The Hotamışlıgil Lab, Sabri Ülker Center studies innate adaptive pathways involved in metabolic health and diseases such as obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, hepatosteatosis, and asthma. For the past 25 years, our lab has made important foundational contributions to the burgeoning field of “immunometabolism”, studying the interactions between metabolic and immune responses as critical drivers of numerous chronic diseases. In the last decade, we have approached immunometabolism in these two highly integrated paths: organelle homeostasis and lipid metabolism. Using biochemical, genetic, and physiological studies, we aim to find novel pathways and preventive, therapeutic solutions to today’s greatest threats to global human health.
Our lab’s research areas include:
Inflammation, metaflammation and immunometabolic disorders
Metaflammation, a metabolically orchestrated, chronic, non-resolving, low grade inflammation in critical metabolic organs is central to impaired metabolic homeostasis and sets the stage for obesity- and age-associated pathologies, such as chronic inflammation, dyslipidemia and insulin resistance, and leads to diabetes, fatty liver disease, cardiovascular and respiratory problems, cancer and others.
Organelle Homeostasis in Metabolism
The endoplasmic reticulum is a cellular compartment committed to protein and lipid synthesis, maturation and trafficking, as well as calcium homeostasis. Our laboratory is particularly interested in the mechanisms by which the architecture of this organelle regulates its function and how, at the molecular and physilogical levels, ER integrates nutrient-sensing with metabolic responses and endocrine networks as well as metabolic inflammatory responses.
Lipid Binding Partners, Hormones, and Lipokines
Lipids and lipid chaperones are critical molecules integrating immunometabolic signals under metabolic stress conditions and contribute to physiological and pathological outcomes. Our laboratory is interested in the hormonal functions of lipid chaperones, particularly fatty acid binding protein 4 and 5, and the recently identified hormone complex called FABKIN. We are investigating the mechanisms underlying the secretion and function of these hormones that couple energy status of the organism with the metabolic adaptive responses at distant organs.