ArticleCell metabolism2022
BefA, a microbiota-secreted membrane disrupter, disseminates to the pancreas and increases β cell mass.
Article in Cell metabolism, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 14 papers.
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Who cites it
14 citing papers in PubMed, 25 citations in OpenAlex.
- Lighting the way: how the squid-Vibrio model can inform thermal impacts on symbiotic dynamics.The Journal of experimental biology · 2026Review
- Declining FXR expression coordinates neonatal beta cell mass development with microbial bile acid metabolism maturation in mice.Diabetologia · 2026Article
- Genetic recording of pancreatic beta cell proliferation.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2026Article
- Using animal models to decipher the role of polyamines in the pancreas and β Cell.Amino acids · 2026Review
- Structural basis for human RegⅢα filament formation.Communications chemistry · 2026Article
- MyD88 knockdown by RNAi prevents bacterial stimulation of tubeworm metamorphosis.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2025Article
- Article
- Neonatal fungi promote lifelong metabolic health through macrophage-dependent β cell development.Science (New York, N.Y.) · 2025Article
- Article
- β-cell heterogeneity and molecular plasticity in type 2 diabetes: multi-omics perspectives and the role of gut microbiota.Frontiers in cell and developmental biology · 2025Review
- Phollow: Visualizing Gut Bacteriophage Transmission within Microbial Communities and Living Animals.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2024Article
- Human-gut bacterial protein-protein interactions: understudied but impactful to human health.Trends in microbiology · 2024Review
- Inter-kingdom communication and the sympoietic way of life.Frontiers in cell and developmental biology · 2024Article
- Healthcare is not about health.FASEB bioAdvances · 2023Article
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Authors and funding
13 authors at 4 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
Abstract
Microbiome dysbiosis is a feature of diabetes, but how microbial products influence insulin production is poorly understood. We report the mechanism of BefA, a microbiome-derived protein that increases proliferation of insulin-producing β cells during development in gnotobiotic zebrafish and mice. BefA disseminates systemically by multiple anatomic routes to act directly on pancreatic islets. We detail BefA's atomic structure, containing a lipid-binding SYLF domain, and demonstrate that it permeabilizes synthetic liposomes and bacterial membranes. A BefA mutant impaired in membrane disruption fails to expand β cells, whereas the pore-forming host defense protein, Reg3, stimulates β cell proliferation. Our work demonstrates that membrane permeabilization by microbiome-derived and host defense proteins is necessary and sufficient for β cell expansion during pancreas development, potentially connecting microbiome composition with diabetes risk.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the Socratic graph.