Shelley Tischkau
Southern Illinois University-Carbondale, IL·Physiology
Type 2 diabetes and metabolic syndrome, a cluster of conditions that raise the risk of heart disease and diabetes, are now extremely common. People with higher body levels of certain fat-soluble industrial pollutants, such as dioxins, are at greater risk for both.
- Fields
Physiology
Pharmacology
Biology
- Topics
aryl hydrocarbon receptor
AhR
dioxins
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Jul 2027
What they work on
- Test whether restricted feeding, limiting food intake to set times of day, can reset circadian clock function and restore adipose tissue rhythms after the clock is disrupted by chronic activation of the aryl hydrocarbon receptor (AhR) by pollutants such as dioxins.
- Determine whether restricted feeding rescues systemic metabolism from the harmful effects of chronic AhR activation, by measuring whole-body metabolic parameters and behavioral circadian rhythms.
- Identify the molecular mechanisms by which AhR interacts with estrogen signaling in female adipose tissue, and test whether this interaction underlies fat tissue's control of whole-body glucose metabolism in females.
More about the research
These chemicals act by switching on the aryl hydrocarbon receptor (AhR), a protein that senses foreign chemicals and changes gene activity. Dioxin exposure in humans also disturbs sleep. This suggests a link between these pollutants, the body's internal 24-hour clocks, and metabolism.
Why it matters
Industrial chemicals such as dioxins are linked to higher rates of type 2 diabetes, metabolic syndrome and sleep disturbance. By testing whether timed feeding can restore disrupted body clocks and why females respond differently, this work could inform chronotherapy, treatment timed to the body's daily rhythms, for diabetes and metabolic syndrome. It could also point toward sex-specific treatments for people exposed to these pollutants.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Joseph S Takahashi
University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, TX·Physiology
Test whether time-restricted feeding, eating only within a daily window, can extend lifespan in mice without reducing calories, building on the finding that nighttime caloric restriction raises lifespan gain from 10% to 35%.
Brian P Delisle
University of Kentucky, KY·Physiology
Identify the conserved cis-regulatory DNA elements that give cardiac ion channel genes their daily rhythm, using LumiCycle bioluminescence promoter assays, chromatin immunoprecipitation and electrophoretic mobility shift assays.
Shannon Bailey
University of Alabama at Birmingham, AL·Physiology
Establish whether chronic alcohol consumption disrupts 24-hour rhythms in liver mitochondrial energy production, including the activity of cytochrome c oxidase, the rate-limiting enzyme of respiration, in alcohol-fed mice.
The school
Southern Illinois University-Carbondale: 1 labs on PI Pages, $61M a year on research, 108 research doctorates a year.
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