Ben-Sahra Lab

2-hydroxyglutarate mediates whitening of brown adipocytes coupled to nuclear softening upon mitochondrial dysfunction - Nature Metabolism CLPP-deficiency-driven mitochondrial dysfunction in brown adipose tissue leads to the accumulation of d-2-hydroxyglutarate, in turn promoting lipid-droplet enlargement by altering gene expression and ...

Wonderful selection of papers on #MitochondrialDisease from #week31!
biomed.news/bims-mitdis/...

@biomednews.bsky.social @gavinmcstay.bsky.social @mitoscientist.bsky.social

A few highlights below, many more inside!
www.nature.com/articles/s42...

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Good Sunday, all. This week was a blast for @cancermetabolism and @mitochondrialbiology. Don't miss the curated issue of papers, check it here: biomed.news/bims-camemi/... @biomednews.bsky.social #keepreading

"There was another life that I might have had, but I am having this one."-Kazuo Ishiguro

With boost to NIH budget, Senate panel rejects Trump’s plan to slash agency Republicans on spending committee push back against proposed reorganization and overhead cuts

The National Institutes of Health’s budget, and structure, would be preserved under a Senate bill for the 2026 fiscal year.

Silencing mitochondrial gene expression in living cells Mitochondria fulfill central functions in metabolism and energy supply. They express their own genome, which encodes key subunits of the oxidative phosphorylation system. However, the central mechanis...

Silencing mitochondrial gene expression in living cells | Science www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

PEX39 facilitates the peroxisomal import of PTS2-containing proteins - Nature Cell Biology Chen et al. show that PEX39 cooperates with PEX7 in the peroxisomal import of proteins containing a PTS2 site and uncover an (R/K)PWE motif in PEX39 and PEX13 that binds to PEX7 and facilitates the im...

Our work on new paradigm in peroxisome biogenesis and PEX39 (1st human peroxisomal biogenesis protein (peroxin/PEX) found in > 20 yr) is out in @natcellbio.nature.com! Equal collab w/Tony Rodrigues (Jorge Azevedo lab), @dwendscheck.bsky.social (Bettina Warscheid lab)

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

ACLY inhibition promotes tumour immunity and suppresses liver cancer - Nature Using metabolic dysfunction-associated steatohepatitis-driven hepatocellular carcinoma mouse models, an ATP citrate lyase inhibitor reduces tumour burden and enhances efficacy of current standards of ...

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

Excited to share our work just published in @natmetabolism.nature.com examining melanoma tumor metabolism in patients and how well this is (and isn’t) conserved in patient-derived xenograft models.

I Was Just About To When My Grant Was Cut. We ask researchers to send us their stories of what they were working on when their research grant was cut. Today, we share the stories of Tashara and Brendan.

Just two of thousands of such stories. substack.com/home/post/p-...

Conservation and divergence of metabolic phenotypes between patient tumours and matched xenografts - Nature Metabolism Rao and Cai et al. perform a detailed metabolic comparison between primary tumours from patients and their matching xenografts, which identify conserved as well as divergent metabolic patterns.

1/Patient-derived xenografts (PDXs) are used in preclinical testing of cancer therapies, including metabolic therapies. We determined which metabolic properties are retained, and which are lost, when melanomas from patients are implanted and passaged as PDXs in mice.
www.nature.com/articles/s42...

An updated inventory of genes essential for oxidative phosphorylation identifies a mitochondrial origin in familial Ménière’s disease Harhai and collaborators expand the catalog of genes essential for oxidative phosphorylation and implicate FAM136A in mitochondrial proteostasis. Their findings suggest a mitochondrial contribution to...

Our updated inventory of genes required for #OXPHOS & findings on #mito defects in #Menieres is now out at Cell Reports! 🎉

🧫 New galactose #CRISPR screen
🎯 481 genes required for #OXPHOS
⚙️ #FAM136A in IMS proteostasis
👂 Mito defects in #Menieres

www.cell.com/cell-reports...

The source of dietary fat influences anti-tumour immunity in obese mice - Nature Metabolism This study shows that animal-based high-fat diets accelerate tumour growth and impair anti-tumour response to melanoma in obese mice, whereas plant-based high-fat diets do not.

This was a labor of love requiring lots of teamwork over years, repeating in 3 locations! Thanks to all the lab over the years, giving their time generously to this team project, & our wonderful collaborators. The source of fat matters for anti-tumor immunity 🐄🐖🧈🌴🫒🥥
www.nature.com/articles/s42...

Restriction of individual branched-chain amino acids has distinct effects on the development and progression of Alzheimers disease in 3xTg mice Dietary protein is a critical regulator of metabolic health and aging in diverse species. Recent discoveries have determined that many benefits of a low protein diet are the result of reduced consumpt...

Pleased to announce the last major project from former graduate student Dr. Babygirija is now available on biorxiv - "Restriction of individual branched-chain amino acids has distinct effects on the development and progression of Alzheimer's disease in 3xTg mice" www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

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Good Sunday all. A beautiful selection of papers in #cancermetabolism and #mitochondrialbiology is ready for you here: biomed.news/bims-camemi/... @biomednews.bsky.social #keepreading

"If your eyes are blinded with your worries, you cannot see the beauty of the sunset." - Jiddu Krishnamurti

2025 Midwest Metabolism Meeting Join us for 2025 Midwest Metabolism Meeting at Van Andel Institute Stay informed about exciting upcoming events and activities.

1/ If you are in the Midwest and ❤️ metabolism, take note!

This year’s Midwest Metabolism meeting will be held jointly with the Translational Research in Mitochondrial Metabolism in Aging and Disease (TRiMAD) conference.

www.vai.org/event/2025-m...

🚨 Don’t forget to register for #RedoxBio25!
The talk submission deadline has been extended to 3rd September 2025!
Abstracts are reviewed on a rolling basis, so don’t wait! Click here and submit now ➡️https://bit.ly/4madW8d
#FusionMetabolism

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Good Sunday all! A great selection of papers in #cancermetabolism and #mitochondrialbiology is waiting for you! Loads of cool science!! biomed.news/bims-camemi/... @biomednews.bsky.social #keepreading

"You are the sky. Everything else—it’s just the weather."
Pema Chödrön

2025 Epigenetics Society International Conference | biomodal In the fast-evolving field of epigenetics, where researchers delve into the intricate mechanics of DNA, RNA, and chromatin to unravel the mysteries of disease

Exciting news! We’re thrilled to have @biomodalhq sponsoring and presenting at www.esconference25.com! Catch their session on how multiomic 6-base sequencing improves early colorectal cancer detection from cell-free DNA.

🔗 biomodal.com/events/2025-...

#epigenetics #cfDNA #colorectalcancer

Excited to be speaking at this fantastic conference alongside an amazing group of scientists! Looking forward to the discussions and discoveries ahead. Don’t miss it! 👇 #FusionConferences #epigenetics #RNA #generegulation

Super excited to share new review on metabolic stress and adaptations in pancreatic cancer to these stresses from @cssheehan.bsky.social
jci.org/articles/vie... 1/6

Congrats, Costas! This is very well deserved!

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.

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

anything that mitochondria are not involved?

Old mitochondria regulate niche renewal via α-ketoglutarate metabolism in stem cells - Nature Metabolism Andersson et al. show that intestinal stem cells enriched for old mitochondria are metabolically distinct and have enhanced ability to regenerate the epithelial niche.

Proudly presenting Simon’s @simonsterson.bsky.social‬ paper on asymmetric apportioning of old mitochondria biasing intestinal stem cells for the Paneth cell linage through aKG-dependent metabolism
@naturemetabolism.bsky.social www.nature.com/articles/s42... @helsinki.fi @metastem.bsky.social 🧵1/8

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Good Sunday, all. There is a very exciting summary of papers in #cancermetabolism and #mitochondrialbiology waiting for you. Find it here: biomed.news/bims-camemi/... @biomednews.bsky.social #keepreading

"The mind is not a vessel to be filled, but a fire to be kindled."
-Plutarch

Inspired predominantly by insightful cryo-EM structures from Yanhui Xu’s lab and @drellisdon.bsky.social on the TSC protein complex, which we have been focused on the regulation of upstream of mTORC1 for 23 years and counting. Enjoy!

Super excited to share my final postdoc paper from Rabinowitz lab- on how whole-body and tissue metabolism changes in viral infection!
pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/40581045/

Oxidative Phosphorylation in Uncoupled Mitochondria Brown adipose tissue (BAT) mediates non-shivering thermogenesis (NST) through activation of uncoupling protein 1 (UCP1). Due to the uncoupled nature of BAT, oxidative phosphorylation is an underappre....

We wrote a thing or two on Oxidative Phosphorylation in Uncoupled Mitochondria 🔥 onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

mTOR controls ependymal cell differentiation by targeting the alternative cell cycle and centrosomal proteins | EMBO reports imageimagemTORC1 governs multiciliated cell (MCC) differentiation by favoring progression through a cell cycle variant without DNA replication and by acting on cytolinker proteins for centriole disjun...

A nice collaboration with Nathalie Spassky to discover how mTOR complex 1 harnesses cell growth and cell cycle machinery to multiply centrioles during ependymal cell differentiation
www.embopress.org/doi/full/10....

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Good Sunday, all! there is a beautiful selection of papers in #cancermetabolism and #mitochondrialbiology waiting for you! biomed.news/bims-camemi/... @biomednews.bsky.social #keepreading

"It's not what you look at that matters, it's what you see." -Henry David Thoreau

Excited to share this preprint from my lab. We report a potent and site-specific inhibition of translation initiation by 2’O methylation.

It’s been a though year, but these discoveries keep us excited and motivated! #RNAsky #RNAbiology

Congrats, Xin! 🎉