Dr Anthony Coll

Research Interests

My research aims to investigate how disorders of energy balance and body composition can result from disruption of the pathways that control how we eat, how we metabolise fuel and how we store energy in tissues. The basis of these studies comes primarily from studies of human disease, including rare genetic forms of obesity and larger population-based studies.

In collaboration with colleagues in the IMS (O’Rahilly,Yeo) my work aims to gain a more mechanistic understanding of pathways highlighted by these human studies. Our current understanding of the central control of appetite has relied heavily upon mouse models and I combine murine genetics and whole animal physiological studies to address these issues.

A key themes emerging from this work has been that neurohormonal pathways are crucial in determining appetitive behaviour and body composition. These same pathways are highly likely to be relevant to other disorders of body composition and with colleagues in Team CANCAN (https://teamcancan.com) funded through the Cancer Grand Challenges initiative, I am part of a multidisciplinary team working together to understand the mechanisms behind cancer cachexia.

Group Members

Irene Cimino (Research Associate) (Coll, O’Rahilly Yeo) - ic326 at medschl.cam.ac.uk

Kara Rainbow (Research Assistant) (Coll, O’Rahilly, Yeo) - kh271 at medschl.cam.ac.uk 

Matteo Mastantuoni (Research Assistant) (Coll, O’Rahilly) - mm2651 at medschl.cam.ac.uk 

Loraine Tung (Research Associate) (Coll, O’Rahilly, Yeo) - lyct2 at medschl.cam.ac.uk 

Joanne Shen (Research Associate) (Coll, O’Rahilly) - js2901 at medschl.cam.ac.uk

Xue-Li Wong (Ph.D student) (with O’Rahilly) - xlw23 at medschl.cam.ac.uk

Dr Sui Lei Yin (Clinical Fellow)

Funding

Medical Research Council 

CRUK and National Cancer Institute (US)

Publications

Key publications:

Fejzo M, Rocha N, Cimino I, Lockhart SM, Petry CJ, Kay RG, Burling K, Barker P, George AL, Yasara N, Premawardhena A, Gong S, Cook E, Rimmington D, Rainbow K, Withers DJ, Cortessis V, Mullin PM, MacGibbon KW, Jin E, Kam A, Campbell A, Polasek O, Tzoneva G, Gribble FM, Yeo GSH, Lam BYH, Saudek V, Hughes IA, Ong KK, Perry JRB, Sutton Cole A, Baumgarten M, Welsh P, Sattar N, Smith GCS, Charnock-Jones DS, Coll AP, Meek CL, Mettananda S, Hayward C, Mancuso N, O'Rahilly S. GDF15 linked to maternal risk of nausea and vomiting during pregnancy. Nature. 2024 Jan;625(7996):760-767. doi: 10.1038/s41586-023-06921-9. Epub 2023 Dec 13. PMID: 38092039; PMCID: PMC10808057

Ferrer M, Anthony TG, Ayres JS, Biffi G, Brown JC, Caan BJ, Cespedes Feliciano EM, Coll AP, Dunne RF, Goncalves MD, Grethlein J, Heymsfield SB, Hui S, Jamal-Hanjani M, Lam JM, Lewis DY, McCandlish D, Mustian KM, O'Rahilly S, Perrimon N, White EP, Janowitz T. Cachexia: A systemic consequence of progressive, unresolved disease. Cell. 2023 Apr 27;186(9):1824-1845. doi: 10.1016/j.cell.2023.03.028. PMID: 37116469; PMCID: PMC11059056.

Steuernagel L, Lam BYH, Klemm P, Dowsett GKC, Bauder CA, Tadross JA, Hitschfeld TS, Del Rio Martin A, Chen W, de Solis AJ, Fenselau H, Davidsen P, Cimino I, Kohnke SN, Rimmington D, Coll AP, Beyer A, Yeo GSH, Brüning JC. HypoMap-a unified single-cell gene expression atlas of the murine hypothalamus. Nat Metab. 2022 Oct;4(10):1402-1419. doi: 10.1038/s42255-022-00657-y. Epub 2022 Oct 20. PMID: 36266547; PMCID: PMC9584816.

Lam BYH, Williamson A, Finer S, Day FR, Tadross JA, Gonçalves Soares A, Wade K, Sweeney P, Bedenbaugh MN, Porter DT, Melvin A, Ellacott KLJ, Lippert RN, Buller S, Rosmaninho-Salgado J, Dowsett GKC, Ridley KE, Xu Z, Cimino I, Rimmington D, Rainbow K, Duckett K, Holmqvist S, Khan A, Dai X, Bochukova EG; Genes & Health Research Team, Trembath RC, Martin HC, Coll AP, Rowitch DH, Wareham NJ, van Heel DA, Timpson N, Simerly RB, Ong KK, Cone RD, Langenberg C, Perry JRB, Yeo GS, O’Rahilly S. MC3R links nutritional state to childhood growth and the timing of puberty. Nature. 2021 Nov;599(7885):436-441. doi: 10.1038/s41586-021-04088-9. Epub 2021 Nov 3. PMID: 34732894; PMCID: PMC8819628

Cimino I, Rimmington D, Tung YCL, Lawler K, Larraufie P, Kay RG, Virtue S, Lam BYH, Fagnocchi L, Ma MKL, Saudek V, Zvetkova I, Vidal-Puig A, Yeo GSH, Farooqi IS, Pospisilik JA, Gribble FM, Reimann F, O’Rahilly S, Coll AP. Murine neuronatin deficiency is associated with a hypervariable food intake and bimodal obesity. Sci Rep. 2021 Sep 2;11(1):17571. doi: 10.1038/s41598-021-96278-8. PMID: 34475432; PMCID: PMC8413370.

Cimino I, Kim H, Tung YCL, Pedersen K, Rimmington D, Tadross JA, Kohnke SN, Neves-Costa A, Barros A, Joaquim S, Bennett D, Melvin A, Lockhart SM, Rostron AJ, Scott J, Liu H, Burling K, Barker P, Clatworthy MR, Lee EC, Simpson AJ, Yeo GSH, Moita LF, Bence KK, Jørgensen SB, Coll AP, Breen DM, O’Rahilly S. Activation of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis by exogenous and endogenous GDF15. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2021 Jul 6;118(27):e2106868118. doi: 10.1073/pnas.2106868118. PMID: 34187898; PMCID: PMC8271778.

Liang ZS, Cimino I, Yalcin B, Raghupathy N, Vancollie VE, Ibarra-Soria X, Firth HV, Rimmington D, Farooqi IS, Lelliott CJ, Munger SC, O’Rahilly S, Ferguson-Smith AC, Coll AP, Logan DW. Trappc9 deficiency causes parent-of-origin dependent microcephaly and obesity. PLoS Genet. 2020 Sep 2;16(9):e1008916. doi: 10.1371/journal.pgen.1008916. eCollection 2020 Sep. PMID: 32877400. PMCID: PMC7467316

Coll AP, Chen M, Taskar P, Rimmington D, Patel S, Tadross J, Cimino I, Yang M,Welsh P, Virtue S, Goldspink DA, Miedzybrodzka EL, Konopka AR, Esponda RR, Huang JT, Tung YCL, Rodriguez-Cuenca S, Tomaz RA, Harding HP, Melvin A, Yeo GSH, Preiss D, Vidal-Puig A, Vallier L, Nair KS, Wareham NJ, Ron D, Gribble FM, Reimann F, Sattar N, Savage DB, Allan BB, O’Rahilly S. GDF15 mediates the effects of metformin on body weight and energy balance. Nature. 2019 Dec 25. doi: 10.1038/s41586-019-1911-y. PMID: 31875646. PMCID: PMC7234839

Patel S, Alvarez-Guaita A, Melvin A, Rimmington D, Dattilo A, MiedzybrodzkaEL, Cimino I, Maurin AC, Roberts GP, Meek CL, Virtue S, Sparks LM, Parsons SA,Redman LM, Bray GA, Liou AP, Woods RM, Parry SA, Jeppesen PB, Kolnes AJ, Harding HP, Ron D, Vidal-Puig A, Reimann F, Gribble FM, Hulston CJ, Farooqi IS,Fafournoux P, Smith SR, Jensen J, Breen D, Wu Z, Zhang BB, Coll AP, Savage DB, O’Rahilly S. GDF15 Provides an Endocrine Signal of Nutritional Stress in Mice and Humans. Cell Metab. 2019 Mar 5;29(3):707-718.e8. doi: 10.1016/j.cmet.2018.12.016. PMID: 30639358; PMCID: PMC6408327.

Research Interests

Group Members

Funding

Publications

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Study at Cambridge

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Research at Cambridge