Date/Time
Date(s) - 12/10/2023
4:00 pm - 5:00 pm

Hibernation’s hallmark trait is a profound depression of metabolism that enables animals to survive long periods without eating. This makes hibernation an effective solution to winter’s food scarcity problem, but it presents the animal with certain challenges. One of these challenges is that hibernation’s long-term fasting eliminates a dietary source of nitrogen, which is an essential building block for protein. In theory, this should jeopardize the animal’s ability to synthesize new protein and thus jeopardize the
structure and function of important tissues, but it has long been known that hibernating mammals avoid this fate and maintain tissue function (e.g., muscle performance) even after many months of fasting
hibernation. In this talk, I will discuss our recent work that has revealed how hibernators harness the ureolytic capacity of their gut microbes to recycle urea nitrogen and facilitate tissue protein
synthesis via a multi-step process called urea nitrogen salvage (UNS). I will also discuss our current work investigating whether this gut microbe-dependent process recycles other urea components that are in short supply during hibernation such as carbon, as well as the steps we are now taking to determine whether UNS holds application potential for humans under muscle atrophying conditions such as prolonged microgravity exposure.