Nica Borradaile
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Associate Professor, Acting Associate Vice-Provost SGPS BSc Western University, Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology Office: Dental Sciences Building, Room 2011A
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Research Interests and Goals:
Obesity and metabolic syndrome are epidemic in most countries throughout the world, resulting in chronic health complications which place significant burdens on health care systems. Increased blood lipids are characteristic of these metabolic diseases and can lead to excess lipid accumulation in tissues other than adipose. This excess lipid leads to changes in cellular metabolism, and to cellular stress responses, in the liver, heart, blood vessels, skeletal muscle, and pancreas.
The two most common complications of obesity and metabolic syndrome are metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease (MASLD) and cardiovascular disease. Research in my lab focuses on understanding the biochemical and molecular pathways involved in liver and cardiovascular metabolic responses to excess lipid. We use human hepatocytes, hepatic stellate cells, monocytes and macrophages, vascular endothelial cells, and cardiomyocytes to study the direct effects of fatty acid exposure on cellular metabolism and stress responses. We also use these cell culture systems to study naturally derived compounds for their ability to mitigate the damaging effects of excess lipid. To study disease processes and potential natural product treatments, we use western style diet-induced mouse models of obesity, MASLD, and cardiovascular disease
Undergraduate teaching:
PHARM 3620: Human pharmacology and therapeutic principles (course manager and instructor)
PHYS/PHARM 3000E: Physiology and pharmacology laboratory (instructor)
PHYS/PHARM 4100B: Digestion, metabolism, and metabolic disease (course manager and instructor)
PHYS/PHARM 4980E: Seminar and research project (undergraduate thesis supervisor)
Publications:
See all my publications on PubMed.
Highlighted Publications
Wilson R. B., Kozlov A. M., Hatam Tehrani H., Twumasi-Ankrah J. S., Chen Y. J., Borrelli M. J., Sawyez C. G., Maini S., Shepherd T. G., Cumming R. C., Betts D. H., Borradaile N. M. (2024) Elongation factor 1A1 regulates metabolic substrate preference in mammalian cells. Journal of Biological Chemistry, 300, 105684. doi: 10.1016/j.jbc.2024.105684
Wilson, R. B., Chen, Y. J., Sutherland, B. G., Sawyez, C. G., Zhang, R., Woolnough, T., Hetherington, A. M., Peters, K. M., Patel, K., Kennelly, J. P., Leonard, K.-A., Schuurman, M., Jacobs, R. L., Wang, R., & Borradaile, N. M. (2020). The marine compound and elongation factor 1A1 inhibitor, didemnin B, provides benefit in western diet-induced non-alcoholic fatty liver disease. Pharmacological Research, 161, 105208. doi: 10.1016/j.phrs.2020.105208
Peters, K. M., Zhang, R., Park, C., Nong, Z., Yin, H., Wilson, R. B., Sutherland, B. G., Sawyez, C. G., Pickering, J. G., & Borradaile, N. M. (2019). Vitamin D intervention does not improve vascular regeneration in diet-induced obese male mice with peripheral ischemia. The Journal of Nutritional Biochemistry, 70, 65–74. doi: 10.1016/j.jnutbio.2019.04.010
Hetherington, A. M., Sawyez, C. G., Zilberman, E., Stoianov, A. M., Robson, D. L., & Borradaile, N. M. (2016). Differential Lipotoxic Effects of Palmitate and Oleate in Activated Human Hepatic Stellate Cells and Epithelial Hepatoma Cells. Cellular Physiology and Biochemistry, 39(4), 1648–1662. doi: 10.1159/000447866
