Penn Vet Researcher Publishes Paper on the Relationship between Calorie Restriction and Intestinal Regeneration

When mice were allowed to eat without limit and were then exposed to radiation, their intestinal cells’ (in red) regeneration was limited (left). Mice fed a calorie-restricted diet showed a greatly enhanced regenerative capacity in their intestinal tissue (right).

Christopher Lengner, Ph.D., associate professor in Penn’s School of Veterinary Medicine, along with lead author Maryam Yousefi (Penn graduate student) and researchers from Penn and China Agricultural University, has published a paper in Stem Cell Reports. Building on research that shows that animals fed calorie-restricted diets exhibit a better ability to regenerate tissue after injury, these researchers focused their work on finding the stem cell responsible for tissue regeneration in the intestines after the calorie-restricted subject (a mouse) had undergone radiation; they have pinpointed the particular stem cell as the reserve stem cell.

For more information on the research and its findings, please read Katherine Unger Baillie’s press release.