The intestinal microbiota regulates body composition through NFIL3 and the circadian clock

Light, fat, and commensals The gut microbiota facilitates energy harvest from food and transfers it into fat storage. Working in mice, Wang et al. found that an epithelial cell circadian transcription factor, NFIL3, is involved in regulating body composition through lipid uptake. Flagellin and lipopolysaccharide produced by certain microbes tuned the amplitude of oscillation of NFIL3 through innate lymphoid cell (ILC3) signaling, STAT3, and the epithelial cell clock. Such interactions may help to explain why circadian clock disruptions in humans, arising from shift work or international travel, frequently track with metabolic diseases, including obesity, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease. Science , this issue p. 912