Metabolic sensing in AgRP neurons integrates homeostatic state with dopamine signalling in the striatum

  1. Alex Reichenbach
  2. Rachel E Clarke
  3. Romana Stark
  4. Sarah H Lockie
  5. Mathieu Mequinion
  6. Harry Dempsey
  7. Sasha Rawlinson
  8. Felicia Reed
  9. Tara Sepehrizadeh
  10. Michael DeVeer
  11. Astrid C Munder
  12. Juan Nunez-Iglesias
  13. David Spanswick
  14. Randall Mynatt
  15. Alexxai V Kravitz
  16. Christopher V Dayas
  17. Robyn Brown
  18. Zane B Andrews  Is a corresponding author
  1. Monash University, Australia
  2. Pennington Biomedical Research Center, United States
  3. Washington University in St. Louis, United States
  4. University of Newcastle, Australia
  5. University of Melbourne, Australia

Abstract

Agouti-related peptide (AgRP) neurons increase motivation for food, however whether metabolic sensing of homeostatic state in AgRP neurons potentiates motivation by interacting with dopamine reward systems is unexplored. As a model of impaired metabolic-sensing, we used the AgRP-specific deletion of carnitine acetyltransferase (Crat) in mice. We hypothesized that metabolic sensing in AgRP neurons is required to increase motivation for food reward by modulating accumbal or striatal dopamine release. Studies confirmed that Crat deletion in AgRP neurons (KO) impaired ex vivo glucose-sensing, as well as in vivo responses to peripheral glucose injection or repeated palatable food presentation and consumption. Impaired metabolic-sensing in AgPP neurons reduced acute dopamine release (seconds) to palatable food consumption and during operant responding, as assessed by GRAB-DA photometry in the nucleus accumbens, but not the dorsal striatum. Impaired metabolic-sensing in AgRP neurons suppressed radiolabelled 18F-fDOPA accumulation after ~30 minutes in the dorsal striatum but not the nucleus accumbens. Impaired metabolic sensing in AgRP neurons suppressed motivated operant responding for sucrose rewards during fasting. Thus, metabolic-sensing in AgRP neurons is required for the appropriate temporal integration and transmission of homeostatic hunger-sensing to dopamine signalling in the striatum.

Data availability

All data generated or analysed during this study are included in the manuscript and supporting file; Source Data files have been provided for Figures 1-6, Figure 1 - Figure Supplement 1&2, Figure 6 - Figure Supplement 1

Article and author information

Author details

  1. Alex Reichenbach

    Department of Physiology, Monash University, Clayton, Australia
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
    ORCID icon "This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0002-3520-8341
  2. Rachel E Clarke

    Department of Physiology, Monash University, Clayton, Australia
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  3. Romana Stark

    Department of Physiology, Monash University, Clayton, Australia
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  4. Sarah H Lockie

    Department of Physiology, Monash University, Clayton, Australia
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  5. Mathieu Mequinion

    Department of Physiology, Monash University, Clayton, Australia
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  6. Harry Dempsey

    Department of Physiology, Monash University, Clayton, Australia
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
    ORCID icon "This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0001-5117-6995
  7. Sasha Rawlinson

    Department of Physiology, Monash University, Clayton, Australia
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  8. Felicia Reed

    Department of Physiology, Monash University, Clayton, Australia
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  9. Tara Sepehrizadeh

    Monash Biomedical Imaging Facility, Monash University, Clayton, Australia
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  10. Michael DeVeer

    Monash Biomedical Imaging Facility, Monash University, Clayton, Australia
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  11. Astrid C Munder

    Department of Physiology, Monash University, Clayton, Australia
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  12. Juan Nunez-Iglesias

    Department of Anatomy and Developmental Biology, Monash University, Clayton, Australia
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  13. David Spanswick

    Department of Physiology, Monash University, Clayton, Australia
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  14. Randall Mynatt

    Gene Nutrient Interactions Laboratory, Pennington Biomedical Research Center, Baton Rouge, United States
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  15. Alexxai V Kravitz

    Departments of Psychiatry, Washington University in St. Louis, Saint Louis, United States
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
    ORCID icon "This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0001-5983-0218
  16. Christopher V Dayas

    School of Biomedical Sciences and Pharmacy, University of Newcastle, Callaghan, Australia
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  17. Robyn Brown

    Department of Biochemistry and Pharmacology, University of Melbourne, Parkville, Australia
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  18. Zane B Andrews

    Department of Physiology, Monash University, Clayton, Australia
    For correspondence
    zane.andrews@monash.edu
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
    ORCID icon "This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0002-9097-7944

Funding

National Health and Medical Research Council (1126724)

  • Zane B Andrews

National Health and Medical Research Council (1154974)

  • Zane B Andrews

The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.

Ethics

Animal experimentation: All experiments were conducted in compliance with the Monash University Animal Ethics Committee guidelines (MARP 17855).

Copyright

© 2022, Reichenbach et al.

This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License permitting unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.

Metrics

  • 4,100
    views
  • 560
    downloads
  • 37
    citations

Views, downloads and citations are aggregated across all versions of this paper published by eLife.

Download links

A two-part list of links to download the article, or parts of the article, in various formats.

Downloads (link to download the article as PDF)

Open citations (links to open the citations from this article in various online reference manager services)

Cite this article (links to download the citations from this article in formats compatible with various reference manager tools)

  1. Alex Reichenbach
  2. Rachel E Clarke
  3. Romana Stark
  4. Sarah H Lockie
  5. Mathieu Mequinion
  6. Harry Dempsey
  7. Sasha Rawlinson
  8. Felicia Reed
  9. Tara Sepehrizadeh
  10. Michael DeVeer
  11. Astrid C Munder
  12. Juan Nunez-Iglesias
  13. David Spanswick
  14. Randall Mynatt
  15. Alexxai V Kravitz
  16. Christopher V Dayas
  17. Robyn Brown
  18. Zane B Andrews
(2022)
Metabolic sensing in AgRP neurons integrates homeostatic state with dopamine signalling in the striatum
eLife 11:e72668.
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.72668

Share this article

https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.72668

Further reading

    1. Medicine
    2. Neuroscience
    Hyeonyoung Min, Yale Y Yang, Yunlei Yang
    Research Article

    It has been well documented that cold is an enhancer of lipid metabolism in peripheral tissues, yet its effect on central nervous system lipid dynamics is underexplored. It is well recognized that cold acclimations enhance adipocyte functions, including white adipose tissue lipid lipolysis and beiging, and brown adipose tissue thermogenesis in mammals. However, it remains unclear whether and how lipid metabolism in the brain is also under the control of ambient temperature. Here, we show that cold exposure predominantly increases the expressions of the lipid lipolysis genes and proteins within the paraventricular nucleus of the hypothalamus (PVH) in male mice. Mechanistically, by using innovatively combined brain-region selective pharmacology and in vivo time-lapse photometry monitoring of lipid metabolism, we find that cold activates cells within the PVH and pharmacological inactivation of cells blunts cold-induced effects on lipid peroxidation, accumulation of lipid droplets, and lipid lipolysis in the PVH. Together, these findings suggest that PVH lipid metabolism is cold sensitive and integral to cold-induced broader regulatory responses.

    1. Medicine
    Mitsuru Sugimoto, Tadayuki Takagi ... Hiromasa Ohira
    Research Article

    Background:

    Post-endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography (ERCP) pancreatitis (PEP) is a severe and deadly adverse event following ERCP. The ideal method for predicting PEP risk before ERCP has yet to be identified. We aimed to establish a simple PEP risk score model (SuPER model: Support for PEP Reduction) that can be applied before ERCP.

    Methods:

    This multicenter study enrolled 2074 patients who underwent ERCP. Among them, 1037 patients each were randomly assigned to the development and validation cohorts. In the development cohort, the risk score model for predicting PEP was established via logistic regression analysis. In the validation cohort, the performance of the model was assessed.

    Results:

    In the development cohort, five PEP risk factors that could be identified before ERCP were extracted and assigned weights according to their respective regression coefficients: –2 points for pancreatic calcification, 1 point for female sex, and 2 points for intraductal papillary mucinous neoplasm, a native papilla of Vater, or the pancreatic duct procedures (treated as ‘planned pancreatic duct procedures’ for calculating the score before ERCP). The PEP occurrence rate was 0% among low-risk patients (≤0 points), 5.5% among moderate-risk patients (1–3 points), and 20.2% among high-risk patients (4–7 points). In the validation cohort, the C statistic of the risk score model was 0.71 (95% CI 0.64–0.78), which was considered acceptable. The PEP risk classification (low, moderate, and high) was a significant predictive factor for PEP that was independent of intraprocedural PEP risk factors (precut sphincterotomy and inadvertent pancreatic duct cannulation) (OR 4.2, 95% CI 2.8–6.3; p<0.01).

    Conclusions:

    The PEP risk score allows an estimation of the risk of PEP prior to ERCP, regardless of whether the patient has undergone pancreatic duct procedures. This simple risk model, consisting of only five items, may aid in predicting and explaining the risk of PEP before ERCP and in preventing PEP by allowing selection of the appropriate expert endoscopist and useful PEP prophylaxes.

    Funding:

    No external funding was received for this work.