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Metabolic regulation in general

Posted by jedsrose on 07 Jan 2010 at 05:58 GMT

Quite interesting scientific work. During the last four decades all regulatory mechanisms were reduced to the regulation of gene expression only. In my opinion, this somehow “scientific fashion” produced very bad results and one of the worst consequences of this kind of monopolistic vision may be the lost opportunity of a better understanding of biology by the study of clear effects of environmental factors and / or micro-environmental factors upon the cell regulatory mechanisms. In Hepatology: 1992;16 1055-1060 a reduction in portal blood flow was linked with a lack of control of gluconeogesis in the liver. Under these conditions liver metabolic activity is forced to a high glycolytic activity and the enzyme Pyruvate kinase is led to a conformation that do not allow for its inactivation through phosphorylation, a requirement for increased glucose production. Clearly, the adaptation to temporarily preserve liver cells life ( through increased anaerobic metabolism) seems to be in an upper hierarchical regulatory level in comparison with the homeostatic regulatory mechanisms of blood glucose maintenance ( increased gluconeogenesis). In this work, the results also seems to indicate a similar interpretation for the placental metabolism changes. In order to temporarily preserve placental cell life (by an increased anaerobic metabolism) a reduction in the transfer of blood glucose to the fetal metabolism leads to a reduction of fetal grow. All that can be seen with “ normal genomes” whatever the meaning of this expression.

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