Bile acids and intestinal lipid sensing

Appropriate food intake is a central component of maintaining body weight. However, the molecular mechanisms that normally control this process, and how it goes awry, are incompletely understood. The gut controls food intake in multiple ways, and one key player is dietary fat. Indeed, it is well established that fat in the intestine suppresses food intake. This proposal tests the role of bile acids, molecules that aid in dietary fat digestion, in gut-based mechanisms of food intake regulation. This work is expected to reveal a new pathway whereby bile acids determine the activity of fat sensors in the distal intestine. Identifying the factors that activate this intestinal fat sensing pathway may provide new opportunities to develop therapeutics for obesity and attendant type 2 diabetes.