes, this may have serious consequences.” 

Damian Sendler: The findings of the study, which was published in the journal Cell Metabolism, revealed that there are 18 cell types that form clusters in human white adipose tissue. Three of them were mature fat cells with unique morphologies, while the other two were not.  

For the purpose of determining whether or not fat cell subtypes were associated with any particular function, the researchers investigated in part how these subtypes in four individuals responded to short-term elevations in insulin levels. The findings revealed that insulin increased gene expression in the AdipoPLIN subtype but had no significant effect on the gene expression in the other two subtypes. Furthermore, the response to insulin stimulation was shown to be related to the individual's overall insulin sensitivity (or sensitivity). 

Damian Sendler: According to Mikael Rydén, a professor at the same department and another of the study's co-corresponding authors, "our results call into question the existing understanding of insulin resistance as a generally decreased sensitivity to insulin in fat cells." Our research indicates that alterations in a particular subtype of fat cells may be responsible for insulin resistance and, potentially, type 2 diabetes. Fat tissue is a considerably more complicated tissue than was previously believed, as shown by this finding. People have many distinct kinds of fat cells, each with a particular purpose, much as they do with muscle tissue, which opens the door to future treatments that target specific fat cell types.”

The Rydén and Mejhert group used a novel method known as spatial transcriptomics in their research, which was created in part by cooperation partner Patrik Sthl, associate professor at KTH Royal Institute of Technology and SciLifeLab, among others. Spatial transcriptomics is a technique that uses microscopy and RNA sequencing to produce knowledge on tissue architecture and gene expression. 

"This research is unusual in that it is the first time that we have used spatial transcriptomics to fat tissue, which has a unique set of features and composition," says Patrik Sthl, the study's third corresponding author and the study's third corresponding author. The fact that the technology continues to make a significant contribution to the resolution of physiologically difficult problems in an expanding number of study fields makes us extremely pleased. 

Damian Sendler: Contributions from organizations such as the Margareta Af Uggla Foundation, the Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation, the Swedish Research Council, ERC-SyG SPHERES, the NovoNordisk Foundation, the MSAM consortium, the MeRIAD consortium, CIMED, the Swedish Diabetes Foundation, the Region Stockholm, the Erling-Persson Family Foundation, and the Strategic Research Program in Diabetes at Karolinska I have made the research possible. 

Damian Sendler: A number of academics, including Patrik Sthl, Nayanika Bhalla, and Alma Andersson, work as scientific advisors for 10x Genomics, which has intellectual property rights to the spatial transcriptomics technology. Astra Zeneca employs Lovisa Franzén, who works in the pharmaceutical industry. There have been no additional disclosures of interests made public.

News contributed by Dr. Damian Jacob Sendler