Lipid Catabolism Fuels Drosophila Gut Immunity

Hedgehog fuels gut regeneration

The intestinal epithelia rely on resident stem cells to undergo homeostatic growth as well as tissue repair upon injury. In response to insults elicited by pathological bacterial infection or tissue damaging chemicals such as dextran sodium sulfate (DSS), intestinal stem cells (ISCs) speed up their proliferation and differentiation to effectively replenish lost cells. Despite numerous studies, ...

Branched chain amino acid catabolism fuels adipocyte differentiation and lipogenesis

Adipose tissue plays important roles in regulating carbohydrate and lipid homeostasis, but less is known about the regulation of amino acid metabolism in adipocytes. Here we applied isotope tracing to pre-adipocytes and differentiated adipocytes to quantify the contributions of different substrates to tricarboxylic acid (TCA) metabolism and lipogenesis. In contrast to proliferating cells, which...

Tryptophan catabolism and regulation of adaptive immunity.

Membrane lipid physiology and toxin catabolism underlie ethanol and acetic acid tolerance in Drosophila melanogaster.

Drosophila melanogaster has evolved the ability to tolerate and utilize high levels of ethanol and acetic acid encountered in its rotting-fruit niche. Investigation of this phenomenon has focused on ethanol catabolism, particularly by the enzyme alcohol dehydrogenase. Here we report that survival under ethanol and acetic acid stress in D. melanogaster from high- and low-latitude populations is ...

Immunity, gut microbiota and infection

Recurrent infections are very common in children and a major challenge for pediatricians. They affect the children’s quality of life, cause absences from school and lost parental working days, and repeated medical examinations, hospital admissions as well as antibiotic therapies lead to high costs for society. Given their prevalence and clinical importance, various prevention strategies have be...