Gut/Body interactions in health and disease
The adult intestine is a major barrier epithelium and coordinator of multi-organ functions. Stem cells constantly repair the intestinal epithelium by adjusting their proliferation and differentiation to tissue intrinsic as well as micro- and macro-environmental signals. How these signals integrate to control intestinal and whole-body homeostasis is largely unknown. Addressing this gap in knowledge is central to an improved understanding of intestinal pathophysiology and its systemic consequences. Combining Drosophila and mammalian model systems my laboratory has discovered fundamental mechanisms driving intestinal regeneration and tumourigenesis and outlined complex inter-organ signaling regulating health and disease. During my talk, I will discuss inter-related areas of research from my lab, including:1- Interactions between the intestine and its microenvironment influencing intestinal regeneration and tumourigenesis. 2- Long-range signals from the intestine impacting whole-body in health and disease.
Sex, guts and babies: the plasticity of the adult intestine and its neurons
Internal organs constantly exchange signals, and can respond with striking anatomical and functional transformations, even in fully developed organisms. We are exploring the mechanisms that drive and sustain such plasticity using the intestine and its neurons as experimental systems. I will present some of our recent work, which has characterised the enteric nervous system of Drosophila, and has explored its physiological plasticity as well as that of the intestine itself. This work has uncovered unexpected sexual dimorphisms, intestinal contributions to reproductive success and metabolic crosstalk between the gut and the brain. Interestingly, this crosstalk appears to be spatially constrained by the three dimensional arrangement of viscera, revealing a previously unrecognised layer of inter-organ signalling regulation. I may also describe our attempts to explore how broadly applicable our findings may be using mammalian systems.