Biology subjects

Kinnaer, C.

Publications and source records attributed to Kinnaer, C..

2 recordsLinked to original sources

bioRxiv2026

Effects of long-term fasting: longitudinal epigenetic responses in humans

Prolonged fasting induces marked metabolic adaptations, but whether such time-limited yet intensive interventions engage molecular processes related to biological aging in humans remains unclear. To address this, we investigated physiological and epigenetic responses to a 12-day medically supervised fasting intervention with longitudinal follow-up in 32 participants. Fasting elicited coordinated systemic physiological changes across metabolic and hematological parameters, with partial persistence at one month. Genome-wide DNA methylation analyses revealed modest but detectable CpG-level changes, primarily emerging at follow-up and distributed across genomic contexts. In parallel, epigenetic aging clocks showed clock-specific and time-dependent responses, with substantial inter-individual variability. Lower baseline epigenetic age acceleration was consistently associated with greater fasting-induced weight loss, suggesting a link between epigenetic state and metabolic responsiveness. Together, these findings indicate that prolonged fasting induces coordinated physiological adaptations alongside structured changes in epigenetic aging measures that are not captured by conventional clinical biomarkers. This study highlights epigenetic clocks as integrative molecular readouts for probing aging-related responses to short-term metabolic interventions, while also delineating their current interpretive limits.

genomics↗

bioRxiv2018

Yeast-to-hypha transition of Schizosaccharomyces japonicus in response to natural stimuli

Many fungal species are dimorphic, exhibiting both unicellular yeast-like and filamentous forms. Schizosaccharomyces japonicus, a member of the fission yeast clade, is one such dimorphic fungus. Here, we first identify fruit extracts as natural, stress-free, starvation-independent inducers of filamentation, which we use to describe the properties of the dimorphic switch. During the yeast-to-hypha transition, the cell evolves from a bipolar to a unipolar system with 10-fold accelerated polarized growth but constant width, vacuoles segregated to the non-growing half of the cell, and hyper-lengthening of the cell. We demonstrate unusual features of S. japonicus hyphae: these cells lack a Spitzenkorper, a vesicle distribution center at the hyphal tip, but display more rapid cytoskeleton-based transport than the yeast form, with actin cables being essential for the transition. S. japonicus hyphae also remain mononuclear and undergo complete cell divisions, which are highly asymmetric: one daughter cell inherits the vacuole, the other the growing tip. We show these elongated cells scale their nuclear size, spindle length and elongation rates but display altered division size controls. This establishes S. japonicus as a unique system that switches between symmetric and asymmetric modes of growth and division.

microbiology↗