Sugar and Sprouts

Love sugar? Too much can damage your blood vessels, increasing your risk of diabetes and cardiovascular disease. Love artificial sweeteners? Unfortunately, they too may increase your risk of cardiovascular disease. Researchers investigated in zebrafish embryos. Fluorescence microscopy revealed exposing embryos to lots of sugar or artificial sweeteners caused excessive blood vessel sprouting (angiogenesis) along the length of the body (pictured) – a process linked to diabetic complications in humans, including cardiovascular disease. Looking closer at embryos exposed to artificial sweeteners, they found cells lining their blood vessels (endothelial cells) developed into cells that promote sprouting. Analysing the RNA of these cells revealed changes in gene activity, notably reduction of one, Foxo1a (highlighted in red in the vessels along the fish embryo), was underlying the increase in sprouting when the embryos were exposed to sugar. Further experiments confirmed activity of this gene played the same role in embryos exposed to artificial sweeteners, uncovering how these sugar alternatives can negatively affect blood vessels.

Written by Lux Fatimathas

Lux Fatimathas

Writer

Having pursued science through a career in research, communications and publishing, she is currently a writer and editor for a healthcare marketing agency and also juggles freelance science writing.

• Image from work by Xiaoning Wang, Jinxiang Zhao and Jiehuan Xu, and colleagues
• Affiliated Hospital of Nantong University, Nantong Laboratory of Development and Diseases, School of Life Science; Co-innovation Center of Neuroregeneration, Nantong University, Nantong, China
• Image originally published with a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
• Published in eLife, October 2024