Gastrointestinal system articles within Nature

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  • Letter |

    These authors describe a molecular pathway by which endothelial cells sustain liver regeneration after surgical resection. Activation of vascular endothelial growth factor-A receptor-2 in a defined subpopulation of liver endothelial cells leads to the upregulation of the endothelial-specific transcription factor Id1, which in turn induces Wnt2 and hepatocyte growth factor, which are secreted from the endothelial cells and trigger hepatocyte proliferation.

    • Bi-Sen Ding
    • , Daniel J. Nolan
    •  & Shahin Rafii

  • News & Views |

    Stem cells can renew themselves indefinitely — a feature that is often attributed to asymmetrical cell division. Fresh experimental and mathematical models of the intestine provide evidence that begs to differ.

    • Michael P. Verzi
    •  & Ramesh A. Shivdasani

  • Article |

    Salmonella enterica serotype Typhimurium causes acute gut inflammation, which promotes the growth of the pathogen through unknown mechanisms. It is now shown that the reactive oxygen species generated during inflammation react with host-derived sulphur compounds to produce tetrathionate, which the pathogen uses as a terminal electron acceptor to support its growth. The ability to use tetrathionate provides the pathogen with a competitive advantage over bacteria that lack this property.

    • Sebastian E. Winter
    • , Parameth Thiennimitr
    •  & Andreas J. Bäumler

  • Letter |

    Cells that make up the liver are known to be polyploid. These authors show that mouse hepatocytes can increase and decrease their ploidy in vivo; increases occur as a result of failed cytokinesis, and decreases occur as a result of multipolar mitosis. The resulting genetic heterogeneity might be advantageous following hepatic injury, allowing the selection of 'genetically robust' cells from a pre-existing pool of diverse genotypes.

    • Andrew W. Duncan
    • , Matthew H. Taylor
    •  & Markus Grompe

  • News & Views |

    The daily light–dark cycle affects many aspects of normal physiology through the activity of circadian clocks. It emerges that the pancreas has a clock of its own, which responds to energy fluctuations.

    • Katja A. Lamia
    •  & Ronald M. Evans

  • Article |

    The microbial content of the human gut has been the focus of much research interest recently. Now another layer of complexity has been added: the viral content of the gut. Virus-like particles were isolated from faecal samples from four sets of identical twins and their mothers, at three time points over a one-year period. The viromes (metagenomes) of these particles were then sequenced. The results show that there is high interpersonal variation in viromes, but that intrapersonal diversity was very low over this time period.

    • Alejandro Reyes
    • , Matthew Haynes
    •  & Jeffrey I. Gordon

  • Letter |

    One of the roles of the human gut microbiota is to break down nutrients using bacterial enzymes that are lacking from the human genome. It is now shown that the gut microbiota of Japanese, but not American, individuals contains porphyranases, enzymes that digest sulphated polysaccharides which are present in the marine environment only. These findings indicate that diet can select for gene content of the human microbiota.

    • Jan-Hendrik Hehemann
    • , Gaëlle Correc
    •  & Gurvan Michel

  • News & Views |

    Without the trillions of microbes that inhabit our gut, we can't fully benefit from the components of our diet. But cultural differences in diet may, in part, dictate what food our gut microbiota can digest.

    • Justin L. Sonnenburg

  • News & Views |

    Metabolic disorders such as obesity are characterized by long-term, low-grade inflammation. Under certain conditions, the resident microorganisms of the gut might contribute to this inflammation, resulting in disease.

    • Ping Li
    •  & Gökhan S. Hotamisligil

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