Serum plays an important role in reprogramming the seasonal transcriptional profile of brown bear adipocytes

Understanding how metabolic reprogramming happens in cells will aid the prog-ress in the treatment of a variety of metabolic disorders. Brown bears undergo seasonal shifts in insulin sensitivity, including reversible insulin resistance in hiber-nation. We performed RNA-sequencing on brown bear adipocytes and prote-omics on serum to identify changes possibly responsible for reversible insulin resistance. We observed dramatic transcriptional changes, which depended on both the cell and serum season of origin. Despite large changes in adipocyte gene expression, only changes in eight circulating proteins were identified as related to the seasonal shifts in insulin sensitivity, including some that have not previously been associated with glucose homeostasis. The identified serum pro-teins may be sufficient for shifting hibernation adipocytes to an active-like state.

Automated summary

Understanding how metabolic reprogramming occurs in cells is crucial for the treatment of metabolic disorders. By analyzing brown bear adipocytes and serum, researchers found that seasonal shifts have a significant impact on insulin sensitivity, identifying several circulating proteins related to this shift.