23.10.2026 Publication alert - High-fat diet-derived metabolite uridine diphosphate (UDP) impairs epithelial regeneration by P2Y6-receptor signaling

Paper Alert! 🥳

But one question first - so, how much chocolate and chips did you have during the last week? 🍫

We all are aware that being overweight is not really healthy for various reasons, but did you know that obesity is associated with a chronic low-grade inflammation affecting metabolic changes and organ dysfunction?

And did you know that changes in the intestine, especially in the epithelial barrier and in the microbes living in the intestine, are considered to contribute to this? But we don’t know how….

In this new publications, Nicolas Schlegel (UKW), together with Christoph Otto and other researchers from Würzburg, used a diet-induced obesity model in rats to investigate the early interplay between a high-fat diet, gut microbiota composition, metabolic stool contents and regeneration of the intestine epithelial barrier. 🐀

A high-fat diet did not only result in weight gain and impaired oral glucose tolerance, but the impairment of the epithelial barrier function was evident by changed lipopolysaccharide levels in the blood and reduced expression of junctional proteins.

Additionally, there was a decreased diversity in microbes. 🦠🧫

Detailed profiling identified specific metabolites, that are key for mediating epithelial regeneration, are strongly changed in those rats. 📈

This paper shows a link between impaired epithelial regeneration to the onset of obesity-associated low-grade inflammation. Interestingly, desmosome integrity is involved in this process…😯👩‍🔬

Read the full paper here