{"id":229167,"date":"2026-01-16T09:22:56","date_gmt":"2026-01-16T15:22:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/01\/metformin-hijacks-ampk-erk1-2-signaling-to-trigger-a-pathogenic-selection-trap-and-thymic-atrophy"},"modified":"2026-01-16T09:22:56","modified_gmt":"2026-01-16T15:22:56","slug":"metformin-hijacks-ampk-erk1-2-signaling-to-trigger-a-pathogenic-selection-trap-and-thymic-atrophy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/01\/metformin-hijacks-ampk-erk1-2-signaling-to-trigger-a-pathogenic-selection-trap-and-thymic-atrophy","title":{"rendered":"Metformin hijacks AMPK-ERK1\/2 signaling to trigger a pathogenic \u201cselection trap\u201d and thymic atrophy"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"padding-right: 20px\"><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/metformin-hijacks-ampk-erk1-2-signaling-to-trigger-a-pathogenic-selection-trap-and-thymic-atrophy2.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Qin et al. reveal that the diabetes drug metformin sets a \u201cselection trap\u201d in the thymus. It pushes developing immune cells toward maturation while simultaneously triggering their apoptosis via a metabolic stress-induced pathway, challenging the drug\u2019s safety in non-diabetic contexts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Qin et al. reveal that the diabetes drug metformin sets a \u201cselection trap\u201d in the thymus. It pushes developing immune cells toward maturation while simultaneously triggering their apoptosis via a metabolic stress-induced pathway, challenging the drug\u2019s safety in non-diabetic contexts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":662,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-229167","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biotech-medical"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/229167","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/662"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=229167"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/229167\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=229167"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=229167"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=229167"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}