DC 11 - Regulation of lipid uptake in tissue resident immune cells

• Objectives:

Aim of the project: To determine how the local tissue environment—and particularly its lipid composition—shapes the metabolic programming and functional behaviour of dendritic cells, T cells, and NK cells in health and obesity.

1. track which fatty acids immune cells use in different tissues. Using innovative uptake assays (similar to (1)), the project will map the types of fatty acids absorbed by immune cells in the lung, skin, and gut;
2. test how different high-fat diets influence immune-cell metabolism. By comparing diets rich in animal- versus plant-derived fats, the project will examine how excess dietary lipids alter the metabolism and function of tissue-resident immune cells;
3. identify the lipid environment and link it to cell function. The project will profile the lipid molecules present in each tissue and on each immune-cell subset in lean and obese mice, and relate these profiles to how well the cells perform their immune roles. XDrop technology will facilitate single-cell functional assays such as NK cell cytotoxicity assays.

• Brief project description:

Understanding how immune cells adapt to their tissue environment is crucial for explaining why inflammation differs between organs. Dendritic cells, T cells, and NK cells rely on local nutrients, including lipids, to support their function, but little is known about how specific fatty acids shape their behaviour in tissues such as the lung, skin, and gut that form a barrier with the outside world. This project will investigate how these cells take up and metabolise different lipid species, how high-fat diets alter their metabolic programmes, and how changes in the tissue lipid landscape influence immune surveillance and responsiveness in lean versus obese conditions.

• Planned secondments:

Everts lab (Leiden University Medical Center, Netherlands)
• Learn to isolate and analyse gut immune cells.

Samplix (Copenhagen, Denmark)
• Training on the XDrop platform to study cell–cell interactions.
• Perform single-cell natural killer cell cytotoxicity assays.

Bindila lab (University Medical Center of Mainz, Germany)
• Lipidomic analysis to identify tissue-, cell-, and disease-dependent differences in lipid species.