Congratulations to N&M PhD candidate Juyeong Cho on her first-author paper in Cell Host & Microbe! Her publication, “Microbial metabolism of methotrexate produces a STAT3 signaling molecule that alleviates gut inflammation,” explores how gut microbial drug metabolism influences intestinal epithelial cell function and inflammation.
“Methotrexate is widely used to treat inflammatory diseases, but its use in inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) is limited by variable treatment responses and potential side effects,” says Juyeong. “In our study, we found that methotrexate disrupts mitochondrial function in intestinal epithelial cells. Gut bacteria can metabolize methotrexate into DAMPA. What surprised us was that DAMPA, which has long been considered biologically inert, actually protects intestinal epithelial cells and alleviates gut inflammation in mouse models. Our findings give us some clues as to why methotrexate doesn’t always work well in IBD. They also make me wonder: How many other microbial metabolites have we overlooked that might have therapeutic potential?”
Juyeong is a fourth-year N&M student in the Chaudhari research group. N&M student Anshit Singh of the Rhoads research group was also a collaborator on Juyeong’s project.
