The liver performs many metabolic tasks including gluconeogenesis (glucose production) and lipogenesis (production of fatty acids and lipids). Those and other tasks were thought to be “assigned” to discrete hepatocytes (liver cells) within the liver. But in a study published online on April 25 in Nature Metabolism and involving mice, Albert Einstein College of Medicine’s Junichi Okada, M.D., Ph.D., Irwin J. Kurland, M.D., Ph.D., Carolina Eliscovich, Ph.D., Kosaku Shinoda, Ph.D., Jeffrey E. Pessin, Ph.D., and colleagues revealed that the liver is a dynamic organ, with hepatocytes shifting their metabolic functions over space and time in response to fasting.

The researchers showed that, as fasting progresses, gluconeogenesis expands from the periportal area of the liver (where most glucose production normally occurs) to the pericentral area—recruiting more of the liver’s tissue pump out glucose. The findings could shed light on the underlying causes of insulin resistance in people with type 2 diabetes and offer insights into the effects of intermittent fasting, a common dietary regimen for weight loss.

Dr. Okada is a postdoctoral fellow in Dr. Pessin’s laboratory at Einstein. Dr. Kurland is an associate professor of medicine at Einstein and director of the Stable Isotope & Metabolomics Core Facility of the Einstein-Mount Sinai Diabetes Research Center. Dr. Eliscovich is an assistant professor of medicine and of developmental & molecular biology at Einstein. Dr. Shinoda is an assistant professor of medicine and of molecular pharmacology at Einstein. Dr. Pessin is professor of medicine and of molecular pharmacology, the Judy R. and Alfred A. Rosenberg Professorial Chair in Diabetes Research at Einstein, and the director of the Einstein-Mount Sinai Diabetes Research Center.