Edgar Lab

Research focus

NIH R01 · 2024

Sex steroid signaling and adaptive growth of the intestine

PROJECT SUMMARY Sex-specific steroid hormones control cell growth and proliferation in reproductive organs including the ovaries, breast, uterus, prostate and testes. But how they impact non-reproductive organs is less well known. Considering the sex-biased incidence of many common diseases (e.g. colorectal and gastric cancer), the physiological effects of steroid signaling on the non-sex organs probably have profound health-relevance. We discovered that the Drosophila steroid hormone, 20-hydroxy-ecdysone (20HE), promotes intestinal stem cell (ISC) proliferation and adaptive organ growth, causing the female fly’s intestine to nearly double in size after mating (4). 20HE is produced by the…

From the public funding record at NIH RePORTER. Describes the funded project, not the reviews below.