Shanghai Institute of Materia Medica's Bo Shan explains how metabolic signals shape immune cell phenotypes

Dr. Shan of the Shanghai Institute of Materia Medica gave a lecture on how metabolic signals regulate immune cell phenotypes, linking fat browning and liver regeneration. His team found that deleting the mitochondrial protein LUMP1 in adipocytes blocks cold-induced browning by degrading SDHB and stabilizing succinate, which alters the succinate/α-KG ratio and histone methylation. In liver regeneration, a CD36-positive monocyte-derived macrophage subpopulation takes up lipids, activating the IRE1-XBP1 pathway to raise IL-6 and drive hepatocyte proliferation, with IL-6 rescue restoring proliferation when CD36 or IRE1 is knocked out.