© Catherine Socha. Drosophila epithelium. An enterocyte (green) dumps its damaged contents into the intestinal lumen. Also visible are actin filaments (red) and DNA .
Though purging is not prescribed as often as it was centuries ago, intestinal cells known as enterocytes frequently resort to this age-old remedy. Researchers from the Immune Response and Development in Insects (CNRS), Molecular Immunorheumatology (INSERM / Université de Strasbourg), and PAM Food Science and Microbiological Processes (AgroSup Dijon / Université de Bourgogne) laboratories have demonstrated that enterocytes attacked by pathogenic bacteria rapidly purge themselves of most of their contents. This protects them from infection and leads to a drastic though temporary thinning of the intestinal lining, or epithelium. This work, published on November 23 in Cell Host & Microbe , may eventually shed light on inflammatory bowel diseases like Crohn's disease. Serratia marcescens is an opportunistic bacterium common throughout our environment. Drosophila flies fed a steady diet of S. marcescens die in days. However, analysis of the intestinal epithelium every 24 hours reveals no apparent damage.
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