MiTasteFly

Overweight and obesity represent major public health challenges worldwide. Beyond diet and genetics, scientific evidence highlights the gut microbiota as a central regulator of host metabolism, energy storage, and feeding behavior. The discovery of the microbiota-gut-brain axis has revealed complex bidirectional communication between microbial metabolites and host neural circuits that implicate appetite, reward and satiety.

However, the mechanisms by which the microbiota modulates sensory systems, particularly taste perception, the primary checkpoint of feeding behaviour, remain poorly understood. Here, we present MiTasteFly project that aims to understand how microbiota modulates taste perception and feeding behaviour in Drosophila melanogaster. This work goes fit with the second work package of HARMI “Deciphering microbiome-host interactions”.

Understanding this relationship could uncover fundamental principles governing host-microbe impact in feeding and may open new alternatives for microbiota-targeted strategies in obesity prevention in humans.

The project MiTasteFly has three objectives: (WP1) to characterize taste perception and food consumption in absence of microbiota, (WP2) to identify microbial taxa or metabolites that modulate gustatory responses and (WP3) to explore molecular and neural pathways underlying microbiota-taste communication.

Behavioral assays such as PER and flyPAD, and in vivo imaging of neural activity will be used to study the impact of microbial absence on taste sensitivity and feeding to all taste modalities (sweet, salt, bitter, fatty acids, and amino acids). Bacterial identification and transcriptomic analyses will be done to identify strains modulating taste and feeding behavior.

By integrating behavioral, microbial, and neurogenetic approaches, MiTasteFly will bring insights in microbiota– taste interactions. The expected outcomes will provide knowledge into how microbes influence taste-perception-feeding and contribute to energy homeostasis, opening possibilities for “microbiota-directed nutrition” strategies to prevent obesity and metabolic syndrome in human beings.