Intestinal Cells (image)
Caption
The cellular structure of the intestine responds to specific nutrients in the diet. Here, a fruit fly gut is shown--each blue circle is the nucleus of an intestinal cell--which has doubled its normal number of hormone-producing cells (pink dots) following a diet high in cholesterol. The paper by Obniski, Sieber, and Spradling reports such changes in several tissues, shows they have long-lasting effects on metabolism and cancer susceptibility, and documents the likely underlying mechanism.
Credit
Carnegie's Rebecca Obniski, Matthew Sieber, and Allan Spradling
Usage Restrictions
With credit