Dongmin Liu
Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, VA·Pharmacology
Type 2 diabetes (T2D) keeps becoming more common despite widely used drugs. It is driven by insulin resistance and the gradual loss of beta cells, the pancreas cells that make insulin.
- Fields
Pharmacology
Physiology
Medicine & Clinical Research
- Topics
type 2 diabetes
obesity
elenolic acid
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Jun 2027
What they work on
- Characterize the anti-diabetic and anti-obesity effects of daily oral elenolic acid in diet-induced obese and db/db diabetic mice, using metabolic profiling and euglycemic-hyperinsulinemic clamps to measure insulin sensitivity.
- Examine how elenolic acid affects pancreatic beta-cell mass and function using immunohistochemistry, and measure its oral bioavailability, metabolism and potential toxicity.
- Test whether elenolic acid combined with metformin has synergistic metabolic effects in mouse models of type 2 diabetes.
- Determine whether elenolic acid reduces food intake through brain GLP-1 and PYY signaling, using brain-delivered receptor blockers, receptor-knockout mice, pair-feeding and energy expenditure measurements.
More about the research
Obesity is a leading cause of T2D and makes blood sugar harder to control, so a single agent that both reduces body weight and improves blood sugar could treat the disease more effectively. In searching for such an agent, the team found that elenolic acid (EA), a small molecule produced when oleuropein from olive leaves is broken down, has both effects. Taken by mouth, EA reversed high blood sugar, promoted weight loss and reduced food intake in obese diabetic mice, and it worked better than metformin, a standard diabetes drug. EA also triggered intestinal L-cells to release peptide YY (PYY) and glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1), gut hormones that signal fullness and help control blood sugar.
Why it matters
Type 2 diabetes affects at least 37 million Americans, and obesity makes it harder to control. Elenolic acid, a low-cost compound derived from olive leaves, could become the basis for a safe therapy that promotes weight loss and reverses high blood sugar at the same time. It might also be used alongside metformin. Understanding how it acts through gut hormones may reveal useful treatment targets.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Bethany Cummings
University of California-Davis, CA·Physiology
Compare liver and islet responses to injected glucagon in obese mice and after dietary or bariatric-surgery weight loss, to test whether α-cell signaling shifts from the liver to insulin secretion.
Michelle Kimple
University of Wisconsin-Madison, WI·Pharmacology
Determine how the EP3 receptor affects separate cellular pools of calcium and cAMP in mouse and human beta cells, and how these changes alter insulin secretion and beta-cell mass, using cellular imaging.
Jonathan Campbell
Duke University, NC·Physiology
Test whether pericytes, cells lining blood vessels, are the main GIP receptor (GIPR)-expressing cells in fat tissue, using mouse models that mark and lineage-trace GIPR-positive cells over time.
The school
Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University: 35 labs on PI Pages, $657M a year on research, 496 research doctorates a year.
More about Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University
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