Nutrition Metabolism & Metabolomics

INRAE Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes Research Center

F-63122 Saint-Gènes-Champanelle

FRANCE

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More about me

Mail: sergio.polakof@inrae.fr

Tel : +33 (0) 4 73 62 48 95

Personal INRAE site

orcid.org/0000-0002-0976-8732

Researcher ID V-1132-2017

My Research Interest

The main objective of my research is to better understand the events participating to the metabolic flexibility (or nutritional allostasis) and to study the time-course changes of the metabolic phenotypes leading to the pathologies (metabolic trajectories) using a integrative approach, from the whole body to the target tissues, using open (as metabolomics and transcritptomics) but also targeted (substrates, enzyme activity) approaches. My studies are focussed on the development of a post-prandial anabolic resistance, a common component of many pathophysiological situations associated with aging, and that includes changes in insulin sensitivity but also nutrient utilisation and signalling. I utilise classic animal models of nutritionally-induced obesity (high fat/high fructose diet), like rodents, but also minipigs. The latter offers a significant similarity with human physiology and nutrition and has an important technical potential, including time-course studies and the access to several biological compartments allowing inter-organ studies.

I'm also interested on studies aiming to understand the interaction between nutrients and the metabolic crossroads allowing explaining the perturbations and regulations of the amino acids metabolism during pathology onset. On this context, lipids seem to be involved on the elevated blood levels of one particular kind of amino acids observed during obesity onset: the branched-chain amino acids. On the other hand, some carbohydrates, like fructose, might have a sparing impact on body proteins and amino acids during catabolic states, instead a deleterious role, as observed during high-fructose feeding diets.