Paper Spotlight: The Cholera Toxin and Inflammation-associated Obesity

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Oncotarget

Oncotarget published this trending research paper on September 17, 2019, entitled, "Consuming cholera toxin counteracts age-associated obesity" by researchers from the Division of Comparative Medicine, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA; Department of infectious Diseases and Pathology, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece. Abstract: During the past forty years there has been an inexplicable increase in chronic inflammatory disorders, including obesity. One theory, the ‘hygiene hypothesis’, involves dysregulated immunity arising after too few beneficial early life microbe exposures. Indeed, earlier studies have shown that gut microbe-immune interactions contribute to smoldering inflammation, adiposity, and weight gain. Here we tested a safe and well-established microbe-based immune adjuvant to restore immune homeostasis and counteract inflammation-associated obesity in animal models. We found that consuming Vibrio cholerae exotoxin subunit B (ctB) was sufficient to inhibit age-associated obesogenic outcomes in wild type mice, including reduced crown-like structures (CLS) and granulomatous necrosis histopathology in fat depots. Administration of cholera toxin reduced weight gain irrespective of age during administration; however, exposure during youth imparted greater slenderizing effects when compared with animals receiving ctB for the first time during adulthood. Beneficial effects were transplantable to other obesity-prone animals using immune cells alone, demonstrating an immune-mediated mechanism. Taken together, we concluded that oral vaccination with cholera toxin B helps stimulate health-protective immune responses that counteract age-associated obesity. Press release - https://www.oncotarget.com/news/pr/consuming-cholera-toxin-counteracts-age-associated-obesity/ Sign up for free Altmetric alerts about this article - https://oncotarget.altmetric.com/details/email_updates?id=10.18632%2Foncotarget.27137 DOI - https://doi.org/10.18632/oncotarget.27137 Full text - https://www.oncotarget.com/article/27137/text/ Correspondence to - Susan E. Erdman - serdman@mit.edu Keywords - body weight, mouse, exotoxin subunit B, CLS, inflammation About Oncotarget Oncotarget is a bi-weekly, peer-reviewed, open access biomedical journal covering research on all aspects of oncology. To learn more about Oncotarget, please visit https://www.oncotarget.com or connect with: SoundCloud - https://soundcloud.com/oncotarget Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/Oncotarget/ Twitter - https://twitter.com/oncotarget Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/oncotargetjrnl/ YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/c/OncotargetYouTube/ LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/company/oncotarget Pinterest - https://www.pinterest.com/oncotarget/ Reddit - https://www.reddit.com/user/Oncotarget/ Oncotarget is published by Impact Journals, LLC please visit https://www.ImpactJournals.com or connect with @ImpactJrnls Media Contact MEDIA@IMPACTJOURNALS.COM 18009220957