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Lipid droplets - have they been investigated in ME? Should they be?

Discussion in 'Other health news and research' started by Ravn, Oct 24, 2020.

  1. Ravn

    Ravn Senior Member (Voting Rights)

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    The existence of lipid droplets in cells is nothing new. But it now seems they could have more functions than previously thought: they may play key roles in innate immune response and in regulating cell metabolism.

    The only search result I got for 'lipid droplets + ME?CFS' is this 2017 presentation by Naviaux about Dauer in C.elegans. So unless I missed something this hasn't been a major line of enquiry in ME. Should it be? Or unlikely to be relevant?

    https://d1qwuymb7uy402.cloudfront.n.../05/Naviaux-CFS-For-CDC-Talk-5-25-17v3s-2.pdf

    The following two papers have nothing to do with ME but are basic science investigations into lipid droplet function in response to bacterial and viral infections (my paragraph breaks).
    Mammalian lipid droplets are innate immune hubs integrating cell metabolism and host defense
    Marta Bosch et al. Science,16 Oct 2020
    https://science.sciencemag.org/content/370/6514/eaay8085
    (Preprint) Intracellular Lipid Droplet Accumulation Occurs Early Following Viral Infection and Is Required for an Efficient Interferon Response
    EA Monson, KM Crosse, M Duan, W Chen, RD O’Shea, LM Wakim, DR Whelan, KJ Helbig
    bioRxiv 2020.02.12.946749; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.02.12.946749
    https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.02.12.946749v1
     
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  2. Hutan

    Hutan Moderator Staff Member

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    It's new stuff on the immune responses - those two papers in @Ravn's post are 2020 ones. The following New Scientist article (also very recent - 15 Oct) is a readable account of lipid droplets:
    Read more: https://www.newscientist.com/articl...e-proteins-to-fight-infections/#ixzz6bmRzQVva
    The researchers involved in that work thought the lipid droplets helped kill some bacteria, not viruses. Whereas the Monson et al paper was looking at anti-virus mechanisms.

    From the New Scientist article:
    “We now have whole conferences looking just at the lipid droplets and all the associated processes.”
    :)
     
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  3. Ravn

    Ravn Senior Member (Voting Rights)

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    There's even a glimmer of hope we may, eventually and indirectly, learn more about the role of lipid droplets in ME. Their role in active Covid19 has caught the eye of researchers. With any luck this will lead to some of them looking into their role in long Covid, and with a great deal of luck this might tell us something about ME.

    Lipid droplets fuel SARS-CoV-2 replication and production of inflammatory mediators (my bolding and line breaks)
    Suelen da Silva Gomes Dias et al.
    (preprint) bioRxiv 2020.08.22.262733; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.08.22.262733
     
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  4. Mithriel

    Mithriel Senior Member (Voting Rights)

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    I may be reading it wrong, but if they help fight infections and help aerobic metabolism a virus that could switch them off, or an enterovirus that replicates to fill the cell but carries on living there instead of bursting the cell wall might cause a problem with aerobic respiration... ME! (not scientific !!!)
     
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