Evidence for a neuromuscular circuit involving hypothalamic Interleukin-6 signaling in the control of skeletal muscle metabolism

Abstract

Hypothalamic interleukin-6 (IL6) exerts a broad metabolic control, including energy expenditure1, food consumption2, glucose homeostasis2, etc. Here we demonstrated that Interleukin-6 (IL6) activates the ERK1/2 pathway in the ventromedial hypothalamus (VMH), stimulating AMPK/ACC signaling and fatty acid oxidation in mice skeletal muscle. Bioinformatics analysis revealed that the hypothalamic IL6/ERK1-2 axis is closely associated with firing-rate-related genes in the hypothalamus and with fatty acid oxidation- and mitochondrial-related genes in skeletal muscle of genetically diverse BXD mice strains and humans. Using surgical denervation, pharmacological approaches, and transgenic mice, we showed that the hypothalamic IL6/ERK1/2 pathway requires the a2-adrenergic pathway to modify the fatty acid skeletal muscle metabolism. To address the physiological relevance of these findings, we demonstrated that this neuromuscular circuitry is required to underpin AMPK/ACC signaling activation and fatty acid oxidation post-exercise. Once the selective downregulation of IL6 receptor in VMH abolished the effects of exercise to sustain AMPK and ACC phosphorylation and fatty acid oxidation in the muscle post-exercise. Altogether, these data demonstrated that IL6/ERK axis in VMH controls fatty acid metabolism in mice skeletal muscle.