Abstract
In all metazoans, the intestinal tract is an essential organ to integrate nutritional signaling, hormonal cues and immunometabolic networks. The dysregulation of intestinal epithelium functions can impact organism physiology and, in humans, leads to devastating and complex diseases, such as inflammatory bowel diseases, intestinal cancers, and obesity. Two decades ago, the discovery of an immune response in the intestine of the genetic model system, Drosophila melanogaster, sparked interest in using this model organism to dissect the mechanisms that govern gut (patho) physiology in humans. In 2007, the finding of the intestinal stem cell lineage, followed by the development of tools available for its manipulation in vivo, helped to elucidate the structural organization and functions of the fly intestine and its similarity with mammalian gastrointestinal systems. To date, studies of the Drosophila gut have already helped to shed light on a broad range of biological questions regarding stem cells and their niches, interorgan communication, immunity and immunometabolism, making the Drosophila a promising model organism for human enteric studies. This review summarizes our current knowledge of the structure and functions of the Drosophila melanogaster intestine, asserting its validity as an emerging model system to study gut physiology, regeneration, immune defenses and host-microbiota interactions.
Highlights
The structure and function of the gastrointestinal (GI) tract are broadly conserved in metazoans [1]
Given that the intestinal epithelium acts as a barrier against the external environment, it consistently enters into contact with bacteria that can be beneficial or harmful to the host
Since this review focuses on the contribution of the Drosophila model system as an emerging model system to study intestinal physiology in health and disease, we will report the recent contributions to the field of immunometabolism coming from studies carried out in the Drosophila gut model
Summary
The structure and function of the gastrointestinal (GI) tract are broadly conserved in metazoans [1]. The intestinal epithelial cells (IECs) deploy several immune response strategies such as innate immune receptor families that recognize specific microbe-associated molecular patterns (MAMPs) and in turn activate cellular immune signaling strategies that include the production of microbicidal reactive anionic species and other antimicrobial molecules such as antimicrobial peptides [10,11,12] These immune responses must be tightly regulated because a constant activation of the immune system (inflammation) may result in pathological conditions such as inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) and might lead to tumorigenesis [13,14]. We will discuss similarities between the Drosophila and human intestinal epithelium and how conservation of the gut biology has allowed researchers to efficiently apply the Drosophila midgut as a model system to study gut physiology, regeneration, immune defenses, and homeostatic host-microbiota interactions. Barriers such as the peritrophic membrane within Drosophila melanogaster and the mucus within humans prevent direct contact between intestinal epithelial cells and gut bacteria
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