New discovery! Reproductive cells may like to "eat sweets" and pass this trait on to the body's brain!

!--webeditor:page title" -- September 23, 2020 // -- Our work seems to be easier than cells, and when cells work hard to break down some molecules and build others, all we do is feed them, but what exactly should we feed them? Given the ongoing competition within, this may not be an easy question to solve: cell types such as fat cells crave lipids, while other types of cells prefer proteins or sugars, and how do we consider and make decisions about all competitive needs when our brains are faced with difficult choices such as steak or ice cream? In a recent study published in the international journal Nature Metabolism entitled "Cellular metabolic reprogramming controls sugar appetite in Drosophila", scientists from institutions such as the Champaleimaud Research Centre in Portugal found that changes in the nutritional needs of sexual cells or It makes female fruit flies more sugar-hungry, a phenomenon described so far mainly in pathological conditions, namely cancer, which researchers discovered during the normal physiological process of egg formation, or provides a basis for later clarification of the relationship between fertility and nutrition in the body.
small group of cells affect the behavior of the entire organism? The answer may come from oncology research, where when a cell becomes cancerous, the gas turns on the sugar-consuming cell and its components and transforms it into the basic building block needed for cell reproduction, in which the cell changes its dietary preferences and function, known as metabolic reproduction, which is key to tumor growth.
this phenomenon also appears to have been documented in irrational processes, but researchers don't know whether the metabolic transformation of cells hijacks an organism's feeding decisions, which may be a question that researchers need to delve into later.
Photo Source: Zita Santos and Carlos Ribeiro Researcher Ribeiro say we focused on the reproductive system of fruit flies, especially the production of their eggs, which start with a single sex cell that divides, multiplys and grows, and the offspring of the primitive cells then transform into different cell types and together form complete egg cells.
When the researchers analyzed the assembly process of the eggs, they found that, like cancer cells, they were undergoing a metabolic reprogramming process, which not only increased sugar consumption, but also activated the same cellular mechanisms that cancer cells use to promote cell proliferation, in other words, they began to like sweets.
researchers say this may explain previous research that has shown that female sex cells may absorb a high proportion of the sugar ingested by animals, and that this is in line with the role of egg cells.
These encouraging results prompted researchers to begin testing whether metabolic reprogramming of ovarian neutral cells affected food choices in animals, and when they compared the dietary preferences of normal female fruit flies with those that were unable to produce eggs, they found significant differences, with infertile fructose flies significantly reducing their appetite for sugar.
In addition, when researchers manipulate cells to metabolize sugar, both egg production and animal intake of sugar are affected, suggesting that it may not be the cells themselves that produce the behavioral changes, but the metabolic processes they have that drive flies to get the fuel they need to lay their eggs.
changes in the ovaries reach the brain and change the behavior of fruit flies? To answer this question, the researchers delved into the expression of the fit gene and found that the adipose tissue surrounding the brain of a fruit fly produces a special small molecule, and the more fit the fruit fly expresses, the less sweet it becomes.
In addition, the researchers also found significant differences between normal female fruit flies and infertile female fruit flies, with significantly higher levels of Fit in the sterilized fruit fly body, suggesting that the effects of sex cells on the brain may be mediated by Fit, although researchers still don't know how communication between the ovaries and the brain's adipose tissue occurs, and are now studying further.
the results of this paper outline a new mechanism, that is, a small number of cells in the ovaries drop ah write will control the behavior of animals diet, then what do these results have to do with the field of fertility research? The researchers say this may be the concept of chicken and eggs, that is, chicken or eggs first, whether metabolic reprogramming first or the body's preference for food changes first? The researchers found that the metabolic reprogramming of cells promotes females to consume more sugar, resulting in egg cells, and they wanted to know what would happen during the body's aging process, and whether changes in metabolism could explain the decline in the body's fertility. Similar to women, female fruit flies also experience age-related infertility, and the researchers speculate that changes in the ovarian metabolism process may contribute to a decline in fertility, a phenomenon that can be reduced or even reversed by using targeted dietary interventions.
Finally, researcher Ribeiro concluded that we will later reveal this hypothesis in fruit fly studies by combining single-cell RNA sequencing and metabolomics, and we will also analyze cell results of ovarian function decline and monitor feeding behavior in these animals, which may help researchers de-design new dietary strategies to reverse identified changes. And increasing the fertility of fruit flies in older women; researchers believe it may be a powerful way to help identify potentially reversible processes hidden behind age-related decline in fertility function, and because it is also a mechanism shared with cancer cells, the findings may also be indicative of how cancer occurs and progresses.
() Reference: !--/ewebeditor:page--!--webeditor:""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" Cellular metabolic reprogramming controls sugar appetite in Drosophila. Nat Metab 2, 958-973 (2020). doi:10.1038/s42255-020-0266-x(2) Sex cells have a sweet tooth, and they pass it on to the brainby Champalimaud for Centre the Unknown !--/ewebeditor:page--.