Evolutional pressure has favored the ability to efficiently store nutrients as fat during abundant food supply as a safeguard against occasional famine. Due to the abundance of the food supply and dramatic changes in modern lifestyle, these genes may now contribute to major epidemic of obesity, especially in the US where over a half of population is overweight. This is predicted to be a major public health problem in the near future. The liver is the principal organ responsible for the conversion of excess dietary carbohydrate into triglycerides. Ingestion of high carbohydrate diet induces transcription of more than 15 genes involved in the metabolic conversion of glucose to storage fat. Until recently, it was thought that insulin and glucagons regulate the transcription of these genes. However, it has been shown that nutrients themselves play an important role in the regulation of transcription independent of insulin. The mechanism by which excess carbohydrate generates a signal to induce the transcription of lipogenesis enzyme gene is not known. We have identified and characterized a new transcription factor termed """"""""Carbohydrate response element binding protein, ChREBP"""""""" which responds to high glucose and induce the liver pyruvate kinase (LPK) gene and lipogenic genes. Our goal is to understand how excess glucose, independent of insulin, activates the transcription. We have shown that glucose and cAMP are adversary in the lipognesis, cAMP and AMP inhibit ChREBP by phosphorylation at the specific sites which are mediated by protein kinase A and AMPprotein kinase. Glucose reverses the inhibition and activates ChREBP to favor triglycerides synthesis. We propose that glucose activates the transcription of these genes by dephosphorylation catalyzed by a specific protein phosphatase that is activated by a glucose-signaling compound. Our specific objectives for the current application are: (1) identify the specific protein phosphatases (PPase) in cytosol and in nucleus that are responsible for the nuclear import and the DNA binding activity of ChREBP. (2) Detect and identify a glucose signaling compound which activates the PPases and the transcription. (3) Investigate the mechanism of import and export of ChREBP. The important question is whether the import and export of ChREBP are regulated only by phosphorylation and dephosphorylation. Determine the genes altered by the ChREBP gene knockout and characterize the resulting physiological and biochemical changes in these mice in order to understand the roles of ChREBP in vivo. Produce other crosses with ChREBP-/- such as ob/ob mice by breeding our knockout mice with the ob/ob animals for potential elimination of obesity. Other possibility is to produce a combination of ChREBP-/- and SREBP-/- that inhibit the major portion of lipogenesis in liver.
| Ge, Qiang; Huang, Nian; Wynn, R Max et al. (2012) Structural characterization of a unique interface between carbohydrate response element-binding protein (ChREBP) and 14-3-3? protein. J Biol Chem 287:41914-21 |
| Ge, Qiang; Nakagawa, Tsutomu; Wynn, R Max et al. (2011) Importin-alpha protein binding to a nuclear localization signal of carbohydrate response element-binding protein (ChREBP). J Biol Chem 286:28119-27 |
| Fukasawa, Masashi; Ge, Qing; Wynn, R Max et al. (2010) Coordinate regulation/localization of the carbohydrate responsive binding protein (ChREBP) by two nuclear export signal sites: discovery of a new leucine-rich nuclear export signal site. Biochem Biophys Res Commun 391:1166-9 |
| Burgess, Shawn C; Iizuka, Katsumi; Jeoung, Nam Ho et al. (2008) Carbohydrate-response element-binding protein deletion alters substrate utilization producing an energy-deficient liver. J Biol Chem 283:1670-8 |
