Summary: Digestive enteroendocrine cells use an innate immune pathway to respond to good bacteria by fine tuning metabolism to diet and intestinal conditions, a new study reveals.
Source: Boston Children’s Hospital.
Research tells us that the commensal or “good” bacteria that inhabit our intestines help to regulate our metabolism. A new study in fruit flies, published June 21 in Cell Metabolism, shows one surprising way they do this.
The study, led by Paula Watnick, MD, PhD, of the Division of Infectious Diseases at Boston Children’s Hospital, reveals that innate immune pathways, best known as our first line of defense against bacterial infection, have a side job that’s equally important.
In the intestine, digestive cells use an innate immune pathway to respond to harmful bacteria. But other intestinal cells, enteroendocrine cells, use the same pathway, known as IMD, to respond to “good” bacteria — by fine-tuning body metabolism to diet and intestinal conditions.
“Some innate immune pathways aren’t just for innate immunity,” says Watnick. “Innate immune pathways are also listening to the ‘good’ bacteria — and responding metabolically.”
