Nutrigenomic regulation of sensory plasticity.

Diet profoundly influences brain physiology, but how metabolic information is transmuted into neural activity and behavior changes remains elusive. This integration of nutritional and activity information changes the taste neurons' responses to sugar and the flies' ability to sense sweetness.

⚡ This is an original paraphrased summary — not copied from the abstract. Full paper available at the source link below.

• 1 Here, we show that the metabolic enzyme O-GlcNAc Transferase (OGT) moonlights on the chromatin of the gustatory neurons to instruct changes in chromatin accessibility and transcription that underlie sensory adaptations to a high-sugar diet.
• 2 OGT works synergistically with the Mitogen Activated Kinase/Extracellular signal Regulated Kinase (MAPK/ERK) rolled and its effector stripe (also known as EGR2 or Krox20) to integrate activity information.
• 3 OGT also cooperates with the epigenetic silencer Polycomb Repressive Complex 2.1 (PRC2.1) to decrease chromatin accessibility and repress transcription in the high-sugar diet.

Understanding this could lead to better treatments, improved diagnostics, or a deeper grasp of how the human body works — benefiting patient care globally.

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