Abstract

Metabolic cycles are a fundamental element of cellular and organismal function. Among the most critical in higher organisms is the Cori Cycle, the systemic cycling between lactate and glucose. Here, skeletal muscle-specific Mitochondrial Pyruvate Carrier (MPC) deletion in mice diverted pyruvate into circulating lactate. This switch disinhibited muscle fatty acid oxidation and drove Cori Cycling that contributed to increased energy expenditure. Loss of muscle MPC activity led to strikingly decreased adiposity with complete muscle mass and strength retention. Notably, despite decreasing muscle glucose oxidation, muscle MPC disruption increased muscle glucose uptake and whole-body insulin sensitivity. Furthermore, chronic and acute muscle MPC deletion accelerated fat mass loss on a normal diet after high fat diet-induced obesity. Our results illuminate the role of the skeletal muscle MPC as a whole-body carbon flux control point. They highlight the potential utility of decreasing muscle pyruvate utilization to ameliorate obesity and type 2 diabetes.

Data availability

All metabolomic results generated as part of this study are provided in Supplemental tables 2 and 3 related to Figure 5.

Article and author information

Author details

  1. Arpit Sharma

    Department of Biochemistry, University of Iowa, Iowa City, United States
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  2. Lalita Oonthonpan

    Department of Biochemistry, University of Iowa, Iowa City, United States
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  3. Ryan D Sheldon

    Department of Biochemistry, University of Iowa, Iowa City, United States
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  4. Adam J Rauckhorst

    Department of Biochemistry, University of Iowa, Iowa City, United States
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  5. Zhiyong Zhu

    Department of Internal Medicine, University of Iowa, Iowa City, United States
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  6. Sean C Tompkins

    Department of Biochemistry, University of Iowa, Iowa City, United States
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  7. Kevin Cho

    Department of Chemistry, Washington University in St Louis, St. Louis, United States
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  8. Wojciech J Grzesik

    Fraternal Order of the Eagles Diabetes Research Center (FOEDRC), University of Iowa, Iowa City, United States
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  9. Lawrence R Gray

    Department of Biochemistry, University of Iowa, Iowa City, United States
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  10. Diego A Scerbo

    Department of Biochemistry, University of Iowa, Iowa City, United States
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  11. Alvin D Pewa

    Department of Biochemistry, University of Iowa, Iowa City, United States
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  12. Emily M Cushing

    Department of Biochemistry, University of Iowa, Iowa City, United States
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
    ORCID icon "This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0002-9495-802X
  13. Michael C Dyle

    Department of Internal Medicine, University of Iowa, Iowa City, United States
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  14. James E Cox

    Department of Biochemistry, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, United States
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  15. Chris Adams

    Department of Internal Medicine, University of Iowa, Iowa City, United States
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  16. Brandon S Davies

    Department of Biochemistry, University of Iowa, Iowa City, United States
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  17. Richard K Shields

    Department of Physical Therapy and Rehabilitation Science, University of Iowa, Iowa City, United States
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  18. Andrew W Norris

    Department of Biochemistry, University of Iowa, Iowa City, United States
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  19. Gary Patti

    FOEDRC Metabolomics Core Facility, University of Iowa, Iowa City, United States
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
    ORCID icon "This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0002-3748-6193
  20. Leonid V Zingman

    Department of Internal Medicine, University of Iowa, Iowa City, United States
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  21. Eric B Taylor

    Department of Biochemistry, University of Iowa, Iowa City, United States
    For correspondence
    eric-taylor@uiowa.edu
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
    ORCID icon "This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0003-4549-6567

Funding

National Institutes of Health (DK104998)

  • Eric B Taylor

National Institutes of Health (GM007337)

  • Sean C Tompkins

National Institutes of Health (HL007638)

  • Adam J Rauckhorst

National Institutes of Health (DK101183)

  • Lawrence R Gray

American Diabetes Association (1-18-PDF-060)

  • Adam J Rauckhorst

National Institutes of Health (DK112751)

  • Diego A Scerbo

National Institutes of Health (AR059190)

  • Eric B Taylor

National Institutes of Health (HD084645)

  • Richard K Shields

National Institutes of Health (HD082109)

  • Richard K Shields

National Institutes of Health (DK092412)

  • Leonid V Zingman

National Institutes of Health (ES028365)

  • Gary Patti

National Institutes of Health (HL130146)

  • Brandon S Davies

National Institutes of Health (HL007344)

  • Ryan D Sheldon

National Institutes of Health (DK116522)

  • Ryan D Sheldon

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

Ethics

Animal experimentation: Animal work was performed in accordance with the University of Iowa Animal Use and Care Committee (IACUC). The University of Iowa IACUC is accredited by AALACi (#000833), is a Registered United States Department of Agriculture research facility (USDA No. 42-R-0004), and has PHS Approved Animal Welfare Assurance (#D16-00009).

Copyright

© 2019, Sharma 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

  • 5,754
    views
  • 884
    downloads
  • 56
    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. Arpit Sharma
  2. Lalita Oonthonpan
  3. Ryan D Sheldon
  4. Adam J Rauckhorst
  5. Zhiyong Zhu
  6. Sean C Tompkins
  7. Kevin Cho
  8. Wojciech J Grzesik
  9. Lawrence R Gray
  10. Diego A Scerbo
  11. Alvin D Pewa
  12. Emily M Cushing
  13. Michael C Dyle
  14. James E Cox
  15. Chris Adams
  16. Brandon S Davies
  17. Richard K Shields
  18. Andrew W Norris
  19. Gary Patti
  20. Leonid V Zingman
  21. Eric B Taylor
(2019)
Impaired skeletal muscle mitochondrial pyruvate uptake rewires glucose metabolism to drive whole-body leanness
eLife 8:e45873.
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.45873

Share this article

https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.45873

Further reading

    1. Cell Biology
    Wonjo Jang, Kanishka Senarath ... Nevin A Lambert
    Tools and Resources

    Classical G-protein-coupled receptor (GPCR) signaling takes place in response to extracellular stimuli and involves receptors and heterotrimeric G proteins located at the plasma membrane. It has recently been established that GPCR signaling can also take place from intracellular membrane compartments, including endosomes that contain internalized receptors and ligands. While the mechanisms of GPCR endocytosis are well understood, it is not clear how well internalized receptors are supplied with G proteins. To address this gap, we use gene editing, confocal microscopy, and bioluminescence resonance energy transfer to study the distribution and trafficking of endogenous G proteins. We show here that constitutive endocytosis is sufficient to supply newly internalized endocytic vesicles with 20–30% of the G protein density found at the plasma membrane. We find that G proteins are present on early, late, and recycling endosomes, are abundant on lysosomes, but are virtually undetectable on the endoplasmic reticulum, mitochondria, and the medial-trans Golgi apparatus. Receptor activation does not change heterotrimer abundance on endosomes. Our findings provide a subcellular map of endogenous G protein distribution, suggest that G proteins may be partially excluded from nascent endocytic vesicles, and are likely to have implications for GPCR signaling from endosomes and other intracellular compartments.

    1. Cell Biology
    Mitsuhiro Abe, Masataka Yanagawa ... Yasushi Sako
    Research Article

    Anionic lipid molecules, including phosphatidylinositol-4,5-bisphosphate (PI(4,5)P2), are implicated in the regulation of epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR). However, the role of the spatiotemporal dynamics of PI(4,5)P2 in the regulation of EGFR activity in living cells is not fully understood, as it is difficult to visualize the local lipid domains around EGFR. Here, we visualized both EGFR and PI(4,5)P2 nanodomains in the plasma membrane of HeLa cells using super-resolution single-molecule microscopy. The EGFR and PI(4,5)P2 nanodomains aggregated before stimulation with epidermal growth factor (EGF) through transient visits of EGFR to the PI(4,5)P2 nanodomains. The degree of coaggregation decreased after EGF stimulation and depended on phospholipase Cγ, the EGFR effector hydrolyzing PI(4,5)P2. Artificial reduction in the PI(4,5)P2 content of the plasma membrane reduced both the dimerization and autophosphorylation of EGFR after stimulation with EGF. Inhibition of PI(4,5)P2 hydrolysis after EGF stimulation decreased phosphorylation of EGFR-Thr654. Thus, EGFR kinase activity and the density of PI(4,5)P2 around EGFR molecules were found to be mutually regulated.