News — Department of Physiology, Anatomy and Genetics (DPAG)

High-magnification image of a sympathetic ganglion innervating adipose tissue, showing the sympathetic perineurial cells (white) surrounding the ganglion and expressing Lepr (red) and Adrb2 (green) mRNA

New research published in Nature Metabolism by Gitalee Sarker of the Domingos Group

6 Aug, 2026

Figure 1 Neuroimmunometabolism in health and disease. This working model shows that, in physiological adipose tissue, sympathetic NA, modulated by SAMs, promotes the recruitment and signaling of MSCs, ILC2s, and eosinophils, which integrate to promote the release of their respective neurotrophic factors (i.e., GDNF, BDNF, and NGF) and the polarization of M2 macrophages. Together, these neurotrophic factors increase sympathetic axonal outgrowth and tonus. SPC-derived IL-33 stimulates T cell–derived TGF-β signaling to further promote sympathetic activity. Furthermore, T cell signaling promotes WAT beiging, possibly via T cell–derived PPARγ. NPY promotes mural cell proliferation, hence increasing beige adipocyte progenitors. Therefore, thermogenic BAT activity increases. Adrenergic signaling is known to play a role in tumorigenesis. In obese adipose tissue depots, an increase in adipocyte number leads to relatively lower NA levels in the ATME as the depot grows; these levels favor α-AR signaling over β-AR signaling and lead to M1 macrophage activation, which initiates sympathetic neuropathy and low NA levels in a positive-feedback loop. Low NA levels lead to decreases in the aforementioned cell signaling and neurotrophic factor levels, compounding sympathetic neuropathy. Simultaneously on the SPC, LepR activation becomes greater than β2-AR activation due to low NA and high leptin levels. Hyperleptinemia-mediated degeneration of the SPC barrier is observed, and this degeneration causes a loss of anti-inflammatory IL-33 signaling that once sustained in the ATME a population of T cells capable of T cell–mediated beiging. Sympathetic neuropathy decreases NPY levels and causes a leaky vasculature and increased CD45+ infiltrates. At low NA levels, α-AR signaling predominates; therefore, any role adrenergic signaling plays in tumorigenesis could be α-AR mediated. Abbreviations: α-AR, α-adrenergic receptor; ATME, adipose tissue microenvironment; BAT, brown adipose tissue; BDNF, brain-derived neurotrophic factor; DAMP, damage-associated molecular pattern; GDNF, glial-derived neurotrophic factor; ILC2, innate lymphoid cell 2; LepR, leptin receptor; MSC, mesenchymal stem cell; NA, noradrenaline; NGF, nerve growth factor; NPY, neuropeptide Y; PPARγ, peroxisome proliferator–activated receptor-γ; ROS, reactive oxygen species; SAM, sympathetic-associated macrophage; SPC, sympathetic perineurial cell; WAT, white adipose tissue. Figure adapted from images created in BioRender; Sweeney C. 2026. https://BioRender.com/l580pg4.

New Domingos group review offers a framework of how sympathetic neural networks and the immune system crosstalk in health, obesity and cancer

19 May, 2026

The InteroCANCEption team with Ana Domingos wearing yellow on the right

Professor Ana Domingos joins one of five Global Teams Awarded $125 Million to take on the toughest challenges at the frontiers of cancer science

4 Mar, 2026

Professor Ana Domingos elected to EMBO membership

1 Jul, 2025

Professor Ana Domingos one of seven Oxford academics awarded European Research Council Advanced Grants

17 Jun, 2025

Professor Ana Domingos receives Wellcome Discovery Award

27 Mar, 2025

New paper published in Nature - Understanding the Biological Basis of Obesity: A Sympathetic Path to Treatment by burning fat

29 Aug, 2024

New paper by Professor Ana Domingos and DPhil student Emma Haberman published in the journal Immunity

13 Dec, 2023

New research led by Professor Ana Domingos into thermogenesis during fasting wins BBSRC funding

11 Dec, 2023

Yitao Zhu awarded Goodger and Schorstein scholarship

21 Jul, 2023

Congratulations are in order to Yitao Zhu on winning a Goodger and Schorstein Award from the Medical Sciences Internal Fund.

Old and “hangry” monocytes turn from friend to foe under assault

13 Apr, 2023

Professor Ana Domingos and DPhil student Conan O’Brien review a new study demonstrating that fasting and re-feeding causes monocytes to re-enter the bone marrow and alter the body's response to infection.

Updating the circuit maps of the sympathetic neural network

3 Nov, 2022

A new review from Professor Ana Domingos’ lab and colleagues offers a fresh modern viewpoint on sympathetic neurons and their relation to immune cells and obesity.

New Pfizer grant paves the way to a better understanding of how body fat is controlled

1 Nov, 2022

Professor Ana Domingos has been awarded a highly competitive independent research grant from Pfizer to discover ‘the role of Sympathetic-associated Perineurial barrier Cells in obesity’.

DPAG has two new Professors

22 Aug, 2022

Congratulations are in order to Ana Domingos and Nicola Smart who have been awarded the title of Professor in the recent Recognition of Distinction round.

Ana Domingos Awarded Carl Ludwig Distinguished Lectureship Award

5 Apr, 2022

Congratulations are in order for Associate Professor Ana Domingos, who has been awarded the 2023 Carl Ludwig Distinguished Lectureship from the American Physiological Society.

Ana Domingos appointed Editor-in-Chief for distinguished American Physiological Society journal

30 Nov, 2021

Congratulations are in order to Associate Professor Ana Domingos on her appointment as Editor-in-Chief for the American Journal of Physiology-Endocrinology and Metabolism.

Visceral fat supports various fundamental functions, such as reproduction. However, when it is too abundant, it produces unhealthy levels of proteins and hormones that negatively affect neighbouring tissues and organs. In this study authors reveal the first known neuro-immune process by which brain signals instruct immune function in visceral fat stores.

Scientists Decipher How NeuroImmune Interactions Burn Deep Fat

20 Aug, 2021

A pioneering collaborative mouse study from an international team of researchers including DPAG's Associate Professor Ana Domingos published in Nature offers new therapeutic avenues for reducing visceral fat stores, which have been associated with cardiovascular disease and multiple types of cancer.

Adipose tissue-resident macrophages control lipid storage through production of platelet-derived growth
factor (PDGFcc), which induces lipid retention in white adipose tissue adipocytes in a paracrine manner,
although the precise mechanism is unclear. Recruited macrophages are responsible for the inammation
that characterizes obese adipose tissue. Treatment with PDGFcc antibodies restores homeostasis, and
reduces lipid storage and body weight, redirecting excess lipids mostly to thermogenesis.

New review reveals proof of concept for an anti-obesity immunotherapy

2 Jul, 2021

The Domingos lab has published a new opinion piece in Science investigating the implications of a Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center study that lays the foundations for a potential new anti-obesity treatment in the form of targeting adipose tissue-resident macrophages.

Ana Domingos joins the Cell Metabolism Advisory Board

6 Oct, 2020

Congratulations are in order to Associate Professor Ana Domingos on her appointment to the Advisory Board of the top research journal dedicated to publishing novel, impactful papers spanning basic to clinical metabolic research.

New weight-loss drug brings hope for safer obesity treatment

13 May, 2020

A collaborative research team from the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge co-led by DPAG's Associate Professor Ana Domingos have developed a new weight-loss amphetamine that could potentially avoid the harmful side effects of traditional treatments.

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