Billerica, MA, January 12, 2015 – Seahorse Bioscience, the industry leader in metabolic analyzers and assay kits for measuring real time cell metabolism, reached its 500th citation in a scientific journal for the year 2014 in a paper published in Nature Medicine, November 24, 2014. The paper, “Chronic Enrichment of Hepatic Endoplasmic Reticulum-Mitochondria Contact Leads to Mitochondrial Dysfunction in Obesity,” was authored by Ana Paula Arruda, Benedicte Pers, Gu¨nes¸ Parlakgu¨l, Ekin Gu¨ney, Karen Inouye and Go¨khan Hotamisligil of the Department of Genetics and Complex Diseases and Sabri U¨lker Center, Harvard School of Public Health and Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT, Boston, Massachusetts.
XF Technology has standardized the measurement of the two major metabolic pathways of the cell —mitochondrial respiration and glycolysis — enabling scientists to identify metabolic phenotypes and their reprogramming, to determine how this could be used to target metabolic changes for therapeutic purposes. References to XF Technology in peer-reviewed publications has been increasing rapidly as scientists embrace XF Extracellular Flux Analyzers and XF Stress Test Kits in their research.
“This paper provides compelling mechanistic evidence for excessive ER-mitochondrial coupling being the conduit that couples ER stress to mitochondrial dysfunction,” stated David Ferrick, chief scientific officer at Seahorse Bioscience. “This insight has obvious therapeutic implications not only for diabetes but other metabolic diseases suspected to have similar mechanistic features.”
The paper investigates the link between obesity and the physical interaction between the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) and the mitochondria, two prominent cellular organelles. Specifically, the study focused on the effects of obesity and the physical interaction sites between the ER and mitochondria, termed ‘mitochondria-associated ER membranes’ (MAMs). XF Technology was crucial in illustrating the effects of increased MAM formation (as a result of obesity) and the subsequent suppression on mitochondrial function.
“In this study we identified a new pathway involved in hepatic mitochondrial dysfunction in obesity: the excessive physical connection between mitochondria and endoplasmic reticulum leading to abnormal calcium transfer between the two organelles, triggering mitochondrial calcium overload and defective respiration”, stated Ana Paula Arruda, post-doctoral fellow at the Hotamisligil Laboratory. “Seahorse XF technology was essential for determining the mitochondrial oxidative capacity, in primary hepatocytes in a variety of different conditions, with high efficiency and precision.”
“We’re always delighted when we can enable a researcher to generate metabolic data with such ease; and especially when they take full advantage of the sensitivity and physiologic capabilities of our XF Technology,” continued David Ferrick. “The authors used the XF Cell Mito Stress Test to show a key difference in mitochondrial dysfunction between chronic obesity, modeled in ob/ob mice, and acute induction of metabolic decline in an experimental model that forces increased formation of MAMs.”
The primary research of the Hotamisligil lab is the study of the regulatory pathways, which control glucose and lipid metabolism. The laboratory’s biochemical and genetic studies focus on signal transduction using cultured mammalian cells as well as transgenic animals to identify specific abnormalities in these pathways, which are involved in human metabolic and inflammatory diseases including obesity, diabetes, fatty liver disease, atherosclerosis and asthma.
About Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health
Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health (formerly Harvard School of Public Health, also referred to as HSPH) is one of the professional graduate schools of Harvard University, located in Boston, Massachusetts. HSPH is considered a significant school focusing on health in the United States. The school grew out of the Harvard-MIT School for Health Officers, the nation’s first graduate training program in population health, which was founded in 1913 and became Harvard School of Public Health in 1922. Learn more at http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/
About the Broad Institute
The Eli and Edythe L. Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, often referred to as the Broad Institute, is a biomedical and genomic research center located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. The institute is independently governed and supported as a nonprofit research organization under the name Broad Institute Inc., and is in partnership with Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Harvard University, and the five Harvard teaching hospitals. Learn more at https://www.broadinstitute.org/
About Seahorse Bioscience
Seahorse Bioscience metabolic analyzers and stress test kits are the industry standard in cell metabolism measurements. Scientists worldwide are advancing their research in understanding the role of cell metabolism in neurodegeneration, aging, cancer, cardiovascular, cell physiology, toxicology and hepatobiology, immunology, infectious diseases, mitochondrial diseases, model organisms, obesity, diabetes, metabolic disorders, screening and translational medicine. Founded in 2001, Seahorse Bioscience is headquartered in Billerica, Massachusetts, U.S., and has regional offices in Copenhagen, Denmark; and Shanghai, China. Learn more at www.seahorsebio.com.
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