Feyza Engin

How disabling one gene protects mice against Type 1 diabetes UW–Madison researchers have discovered a mechanism that could one day help people at risk of developing the metabolic disease.

In collaboration with @enginlab.bsky.social, Khahani Eynullazada, a grad student from @sroyyors.bsky.social Lab identified gene regulatory networks capturing shared and perturbation-specific stress pathways in Type 1 diabetes using GRN inference tools on scRNA-seq data from in vivo mouse models.

Our latest now published in @natcomms.nature.com, where we found a new role for mitochondrial programming of SC-β cell fate through PPARα.

We're excited for the potential to target mitochondria to improve SC-islets to treat #T1D!

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

He is very kind 🙂 @danieljdrucker.bsky.social

It was a pleasure. We thank you and your team!

We extend our sincere gratitude to our outstanding collaborator, Sushmita Roy, her team, the reviewers, and the editor. Congratulations to all authors!

Defining the role of β-cell IRE1α/XBP1 pathway and its gene regulatory network components in non-obese diabetic mice - Nature Communications Modulating the unfolded protein response (UPR) can induce protective dedifferentiation of β-cells in non-obese diabetic mice. Here, the authors show that β-cell deletion of UPR transcription factor XB...

Our new paper is out now in Nature Communications! We uncovered the function of XBP1 in beta cells of a preclinical model of T1D and identified unique and shared gene regulatory networks driven by IRE1 and XBP1.

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

LONP1 regulation of mitochondrial protein folding provides insight into beta cell failure in type 2 diabetes - Nature Metabolism LONP1, whose expression is downregulated in islets from donors with type 2 diabetes, is vital to mediate efficient mitochondrial protein folding, thus preventing proteotoxicity and promoting islet β c...

Type 2 diabetes is often considered a protein misfolding disease. But where are these toxic proteins found? 🤔

🚨In new work out today in @natmetabolism.nature.com, we show that mitochondrial protein misfolding (yes mitos🤯) leads to beta cell damage in T2D. 🚨 nature.com/articles/s42... 1/n

The antigen presentation landscape of cytokine-stressed human pancreatic islets Nanaware et al. characterize peptides presented by MHC proteins in inflamed human pancreatic islets and test them for reactivity with CD4 and CD8 T cells from patients with T1D. These results identify...

Inflammation, unfolded protein response, and secretory hormone processing create #T1D epitopes in human cytokine-treated #islets www.cell.com/cell-reports...

Mitochondrial origins of the pressure to sleep - Nature Research on Drosophila neurons shows links between the need to sleep and aerobic metabolism, indicating that the pressure to sleep may have a mitochondrial origin.

Really interesting www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Localized GLP1 receptor pre-internalization directs pancreatic alpha cell to beta cell communication Tong et al. utilize advanced imaging approaches to reveal that beta cells located next to alpha cells are specially adapted as glucagon sensors by virtue of their high expression levels of GLP1R. Thes...

Localized GLP1 receptor pre-internalization directs pancreatic alpha cell to beta cell communication: Cell Metabolism www.cell.com/cell-metabol...

Mitohormesis links physical exercise and subsequent formation of reactive oxygen species to insulin sensitivity and antioxidant defense.

One of the most-viewed PNAS articles in the last week is “Antioxidants prevent health-promoting effects of physical exercise in humans.” Explore the article here: www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

For more trending articles, visit ow.ly/Me2U50SkLRZ.

Verapamil and low-dose anti-mouse thymocyte globulin combination therapy stably reverses recent-onset type 1 diabetes in NOD mice by acting on the beta cell and immune axes - Diabetologia Aims/hypothesis Verapamil, a calcium channel blocker, and low doses of anti-thymocyte globulin (ATG) have individually shown efficacy in preserving beta cell function in people with recent-onset sympt...

The combination of verapamil and low-dose mATG outperformed monotherapy in reversing recent-onset type 1 #diabetes in NOD mice #T1D @diabetologiajnl.bsky.social link.springer.com/article/10.1...

Nearly 1 in 3 teens have prediabetes, CDC finds, in ‘wake-up call’ Nearly 1 in 3 American adolescents have prediabetes, a CDC report finds. An official notes "it’s not too late to change course."

About 1 in 3 young people who are 12 to 17 years old have prediabetes, new national data show, putting them at risk not just for type 2 diabetes but also for heart disease and stroke.
www.statnews.com/2025/07/09/p...

ROS transfer at peroxisome-mitochondria contact regulates mitochondrial redox Maintenance of mitochondrial redox homeostasis is of fundamental importance to cellular health. Mitochondria harbor a host of intrinsic antioxidant defenses, but the contribution of extrinsic, nonmito...

www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Enhancing autophagy by redox regulation extends lifespan in Drosophila - Nature Communications Redox signalling is emerging as an important regulator of metabolism and physiology, which is dysregulated in ageing and disease. Here, the authors show that redox regulation of a key redox sensitive ...

🎉Excited to share our latest paper, published in Nature Communications!🎉

"Enhancing autophagy by redox regulation extends lifespan in Drosophila"

#redox #metabolism #ageing #Drosophila

@natcomms.nature.com @mrc-lms.bsky.social

doi.org/10.1038/s414...

Drug Repurposing Screen Identifies an HRI Activating Compound that Promotes Adaptive Mitochondrial Remodeling in MFN2-deficient Cells Pathogenic variants in the mitochondrial outer membrane GTPase MFN2 cause the peripheral neuropathy Charcot-Marie-Tooth Type 2A (CMT2A). These mutations disrupt MFN2-dependent regulation of diverse as...

New work from the lab (w/ @preronabora.bsky.social @mashiatzaman.bsky.social @mitomorph.bsky.social @nanigrotjahn.bsky.social) identifying a compound that activates OMA1-DELE1-HRI signaling to induce mitochondrial remodeling in MFN2-deficient cells. Check it out 👇
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Mice lacking this amino acid lost 30% of their body weight But eliminating cysteine, which is found in high-protein foods, from human diets would be challenging.

Mice lacking this amino acid lost 30% body weight www.nature.com/articles/d41... Am I missing something? Mice engineered to have a specific and severe defect in amino acid metabolism get sick and lose weight. Might the rush to find new weight loss targets be impairing our critical faculties ?

Quiescent cell re-entry is limited by macroautophagy-induced lysosomal damage Lysosomes are damaged in quiescent cells, and UPR regulators, IRE-1/XBP-1, promote lysosome repair for cell-cycle re-entry. Lysosome damage in quiescent cells is caused in part by macroautophagy and i...

Quiescent cell re-entry is limited by macroautophagy-induced lysosomal damage: Cell www.cell.com/cell/fulltex...

Mitochondria-organelle crosstalk in establishing compartmentalized metabolic homeostasis Mitochondria serve as central hubs in cellular metabolism by sensing, integrating, and responding to metabolic demands. This integrative function is a…

Happy to share our most recent review on mitochondria-organelle metabolic communication with Yatrik Shah and Costas Lyssiotis now online at Molecular Cell!

We explored aspect of lipid transfer, organelle membrane contacts, ROS, metabolites, and metals!

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Be on the lookout for a new paper from the lab:

"iCLAP: A high-plex immunostaining with high sensitivity for co-detection of low-abundance antigens".

In this paper, we introduce ICLAP to detect and spatially map low-abundance proteins, such as senescence markers, in FFPE tissue sections.

STING mediates lysosomal quality control and recovery through its proton channel function and TFEB activation in lysosomal storage disorders STING signaling in the innate immune system is well known for its role in the antiviral type I interferon response. Tang et al. find that STING acts as an immune sensor of lysosomal activity. When the lysosome becomes defective, STING is activated and exerts a dual function that induces both immune signaling and lysosomal biogenesis.

Online Now: STING mediates lysosomal quality control and recovery through its proton channel function and TFEB activation in lysosomal storage disorders Online now:

New preprint drop! Check out work from @jimmy-ly.bsky.social et al for how protein isoforms generated by alternate translation initiation create dual localization, contribute to mitochondrial function, and are mutated in disease. "Blue-tutorial" thread below.

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Huo, Wang et al. reveal that #adipocytes experiencing endoplasmic reticulum stress secrete #ceramide in lipoprotein form to #hepatocytes, activating the unfolded protein response by reducing membrane fluidity. rupress.org/jcb/article/...
#ER_literature

Plasticity of the mammalian integrated stress response Nature - A study describes the split integrated stress response, a cellular stress response mechanism characterized by reduced eIF2B activity without eIF2α phosphorylation, which activates the...

Beautiful work by my colleague and friend Maria Hatzoglou 🎉

rdcu.be/efdpL

Proud to share the work of my forst ever PhD student and first author of this paper @dylanduerre.bsky.social!! Here, he summarizes it perfectly! #brownfat #metabolism #BCAA #heme @uwmadison.bsky.social @uofutahcihd.bsky.social

Enhancing the Cre-loxP system: Two new genetic tools – roxCre and loxCre – can improve the performance of the Cre-loxP system for making genetic modifications in vivo.
elifesciences.org/reviewed-pre...

BASTA, a simple whole-blood assay for measuring β cell antigen–specific CD4+ T cell responses in type 1 diabetes β cell antigen–specific CD4+ T cell responses in children with T1D can be measured using a simple whole-blood assay.

www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

How Metabolism Can Shape Cells’ Destinies | Quanta Magazine A growing body of work suggests that cell metabolism — the chemical reactions that provide energy and building materials — plays a vital, overlooked role in the first steps of life.

www.quantamagazine.org/how-metaboli...
Seems like a good time to remind you of an upcoming meeting on this exact topic:
www.keystonesymposia.org/conferences/...

Endocrine-exocrine miR-503-322 drives aging-associated pancreatitis via targeting MKNK1 in acinar cells - Nature Communications Aging is the risk factor for chronic pancreatitis and its acute attack. Here, the authors show that exocrine acinar cells received endocrine β-cell-derived miR-503-322 and caused pancreas autodigestio...

Modulating the liberation of miR-503-322 which is secreted as small extracellular vesicles from senescent β-cells, to enter and damage exocrine acinar cells may provide preventive and therapeutic strategies for aging-associated pancreatitis @naturecomms.bsky.social www.nature.com/articles/s41...