Pregnant women need a balanced diet and supplements to provide essential nutrients for their growing babies. These nutrients play a vital role in supporting the development of healthy brains, bones, organs, and immune systems.
While proper nutrition is crucial during pregnancy, researchers at EMBL have discovered that metabolism, the process by which cells convert food into energy, has an unexpected role in embryonic development. Beyond simply fueling growth, metabolism also acts as a signaling mechanism. By adjusting metabolism in specific ways, scientists identified a signaling metabolite that regulates the speed of development.
“We observed that as metabolism increased, a specific developmental clock slowed down,” said Hidenobu Miyazawa, a co-author of the study and a research scientist in the Aulehla Group at EMBL. “This finding suggests that metabolism’s role is more than just providing energy and materials for biological processes.”
Miyazawa, along with co-authors Nicole Prior and Jona Rada, plus other EMBL researchers, studied mouse embryos as they developed repeating body segments that form the spine. They found that certain metabolites, even in small amounts, could sustain the embryo’s ‘biological clock’ for segment formation, known as the segmentation clock.
The team discovered an inverse relationship: as metabolic activity increased, the segmentation clock slowed down. Remarkably, they could reverse this slow clock by restoring cellular signaling without changing metabolism itself, which led to the conclusion that metabolic activity influences cell signaling.
To determine which metabolites affect the clock rhythm, the scientists employed an experimental method based on synchronization theory. Just as our internal rhythms align with external day-night cycles, they theorized that the embryo’s segmentation clock could also adapt to periodic signaling cues. “We investigated whether a metabolite could act as a signaling cue for the segmentation clock,” Miyazawa explained.
Through this innovative approach, they identified a specific sugar molecule, FBP, as the key metabolite regulating the segmentation clock. FBP influences the rhythm of this clock via an important signaling pathway called Wnt signaling.
Furthermore, Miyazawa noted that changes in the segmentation clock’s molecular oscillations could alter the spatial patterns of the embryo’s body segments.
This groundbreaking research not only enhances our understanding of fundamental biology but may also influence how scientists approach future studies. The signaling role of metabolism could indicate how organisms adapt their development in response to environmental factors, such as food availability.
“These findings raise an intriguing question: could metabolism serve as a pacemaker that links internal biological clocks with external environmental rhythms?” said Alexander Aulehla, the senior author and director of EMBL’s Developmental Biology Unit. “Given that metabolism is intrinsically connected to external cues like circadian cycles, our discovery that metabolism can ‘set’ the segmentation clock supports this idea we aim to explore in upcoming research.”
Summary: Researchers at EMBL have found a surprising role for metabolism during embryonic development: it not only provides energy but also serves as a signaling mechanism that can regulate the speed of development. Specifically, they identified a sugar molecule, FBP, that influences the rhythm of the segmentation clock in embryos. This discovery suggests that metabolism might connect internal biological clocks to external environmental cues, opening up new avenues for future studies in developmental biology.
