IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/nat/natcom/v11y2020i1d10.1038_s41467-020-15982-7.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Estrogen receptor-α expressing neurons in the ventrolateral VMH regulate glucose balance

Author

Listed:
  • Yanlin He

    (Baylor College of Medicine)

  • Pingwen Xu

    (Baylor College of Medicine)

  • Chunmei Wang

    (Baylor College of Medicine)

  • Yan Xia

    (Baylor College of Medicine)

  • Meng Yu

    (Baylor College of Medicine)

  • Yongjie Yang

    (Baylor College of Medicine)

  • Kaifan Yu

    (Baylor College of Medicine)

  • Xing Cai

    (Baylor College of Medicine)

  • Na Qu

    (Baylor College of Medicine)

  • Kenji Saito

    (Baylor College of Medicine)

  • Julia Wang

    (Baylor College of Medicine)

  • Ilirjana Hyseni

    (Baylor College of Medicine)

  • Matthew Robertson

    (Baylor College of Medicine)

  • Badrajee Piyarathna

    (Baylor College of Medicine)

  • Min Gao

    (Baylor College of Medicine)

  • Sohaib A. Khan

    (University of Cincinnati, College of Medicine)

  • Feng Liu

    (University of Texas Health at San Antonio)

  • Rui Chen

    (Baylor College of Medicine)

  • Cristian Coarfa

    (Baylor College of Medicine)

  • Zhongming Zhao

    (The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston)

  • Qingchun Tong

    (University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston)

  • Zheng Sun

    (Baylor College of Medicine
    Baylor College of Medicine)

  • Yong Xu

    (Baylor College of Medicine
    Baylor College of Medicine)

Abstract

Brain glucose-sensing neurons detect glucose fluctuations and prevent severe hypoglycemia, but mechanisms mediating functions of these glucose-sensing neurons are unclear. Here we report that estrogen receptor-α (ERα)-expressing neurons in the ventrolateral subdivision of the ventromedial hypothalamic nucleus (vlVMH) can sense glucose fluctuations, being glucose-inhibited neurons (GI-ERαvlVMH) or glucose-excited neurons (GE-ERαvlVMH). Hypoglycemia activates GI-ERαvlVMH neurons via the anoctamin 4 channel, and inhibits GE-ERαvlVMH neurons through opening the ATP-sensitive potassium channel. Further, we show that GI-ERαvlVMH neurons preferentially project to the medioposterior arcuate nucleus of the hypothalamus (mpARH) and GE-ERαvlVMH neurons preferentially project to the dorsal Raphe nuclei (DRN). Activation of ERαvlVMH to mpARH circuit and inhibition of ERαvlVMH to DRN circuit both increase blood glucose. Thus, our results indicate that ERαvlVMH neurons detect glucose fluctuations and prevent severe hypoglycemia in mice.

Suggested Citation

  • Yanlin He & Pingwen Xu & Chunmei Wang & Yan Xia & Meng Yu & Yongjie Yang & Kaifan Yu & Xing Cai & Na Qu & Kenji Saito & Julia Wang & Ilirjana Hyseni & Matthew Robertson & Badrajee Piyarathna & Min Gao, 2020. "Estrogen receptor-α expressing neurons in the ventrolateral VMH regulate glucose balance," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 11(1), pages 1-13, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:nat:natcom:v:11:y:2020:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-020-15982-7
    DOI: 10.1038/s41467-020-15982-7
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-15982-7
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1038/s41467-020-15982-7?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Ling Liu & Zhaohuan Huang & Jian Zhang & Mengtian Wang & Ting Yue & Wei Wang & Yue Wu & Zhi Zhang & Wei Xiong & Chao Wang & Feng Wu & Cheng Zhan & Guoqiang Bi & Ji Liu, 2024. "Hypothalamus-sympathetic-liver axis mediates the early phase of stress-induced hyperglycemia in the male mice," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 15(1), pages 1-17, December.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nat:natcom:v:11:y:2020:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-020-15982-7. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.nature.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.