Authors
Yukana Nakamura, Motohiro Morikawa, Tomomi Takano, Sa Kan Yoo
Published in
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. Volume 123. Issue 32. Pages e2602724123. Aug 11, 2026. Epub Aug 04, 2026.
Abstract
Cells must continuously adapt their internal state to fluctuating nutritional environments. For the adaptation, cells sense distinct nutrients through specific molecular signals, such as the insulin and mTOR pathways. Here, in addition to the conventional nutrient-sensing mechanisms, we reveal a mechanistic layer by which gut enterocytes respond to dietary contents, demonstrating that nutritional components in food regulate cytoplasmic fluidity, a fundamental biophysical property and determine cellular status. We found that the quantity, rather than the quality, of amino acids alters the nanoscale cytoplasmic fluidity in Drosophila enterocytes and the frequency of erebosis, a nonapoptotic cell death mediating intestinal cell turnover. Manipulating cytoplasmic fluidity through several independent inert small viscogen molecules affects erebosis, indicating that intracellular fluidity can directly control cell fate decisions. We propose that intracellular nanoscale fluidity represents a fundamental principle for enterocytes to detect and adapt to dietary components, providing a biophysical basis for cellular homeostasis in vivo.
PMID:
42550902
Bibliographic data and abstract were imported from PubMed on 05 Aug 2026.
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