In the livestock industry, subcutaneous and visceral fat pads are considered as wastes, while intramuscular fat or marbling fat is essential for improving flavor and palatability of meat. Thus, strategies for optimizing fat deposition are needed. Intramuscular adipocytes provide sites for lipid deposition and marbling formation. In the present article, we addressed the origin and markers of intramuscular adipocyte progenitors – fibro-adipogenic progenitors (FAPs), as well as the latest progresses in mechanisms regulating the proliferation and differentiation of intramuscular FAPs. Finally, by targeting intramuscular FAPs, possible nutritional manipulations to improve marbling fat deposition are discussed. Despite recent progresses, the properties and regulation of intramuscular FAPs in livestock remain poorly understood and deserve further investigation.

ChiCTR-RRC-17014152.

No abstract

Effect of peripheral cannabinoid receptor 1 (CB1R) blockade by AM6545 in the monosodium glutamate (MSG)-induced hypometabolic and hypothalamic obesity was observed, and the impact on intraperitoneal adipose tissue and adipokines was investigated. The MSG mice is characterized by excessive abdominal obesity, and combined with dyslipidemia and insulin resistance. 3-Week AM6545 treatment dose-dependently decreased the body weight, intraperitoneal fat mass, and rectified the accompanied dyslipidemia include elevated serum triglyceride, total cholesterol, free fatty acids, and lowered LDLc level. Glucose intolerance and hyperinsulinemia were also alleviated. But AM6545 didn’t affect the food-intake consistently through the experiment. In line with the reduction on fat mass, the size of adipocyte was reduced markedly. Most interestingly, AM6545 showed significant improvement on levels of circulating adipokines including lowering leptin, asprosin and TNFα, and increasing HMW adiponectin. Correspondingly, dysregulated gene expression of lipogenesis, lipolysis, and adipokines in the adipose tissue were nearly recovered to normal level after AM6545 treatment. Additionally, western blot analysis revealed that AM6545 corrected the elevated CB1R and PPARγ protein expression, while increased the key energy uncoupling protein UCP1 expression in adipose tissue. Taken together, the current study indicates that AM6545 induced a comprehensive metabolic improvement in the MSG mice including counteracting the hypometabolic and hypothalamic obesity, and improving the accompanied dyslipidemia and insulin resistance. One key underlying mechanism is related to ameliorate on the metabolic deregulation of adipose tissue, the synthesis and secretion of adipokines were thus rectified, and finally the catabolism was increased and the anabolism was reduced in intraperitoneal adipose tissue. Findings from this study will provide the valuable information about peripheral CB1R antagonist in managing hypometabolic obesity.

Objective: Acute bulbar palsy plus (ABPp) syndrome is a rare regional variant of Guillain-Barré syndrome (GBS) characterized by acute bulbar palsy combined with other cranial symptoms or ataxia without limb and neck weakness. We aim to investigate characteristics of ABPp syndrome and analyze its nosological position within the GBS spectrum.Methods: A patient with ABPp syndrome was reported, and previous case reports of patients who met the criteria for ABPp syndrome from the literature were reviewed.Results: A total of 28 patients were included in our study. Median age was 32 years. Most of the patients (78.6%) were from Asia, and 75.0% had preceding infection. The main accompanying symptoms were ophthalmoplegia (85.7%), facial palsy (60.7%), and ataxia (50.0%). There existed asymmetric weakness in the form of unilateral facial palsy (32.1%) and ptosis (3.6%). Approximately half of the patients had albuminocytological dissociation. All the tested patients were seropositive for antiganglioside antibodies, of which the two most common were immunoglobulin G (IgG) anti-GT1a (77.3%) and anti-GQ1b (59.1%) antibodies. Over one-third of the patients who underwent electrophysiological assessment showed subclinical neuropathy beyond cranial nerves. The outcome was generally favorable as 89.3% of patients made full recovery within 5 months.Conclusion: The hitherto largest case series of ABPp syndrome advances our understanding of this disease. Serologically, the presence of IgG anti-GT1a and anti-GQ1b antibodies predicts and contributes to the disease. Phenotypically, ABPp syndrome is more prone to be a separate subtype of GBS than overlap of distinct subtypes and has the potential to complement current diagnostic framework of GBS.