• Bioengineers visualize fat storage in fr

    From ScienceDaily@1:317/3 to All on Tue Apr 19 22:30:44 2022
    Bioengineers visualize fat storage in fruit flies

    Date:
    April 19, 2022
    Source:
    University of California - San Diego
    Summary:
    A new visualization technique is being used to untangle often
    discussed, yet mysterious, links between diet and things like
    obesity, diabetes and aging.



    FULL STORY ==========================================================================
    For the first time, researchers have visually monitored, in high
    resolution, the timing and location of fat storage within the intact
    cells of fruit flies.

    The new optical imaging tool from the lab of bioengineering professor
    Lingyan Shi at the University of California San Diego is already being
    used to untangle often discussed, yet mysterious, links between diet
    and things like obesity, diabetes and aging.The work from bioengineers
    at the UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering is published in the
    journal Aging Cell.


    ==========================================================================
    The optical microscopy platform developed by the UC San Diego bioengineers
    is unique. It allows the researchers to visually track, in high resolution within fat cells, how specific dietary changes affect the way flies
    turn the energy from their food into fat. The tool also allows the
    researchers to monitor the reverse process of changing fat back into
    energy. In addition, the researchers can now visually monitor changes
    in size in individual fat-storage "containers" within the class of fruit
    fly cells that is analogous to mammalian fat (adipose) cells.

    In the new paper in Aging Cell, the researchers demonstrated the ability
    to visually track changes in fat (lipid) metabolism in flies after
    they were put on a wide range of different diets. The diets included calorie-restricted diets, high protein diets, and diets with twice,
    four-times, and ten-times the sugar of a standard diet.

    "With our new optical microscopy system, we can see both where and when
    fats are being put into storage and taken out of storage," said Shi, the bioengineering professor at UC San Diego who is the corresponding senior
    author on the new paper. "This is the first imaging technology that can visualize fat metabolism at high resolution in both space and time within individual fat cells. We have demonstrated that we can see both where
    and when lipid metabolism changes within individual fruit fly fat body
    cells in response to dietary changes." "Interest in optimizing the human
    diet is intense," Shi continued. "People want answers to questions like,
    'What are the best diets to slow aging? What are the best diets for
    losing weight? What are the best diets for extending health span?' I
    don't yet have answers to these questions, but in my lab, we develop
    new technologies that are getting us closer to answering some of the big dietary questions out there." In the new work in Aging Cell, for example,
    the researchers report a new way to answer questions like: How much does
    a specific diet, such as a high-protein diet, or a high-sugar diet,
    or a calorie-restricted diet, alter a fruit fly's process of turning
    energy from food into fat? And how much do these same diets affect a
    fruit fly's process of turning fat back into energy?


    ==========================================================================
    "We developed this tool to help us untangle the relationships between diet
    and phenomena like obesity, diabetes, aging, and longevity," said Shi.

    Tracking the size of fat droplets within intact fruit fly cells is one
    example of what's possible with the new visualization platform.

    "Droplet size is a way to track how much of the stored fat is 'turning
    over' or getting converted back into energy. This is an important
    aspect of lipid metabolism, and we now have a tool that allows us to
    track changes in the size of specific lipid droplets within individual
    cells of fruit flies," said Yajuan Li, MD. PhD, who is a postdoctoral researcher in the Shi lab at UC San Diego and the first author on the
    paper in Aging Cell.

    Heavy water The new visualization platform builds on some of Shi's
    earlier work using a variation on regular water, called heavy water or
    (D2O). Heavy water is, literally, heavier than regular water. Heavy water molecules contain one oxygen atom like regular water. But in place of
    the pair of hydrogen atoms -- the "H2" in "H20" -- heavy water contains
    a pair of heavier deuterium atoms.



    ==========================================================================
    Like "regular" water, heavy water is freely incorporated into cells in
    living organisms. So when the researchers provide heavy water to a fruit
    fly, and then that fruit fly begins to convert energy from its food
    into fat molecules to be stored, some of those fat molecules contain
    deuterium. In this way, the prevalence of deuterium atoms in lipids
    stored within the fat cells of fruit flies provides a way to measure
    how much fat that fly has stored.

    By changing a fly's diet at the same time that you introduce heavy water,
    you have a way to monitor how the diet changes lipid turnover. More
    details on how the system works are in this 2021 profile, in which Shi
    said, "When we are developing a new technology, a new tool, it will
    definitely inspire us to ask new biological questions." When it comes
    to understanding the connections between diet composition and lipid
    metabolism, the new biological questions are bringing researchers back
    to some of the oldest and most intriguing questions about links between
    diet and obesity, diabetes, aging and longevity.

    NIH, Grant/Award Number: U54 pilot grant 2U54CA132378; Jacobs School of Engineering, University of California San Diego; Hellman Fellow Award
    from UC San Diego

    ========================================================================== Story Source: Materials provided by
    University_of_California_-_San_Diego. Note: Content may be edited for
    style and length.


    ========================================================================== Journal Reference:
    1. Yajuan Li, Wenxu Zhang, Anthony A. Fung, Lingyan Shi. DO‐SRS
    imaging of diet regulated metabolic activities in Drosophila during
    aging processes. Aging Cell, 2022; 21 (4) DOI: 10.1111/acel.13586 ==========================================================================

    Link to news story: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/04/220419140735.htm

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