Bioengineers visualize timing and location of fat storage in fruit flies

For the first time, researchers have been able to observe the timing and location of fat storage in fruit flies. A new tool from the lab of a professor at the University of California San Diego is being used to untangle links between diet and diseases like diabetes and aging. The work from bioengineers at the UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering was published in the journal Aging Cell.

The UC San Diego bioengineers created a unique platform for optical microscopy. It allows the researchers to track how specific diet changes affect the way flies turn energy from their food into fat. Researchers can use the tool 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 mammal fat (adipose) cells.

In the new paper in Aging Cell, the researchers demonstrated the ability to visually track changes in fat metabolism in flies after they 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 The diet included a number of different diet plans, including a high-fat diet with twice the sugar of a standard diet, and a diet with ten times the sugar.

The senior author on the new paper, Shi, the bioengineering professor at UC San Diego, said that with the new optical microscopy system, they can see where fats are being put into storage and taken out of storage. We have shown that we can see where and when individual fruit fly fat body cells change in response to diet.

People want answers to questions like what are the best diet to slow aging. What are the best ways to lose weight? I don't have answers to these questions, but in my lab we develop new technologies that are getting us closer to answering some of the big questions out there.

In the new work, 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, affect a fruit fly? How much does a fruit fly benefit from the same diet?

We developed this tool to help untangle the relationships between diet and phenomena like aging and diabetes.

Tracking the size of fat droplets within intact fruit fly cells is an example of what can be done with the new visualization platform.

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

The water is heavy.

The new visualization platform builds on some of Shi's earlier work using a variation on regular water called heavy water. Heavy water is heavier than regular water. Heavy water has an oxygen atom like regular water. Heavy water contains a pair of heavier deuterium atoms.

Heavy water is incorporated into living organisms like regular water. When researchers give a fruit fly heavy water, it will start to convert energy from its food into fat to be stored, and some of those fat molecule contain deuterium. The prevalence of deuterium atoms in the fat cells of fruit flies gives a way to measure how much fat there is.

By changing a fly's diet at the same time that you introduce heavy water, you can monitor how the diet changes. Shi said that when we are developing a new technology, a new tool, it will definitely inspire us to ask new biological questions.

Some of the oldest and most intriguing questions about links between diet and fat, diabetes, aging and longevity are being brought back to life by the new biological questions.

More information: Yajuan Li et al, DO‐SRS imaging of diet regulated metabolic activities in Drosophila during aging processes, Aging Cell (2022). DOI: 10.1111/acel.13586 Journal information: Aging Cell Citation: Bioengineers visualize timing and location of fat storage in fruit flies (2022, April 15) retrieved 15 April 2022 from https://phys.org/news/2022-04-bioengineers-visualize-fat-storage-fruit.html This document is subject to copyright. Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose of private study or research, no part may be reproduced without the written permission. The content is provided for information purposes only.