Cell Stem Cell: Revealing the gastric mechanism of metformin! Scientists have found that metformin regulates the metabolism of stomach stem cells, promoting the conversion of stem cells into cells that secrete stomach acid to protect the stomach

The effect of this drug was unearthed, and it is against the Chinese's health enemy, stomach cancerA recent study published in Cell Stem Cell shows that metformin regulates the metabolism of stem cells in the stomach, causing them to differentiate into parietal Cell, which produces stomach acidto prevent Helicobacter pylori, the biggest carcinogenic factor of stomach cancer, the stomach wall cells secreted the appropriate amount of stomach acid is essential, so metformin through this pathway, played a stomach-care effect, which may explain the use of metformin and stomach cancer risk, as well as some gastrointestinal side effects of the drugThe main conclusions at a glancein fact, there have long been studies pointed out that the risk of gastric cancer in diabetic patients taking metformin is low, after all, the people who take the drug is really enough, the data is good to findA new analysis by a team at the University of Hong Kong last year showed that if you start eating metformin after the hicill infection was eradicated, it is associated with a 51% drop in the risk of stomach cancersuch a large decline in risk, almost beyond the data of any previous study of its kind, it is necessary to dig deepThe team at Washington University in StLouis, who carried out the study, thought of stem cells in the stomachgastric cancer is not originating from stem cells, in medical research is very controversial, but stem cells by differentiation into a variety of different cells, the stomach mucosal epithelial stable maintenance effect, is certainly closely related to stomach cancerBut stem cell behavior is certainly affected by a number of factors, including metabolismwhat doesand metformin do? It's about regulating metabolismIf metformin "punishes the weak" stem cells in the stomach, which allows the stem cells to differentiate more cells that protect the stomach, it can explain the effect of gastric protectionThe cells in the stomach are actually very complex (Picture: Biomedicines)how to verify this hypothesis? The first step is to single out the cells that protect the stomach to see if their gene expression reflects transcriptional changes associated with metformin regulation, such as the classic AMPK metabolic pathway the target of the team's analysis are stomach wall cells in the stomach, which normally secrete stomach acid, which inhibits the infection of Helicobacter pylori Combined with previous findings by the University of Hong Kong, if metformin can support stomach wall cells, then the logical chain is stringed together, and this hypothesis is quickly confirmed by transcriptional expression analysis next, the team asked the mice to take metformin for two weeks and found that the number of gastric wall cells would rise rapidly, i.e., after using tamoxifen, killing the vast majority of gastric wall cells, metformin also promoted the differentiation of stem cells into stomach wall cells, allowing the number of gastric wall cells to recover quickly if the growth rate is calculated, in metformin activated AMPK, the rate of stem cell differentiation into gastric wall cells will increase nearly double, and the survival time of gastric wall cells is significantly extended, "God medicine" so two-pronged, played a stomach-care effect Note the circled part, compare the gap further experiments on organ-like organs, also confirmed that metformin increases the number of gastric wall cells, promotes the maturation of these cells, and metformin can also inhibit the proliferation of gastric epithelial progenitor cells This adjustment effect is mainly related to the downstream transcription factors Klf4 and PGC1 alpha activated by the AMPK pathway said in the paper that the study is the first to confirm that metabolic pathways can control the differentiation and maturation of epithelial cells in the body, and that the loss of a large number of stomach wall cells is an important step in the occurrence of stomach cancer, metformin can be prevented before it occurs