Functional changes of the gastric bypass microbiota reactivate thermogenic adipose tissue and systemic glucose control via intestinal FXR-TGR5 crosstalk in diet-induced obesity.

Background: Bariatric surgery remains the most effective therapy for adiposity reduction and remission of type 2 diabetes. Although different bariatric procedures associate with pronounced shifts in the gut microbiota, their functional role in the regulation of energetic and metabolic benefits achieved with the surgery are not clear.

Methods: To evaluate the causal as well as the inherent therapeutic character of the surgery-altered gut microbiome in improved energy and metabolic control in diet-induced obesity, an antibiotic cocktail was used to eliminate the gut microbiota in diet-induced obese rats after gastric bypass surgery, and gastric bypass-shaped gut microbiota was transplanted into obese littermates.

Maximising survival by shifting the daily timing of activity.

Maximising survival requires animals to balance the competing demands of maintaining energy balance and avoiding predation. Here, quantitative modelling shows that optimising the daily timing of activity and rest based on the encountered environmental conditions enables small mammals to maximise survival. Our model shows that nocturnality is typically beneficial when predation risk is higher during the day than during the night, but this is reversed by the energetic benefit of diurnality when food becomes scarce.

Flexible clock systems: adjusting the temporal programme.

Under natural conditions, many aspects of the abiotic and biotic environment vary with time of day, season or even era, while these conditions are typically kept constant in laboratory settings. The timing information contained within the environment serves as critical timing cues for the internal biological timing system, but how this system drives daily rhythms in behaviour and physiology may also depend on the internal state of the animal. The disparity between timing of these cues in natural and laboratory conditions can result in substantial differences in the scheduling of behaviour and physiology under these conditions.

The flexible clock: predictive and reactive homeostasis, energy balance and the circadian regulation of sleep-wake timing.

The Darwinian fitness of mammals living in a rhythmic environment depends on endogenous daily (circadian) rhythms in behavior and physiology. Here, we discuss the mechanisms underlying the circadian regulation of physiology and behavior in mammals. We also review recent efforts to understand circadian flexibility, such as how the phase of activity and rest is altered depending on the encountered environment.

Diurnality as an energy-saving strategy: energetic consequences of temporal niche switching in small mammals.

Endogenous daily (circadian) rhythms allow organisms to anticipate daily changes in the environment. Most mammals are specialized to be active during the night (nocturnal) or day (diurnal). However, typically nocturnal mammals become diurnal when energetically challenged by cold or hunger.

Cold and hunger induce diurnality in a nocturnal mammal.

The mammalian circadian system synchronizes daily timing of activity and rest with the environmental light-dark cycle. Although the underlying molecular oscillatory mechanism is well studied, factors that influence phenotypic plasticity in daily activity patterns (temporal niche switching, chronotype) are presently unknown. Molecular evidence suggests that metabolism may influence the circadian molecular clock, but evidence at the level of the organism is lacking.

Seasonal timing: how does a hibernator know when to stop hibernating?

Deep hibernators that spend winter in a hypothermic coma below ground can still emerge and reproduce in spring at the right moment. A recent study shows that specific cells of the pituitary may harbor the internal calendar responsible for this.