Polycomb misregulation in enterocytes drives tissue decline in the aging <i>Drosophila</i> intestine.

ABSTRACT: Aging compromises intestinal integrity, yet the chromatin changes driving this decline remain unclear. Polycomb-mediated repression is essential for silencing developmental genes, but this regulatory mechanism becomes dysregulated with age. Although shifts in Polycomb regulation within intestinal stem cells have been linked to gut aging, the Polycomb landscape of differentiated cell types remains unexplored. Differentiated cells comprise the majority of the gut epithelium and directly impact both tissue and whole organismal aging. Using single-cell chromatin profiling of the Drosophila intestine, we identify cell type-specific chromatin landscape changes during aging. We find that old enterocytes aberrantly repress genes essential for transmembrane transport and chitin metabolism, c

SUBMITTER: Leichter SM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12758387 | biostudies-literature | 2026 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature