Nutrient Signaling and Metabolism at the Helm of Cardiometabolic Diseases

Dear Colleagues,

Cardiometabolic disease (CMD) is a comprehensive term used to describe the increased risk for cardiovascular diseases arising due to a group of interrelated systemic metabolic abnormalities. CMD is one of the leading causes of death worldwide and its heterogeneity makes it difficult to cure this debilitating health problem. These are linked with a cluster of risk factors that include, but are not limited to, genetic, behavioral, and environmental factors, such as obesity, diet, physical inactivity, hypertension, and air pollution.

Systemic metabolism involves a vast number of pathways that regulate nutrient intake and utilization, and requires the participation and well-orchestrated crosstalk between multiple organs to maximize the efficiency of the processes. Coordination of metabolic flux between different tissues is based on effective communication by a multitude of secretory or paracrine factors including hormones, small molecules, and lipids. Disruption of one or more of these signaling axes can impact the metabolic events at the molecular, and, therefore, systems-level contributing to the complexity of CMD.

In this Special Issue of Biology, our emphasis is to provide the readers with an understanding of new strategies of cellular maladaptation in response to disrupted nutrient metabolism and signaling resulting in CMD. The goal is to evaluate the risk pathways associated with nutrient signaling dysfunction at cellular and systemic levels that will allow identification of novel therapeutic strategies for CMD. Articles of all categories (original research articles, reviews) pertaining to basic/fundamental science, in vivo studies, clinical/translational studies and meta-analyses will be considered for peer-review. Proof-of-concept and technical (method development) studies will be given consideration. Potential topics include, but are not limited to:

1. Nutrient (macro or micro) sensing, signaling, and metabolism leading to metabolic abnormalities precipitating in CMD (including amino acids, fatty acids, sugars, vitamins, etc.);
2. Nutrient trafficking and its impact on the development of CMD or any co-morbidities precipitating in CMD (including obesity, glucose and/or insulin sensitivity, inflammation);
3. Transcriptional (including post-transcriptional), epigenetic and translational (including post-translational) mechanisms regulating nutrient metabolism associated with the development of CMD;
4. Inter-organ and intercellular crosstalk facilitated by nutrients and/or secretory hormones that can influence cardiometabolic health (e.g., adipose tissue, skeletal muscle, hepatic, neural, and renal axes, etc.);
5. Small molecules and bioactive compounds targeting different nutrient signaling pathway components (including amino acids, fatty acids, sugars, etc.) that have potential therapeutic implications in the treatment of CMD.

Through your scientific contributions to this issue, we hope to enhance and improve the knowledgebase in this area and, therefore, supplement and update the existing literature.

APC waivers and discounts are available for authors (especially early career scientists), and requests will be evaluated on a case-by-case basis.

Dr. Rushita Bagchi
Dr. Dipsikha Biswas
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

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• nutrients
• amino acids
• glucose
• lipids
• insulin
• cardiometabolic
• metabolism
• signaling
• trafficking
• inter-organ crosstalk
• cardiovascular diseases
• insulin resistance
• obesity
• hypertension