Cellular and molecular impact of exercise training on liver lipid infiltration

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Our main objective for our next research program is to understand how the liver gets infiltrated with fat under nutritional circumstances (westerner high-fat diet) and after menopause. We also try to understand how regular physical exercise contravenes these effects. There are three approaches that we privilege. We are first interested in understanding on a molecular basis how the synthesis of new lipids and its oxidation are respectively stimulated and reduced in liver under high-fat diets and following withdrawal of estrogens in rats. We are also interested, in a second approach, in testing specific hypotheses related to exportation of lipids from the liver. This is an important consideration since it determines circulating blood lipids. In a third step, we are interested in evaluating the impact of a reduction in estrogens (i.e. menopause) on a specific pathway involving oxytocin hormone and atrial natriuretic peptide liberated from the heart. We postulate that these two hormones have a protective effect on the liver. Withdrawal of estrogens will reduce the action of this pathway and causes deleterious effects such as inflammation. On the whole, our next research program should lead to new information regarding how diets enriched in fat leads to accumulation of fat in liver and how and why withdrawal of estrogens, as seen in post-menopausal women, also leads to infiltration of lipids in liver.