acetate tagged posts

Researchers led by Hiroshi Ohno at the RIKEN Center for Integrative Medical Sciences (IMS) in Japan have discovered a new way to reduce obesity. Their study shows that supplying the gut with extra acetate reduces fat and liver mass in both normal and obese mice, as long as bacteria of the Bacteroides species are also present in the gut.

When both these conditions are met, gut bacteria can eliminate more sugars from the gut and promote the burning of fats for energy in the host. The findings were published in Cell Metabolism.

Affecting hundreds of millions of people around the world, obesity constitutes a global epidemic...

Scientists have found a way to bypass the need for biological photosynthesis altogether and create food independent of sunlight by using artificial photosynthesis. The technology,
published in Nature Food, uses a two-step electrocatalytic process to convert CO2, electricity, and water into acetate ( main component if vinegar). Food-producing organisms then consume acetate in the dark to grow. The hybrid organic-inorganic system could increase the conversion efficiency of sunlight into food, up to 18x more efficient for some foods.

Photosynthesis has evolved in plants for millions of years to turn water, carbon dioxide, and the energy from sunlight into pl...

Salmonella bacteria cause about 1.2 million illnesses a year, but a new Stanford study identified a molecule that offers natural protection against the pathogen.
Kateryna Kon/Shutterstock

Researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine have identified a molecule that serves as natural protection against one of the most common intestinal pathogens. Propionate, a byproduct of metabolism by a group of bacteria called the Bacteroides, inhibits the growth of Salmonella in the intestinal tract of mice, according to the researchers. The finding may help to explain why some people are better able to fight infection by Salmonella and other intestinal pathogens and lead to the development of better treatment strategies.

The researchers determined that propionate doesn’t trigger the immune r...

The fruit fly intestine shares much of the same physiology of the human intestine, just simpler and on a smaller scale. Credit: Adam Wong, PhD. Modified from Disease Models & Mechanisms. doi: 10.1242/dmm.023408.

Study teases out how ‘good bacteria’ keep us metabolically fit. The innate immune system, our first line of defense against bacterial infection, has a side job that’s equally important: fine-tuning our metabolism. The study, led by Paula Watnick, MD, PhD, of the Division of Infectious Diseases at Boston Children’s Hospital, reveals that innate immune pathways, best known as our first line of defense against bacterial infection, have a side job that’s equally important.

In the intestine, digestive cells use an innate immune pathway to respond to harmful bacteria...