TEAM C. MORO

MetaDiab – Pathophysiology of Metabolic Disorders and Diabesity

The team MetaDiab uses a highly translational medicine approach of the study of metabolism combining innovative cell and mouse models to decipher molecular mechanisms of metabolic disorders, and clinical studies in nutrition and exercise with deep phenotypic investigation. The team aims at understanding the biological determinants and molecular mechanisms of metabolic disorders in various pathophysiological contexts (obesity, aging, type 2 diabetes, physical inactivity). Using a highly integrative bedside-to-bench approach, we investigate novel targets and mechanisms in cell and mouse models as well as in humans. Our projects are focused on the underlying mechanisms of insulin resistance, lipid droplet and metabolic dysfunction in skeletal muscle and adipose tissue, as well as their crosstalk in metabolic regulation and diseases.

 

TEAM MEMBERS

 
Tous / AllTeam leaderResearchersCliniciansPost Doctoral fellowsStudentsTechnical staff
Team leader

Cédric MORO

Associate Profesor

Virginie BOURLIER

Associate Profesor

Dominique LARROUY

Associate Profesor

Claire LAURENS

Principal scientist

Geneviève TAVERNIER

Principal scientist

Nathalie VIGUERIE

Clinician

Sylvie CASPAR-BAUGUIL

Clinicien

Etienne CAVAIGNAC

Clinician

Isabelle DE GLISEZINSKI

Clinician

Emilie MONTASTIER

Clinician

Claire THALAMAS

university hospital assistant

Laurie FRANCES

PhD Student

Axel LABOUR

PhD student

Marlène LAC

Post-doctoral fellow

Benjamin LAIR

PhD student

François-Xavier PATARCA

Engineer

Marie-Adeline MARQUES

Engineer

Laurent MONBRUN

Engineer

Aline MAIRAL

assistant engineer

Claire MASLO

Associate professor

Pascale GRANIER

Corinne CORDONNIER
Associate professor

Corinne CORDONNIER

Lucas FRASSIN
PhD Student

Lucas FRASSIN

PhD Student

Katerina KOUDELKOVA

PhD Student

Justine THOMAS

Françoise MAUPAS-SCHWALM
Clinician

Françoise MAUPAS-SCHWALM

Team leader

Cédric MORO

Research director (INSERM)

Cedric Moro received a PhD in 2005 and Habilitation in 2012 in Pathophysiology from Paul Sabatier University, Toulouse, France. He is currently Research Director at Inserm and head of Team MetaDiab at I2MC, Inserm/Paul Sabatier University UMR1297.

Career path
After a 3-year post-doctoral fellowship at the Pennington Biomedical Research Center (Baton Rouge, USA), he was appointed Research Investigator at Inserm in 2008. He was the recipient of the Young Investigator Award of EASO in 2004 and the Auguste Loubatières Award of SFD in 2020.

Main domains of expertise
Physiopathology ; Metabolism ; Nutrition ; Exercise ; Obesity ; Type 2 Diabetes

Associate Profesor

Virginie BOURLIER

Associate Profesor

Dominique LARROUY

Associate Profesor

Claire LAURENS

Associate Profesor

Claire Laurens’ projects focus on understanding the inter-organ communication between skeletal muscle and other metabolic organs in response to exercise. She is also interested in the metabolic and anabolic disorders induced by physical inactivity and aging at both muscle and whole-body levels.

Main domains of expertise
Skeletal muscle, lipids, metabolic flexibility, energy metabolism, inter-organ crosstalk, exercise, physical inactivity, translational research.

Principal scientist

Geneviève TAVERNIER

CNRS researcher

Career path
PhD in Human Physiopathology from Paul Sabatier University in 1996, Toulouse, France. Post-doctoral internship from February 1996 to August 1998 at the Institut Cochin de Génétique Moléculaire, Paris, France. Recruited at the CNRS in 1998 and has been working in the same laboratory since then, successively named Laboratory of Research on Obesity and MetaDiab. Mainly in charge of the creation of new animal models by additive transgenesis and thanks to the CRISPR/Cas9 system.  In charge of part of their phenotypic characterisation using in vivo, ex vivo and in vitro approaches.
Deputy director of the Inserm unit UMS006 from 2011 to 2015 and head of the transgenesis service of this unit from 2011 to 2020.

Main domains of expertise
Transgenesis and animal manipulation, metabolism, adipose tissues, inter-organ dialogues.

Email:genevieve.tavernier@inserm.fr

Tél/Phone:+33 5 61 32 56 26

Principal scientist

Nathalie VIGUERIE

Researcher

Multiomics in clinic to discover new genes and pathways involved in the pathogenicity of obesity. Scientific coordinator of I2MC Bioinformatics Core Facility. Member of the PHASE Research Division of INRAE. Coordination of JPI HDHL miRDiet project and Genomics Research Line of FP6 DiOGenes Diet, Obesity and Genes project. Teaching activities with functional genomics sessions in Masters

Main domains of expertise
Obesity, adipokines, biomarkers, -omics, network analyses, missing data imputation

Clinician

Sylvie CASPAR-BAUGUIL

PharmD-PhD

Doctor in Pharmacy, she received her Ph.D degree in Immunology in 1993 and Habilitation (HDR) in Pathophysiology in 2008 from the Paul Sabatier University, Toulouse, France. She joined our team in January 2010 in the field of metabolic disorders associated with obesity

Main domains of expertise
Biochemistry, fatty acid metabolism, lipid analyses, nutrition

Clinicien

Etienne CAVAIGNAC

MD-PhD Orthopedic surgeon and sports traumatologist

Clinician

Isabelle DE GLISEZINSKI

Clinician

Emilie MONTASTIER

MD-PhD Nutrition and Metabolic diseases

Emilie Montastier is an associate professor in Endocrinology Diabetology Metabolic Diseases and Nutrition at the Paul Sabatier University, Toulouse, France. She is an endocrinologist at the Toulouse University Hospital. She defended her PhD Thesis in the lab in 2014 with a topic about obese patients adipose tissue omics to understand the adaptive mechanisms after a weight loss. She is involved in many clinical studies.

Clinician

Claire THALAMAS

university hospital assistant

Laurie FRANCES

university hospital assistant

Career path
Laurie Frances completed Pharmacy studies and received a Master degree in Physiology from the Paul Sabatier University, Toulouse, France, in 2020. She started a PharmD and a PhD in our team in October 2020, both in the field of adipose tissue secretions at the MetaDiab lab, INSERM U1297.

Main domains of expertise
Biochemistry, Cellular Biology, Pharmacology

PhD Student

Axel LABOUR

PhD Student

I obtained a Master’s degree in Health & Biology in Physiology and Experimental Toxicology at the Université de Bretagne Occidentale in 2023.
After two internships at the ORPHY laboratory in Brest, studying the effects of high-intensity interval training on various cardio-metabolic parameters, I joined the team in October 2023 for a physiopathology thesis on the dialogue between adipose tissue and muscle in metabolic diseases.
PhD student

Marlène LAC

PhD Student

I obtained a Master’s degree in Digestive Health and Nutrition at the Paul Sabatier University of Toulouse in 2021. I joined the team in January 2021 for a M2 internship and I am pursuing since October 2021 with a PhD, which aims to determine the key role of the ANP/GCA system in the control of brown adipose tissue functions. As well as to characterize new target genes of this pathway which could allow to identify new targets in the prevention or treatment of type 2 diabetes.

Post-doctoral fellow

Benjamin LAIR

Post doctoral fellow

Benjamin Lair graduated from the Ecole supérieure de biotechnologies de Strasbourg in 2017. He joined the team in 2019 when he was enrolled in the sport performance optimization master program at the Paul Sabatier University in Toulouse. His PhD work aims to understand the impact of sphingolipids on muscle metabolism.

PhD student

François-Xavier PATARCA

Engineer

Marie-Adeline MARQUES

Engineer Assistant

Holder of a BTS “Biological Analysis”, I joined INSERM in January 1992 in Marseille. From 1994 to 2004, I worked at the Toulouse Clinical Investigation Center as a clinical research technician. In 2004, I joined the I2MC where I still carry out my duties

Main domains of expertise
Clinical research, dosages and cellular biologie, histology and imaging

Engineer

Laurent MONBRUN

Assistant engineer

Laurent Monbrun received his two-years technical degree in Biochemist option biochemistry and biological engineering from the Saliège Private high school, Toulouse, France, in 1999. He joined our team in february 2007 as an assistant engineer in the field of metabolic disease at the Metadiab, INSERM U1297.

Career path
Six years in a laboratory whose specialities were molecular and cellular biology. Two years to set up a technical platform specializing in mices assays. Engineer assistant in MetaDiab laboratory since 2007 ; my function is the genotyping/phenotyping of different murine lines.

Main domains of expertise
Animal experiments, genotyping and management of murines colonies, Analysis of nucleic acids by PCR or qPCR, Analysis of protein by western-blot, biochemical and cytotkines assays, cellular & molecular biology. ISO 9001:2015 et NFX 50-900:2016 accreditation in the Phenotyping Service.

Engineer

Aline MAIRAL

Ingeneer (INSERM)

Aline is specialized in molecular and cellular biology. His experience in the team allows her to provide valuable support to various projects. She also trains students and collaborators, manages data and responds to emergency calls. She is the team’s lab manager.

Career path
Aline Mairal was graduated from a MSC from University Paul Sabatier in Toulouse in 1995. After a first experience at the Institute Curie in Paris, Aline joined the institute in 2000. She worked on different projects around the adipocyte, lipases and lipid and carbohydrate metabolism.

Main domains of expertise
Cloning, DNA and RNA experiments, cellular culture (cell lines and primary cells), biochemistry, radioactivity (isotopic tracer H3 and C14).

Email:aline.mairal@inserm.fr

Tél/Phone:+33 (0)5 61 32 56 30

assistant engineer

Claire MASLO

Associate professor

Pascale GRANIER

Associate professor

Corinne CORDONNIER

PhD Student

Lucas FRASSIN

PhD Student

Katerina KOUDELKOVA

PhD Student

Justine THOMAS

Clinician

Françoise MAUPAS-SCHWALM

MD-PhD clinician and sports cardiologist

Lipotoxicity and muscle dysfunction

 

 

Coordinators : Virginie BOURLIER, Cédric MORO

Obesity, type 2 diabetes, aging and sedentarity are associated with defective lipid metabolism, adipose tissue dysfunction and ectopic lipid deposition in skeletal muscle. We study the role of inter/intra-muscular and intramyocellular lipid droplets dynamics as triggers of metabolic and functional impairments in skeletal muscle.

Metabolic organ crosstalk

Coordinators : Nathalie VIGUERIE, Sylvie CASPAR-BAUGUIL, Geneviève TAVERNIER, Claire LAURENS, Cédric MORO

The overarching goal of this research program is to elucidate the dynamic interplay between skeletal muscle, adipose tissue and other organs (liver, pancreas) critical for the maintenance of glucose homeostasis and the development of Type 2 Diabetes. DIABKINE project (Occitanie Region/FEDER R&S 2019 – MP0021755 funds): Role of novel exerkines in prevention of metabolic diseases. In this project, we have identified novel exerkines, produced by skeletal muscle contraction, able to mediate some of the beneficial effects of exercice in health via auto-paracrine and endocrine routes such as GDF15 (Laurens et al. JCI Insight 2020).

Translational metabolic research

Coordinators : Emilie MONTASTIER, Claire THALAMAS, Claire LAURENS, Dominique LARROUY, Isabelle DE GLISEZINSKI, Isabelle HARANT, Nathalie VIGUERIE, Cédric MORO

  • Identify adipose- and muscle-derived circulating biomarkers of type 2 diabetes development and remission after bariatric surgery
  • Impact of artificial gravity and exercise as countermeasures to prevent simulated microgravity-induced muscle atrophy and metabolic inflexibility
  • Effects of the timing of diet and exercise in the prevention obesity complications.

publications

Gpcpd1-GPC metabolic pathway is dysfunctional in aging and its deficiency severely perturbs glucose metabolism. Cikes D, Leutner M, Cronin SJF, Novatchkova MPfleger L, Klepochová R, Lair B, Lac M, Bergoglio C, Viguerie N, Dürnberger G, Roitinger E, Grivej M, Rullman EGustafsson THagelkruys ATavernier GBourlier VKnauf C, Krebs M, Kautzky-Willer A, Moro C, Krssak M, Orthofer M, Penninger JM. Nat Aging. 2024. Pubmed

Exerkines in health, resilience and disease. Chow LS, Gerszten RE, Taylor JM, Pedersen BK, van Praag H, Trappe S, Febbraio MA, Galis ZS, Gao Y, Haus JM, Lanza IR, Lavie CJ, Lee CH, Lucia A, Moro C, Pandey A, Robbins JM, Stanford KI, Thackray AE, Villeda S, Watt MJ, Xia A, Zierath JR, Goodpaster BH, Snyder MP. Nat Rev Endocrinol. 2022. Pubmed

Network Analyses Reveal Negative Link Between Changes in Adipose Tissue GDF15 and BMI During Dietary-induced Weight Loss. Imbert A, Vialaneix N, Marquis J, Vion J, Charpagne A, Metairon S, Laurens C, Moro C, Boulet N, Walter O, Lefebvre G, Hager J, Langin D, Saris WHM, Astrup A, Viguerie N, Valsesia A. J Clin Endocrinol Metab. 2022. Pubmed

GTTs and ITTs: aim for shorter fasting times. Moro C, Magnan C. Nat Metab. 2021. Pubmed

Novel Insights and Mechanisms of Lipotoxicity-Driven Insulin Resistance. Lair B, Laurens C, Van Den Bosch B, Moro C. Int J Mol Sci. 2020. Pubmed

FUNDINGS

Equipe Moro

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Inserm/UPS UMR 1297 - I2MC Institut des Maladies Métaboliques et Cardiovasculaires

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Tél. : 05 61 32 56 00

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