NUTRITION /OBESITY ::    DENNIS D. BLACK, M.D.     dblack@utmem.edu  
 
 Publications :: Professor of Pediatrics and Physiology
Scientific Director: Children’s Foundation Research Center

Dr. Black’s research focuses on an area of which little is currently known: the absorption of fats from the diet by the small intestine and their metabolism by the liver in the newborn and developing infant. His research team is conducting studies on how fats are taken up by the intestinal cell and processed and packaged for transport into the bloodstream. They are also investigating how different types of fat in the diet regulate genes in the small intestine and liver in the infant. Dr. Black utilizes newborn piglets, as well as cultured piglet intestinal cells, for these studies. The understanding of these processes will allow the design of infant formulas to allow optimum absorption and metabolism of dietary fats. This work has important implications for the nutrition of premature and term newborn infants. Dr. Black’s laboratory recently demonstrated for the first time that apolipoprotein A-IV, a protein strongly induced by dietary fat in newborn small intestine, plays a role in enhancing the absorption of fat. This may represent an important mechanism for the absorption of a high fat breast-milk diet in the newborn. Studies funded by the National Institute for Child Health and Human Development are currently underway to elucidate the mechanism of this enhancement of absorption, as well as how the apolipoprotein A-IV gene is regulated in newborn intestine.

Wang, H, Lu, S, Du, J, Yao, Y, Berschneider, HM, and Black, DD: Regulation of apolipoprotein secretion by long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acids in newborn swine enterocytes. Am J Physiol 280:G1137-G1144, 2001.

Wang, H, Du, J, Lu, S, Yao, Y, Hunter, F, and Black, DD: Regulation of intestinal apolipoprotein A-I synthesis by dietary phosphatidylcholine in new-born swine. Lipids 36:683-687, 2001.

Eshun JK, Black DD, Casteel HB, Horn H, Beavers-May T, Jetton CA, Parham DM. Comparison of immunohistochemistry and silver stain for the diagnosis of pediatric Helicobacter pylori infection in urease-negative gastric biopsies. Pediatr Dev Pathol 2001 Jan-Feb;4(1):82-8.

Yao Y, Eshun JK, Lu S, Berschneider HM, Black DD: Regulation of triacyl-glycerol and phospholipid trafficking by fatty acids in newborn swine enterocytes. Am J Physiol Gastrointest Liver Physiol 282(5):G817-24, 2002.

Lu, S, Huffman, M, Yao, Y, Mansbach, CM, Cheng, X, Meng, S, and Black, DD: Regulation of microsomal triglyceride transfer protein expres-sion in developing swine. J Lipid Res 43:1303-1311, 2002.

Lu S, Yao Y, Meng S, Cheng X, Black DD. Overexpression of apolipoprotein A-IV enhances lipid transport in new-born swine intestinal epithelial cells. J Biol Chem. 277:31929-31937, 2002.

Lu, S, Wang, H, Yao, Y, Meng, S, Cheng, X, and Black, DD: Regulation of apolipoprotein A-IV transcription by lipid in newborn swine is associated with a promoter DNA-binding protein. Am J Physiol 284:G248-G254, 2003.

Black DD. Chronic cholestasis and dyslipidemia: What’s the cardiovascular risk? J Pediatr 2005; 146:306-307

Lu S, Yao Y, Cheng X, Mitchell S, Leng S, Meng S, Gallagher JW, Shelness GS, Morris GS, Mahan J, Frase S, Mansbach CM, Weinberg RB, Black DD. Overexpression of apolipoprotein A-IV enhances lipid secretion in IPEC-1 cells by increasing chylomicron size. J Biol Chem 2006; 28:3473-3483. Published online December 7, 2005, doi:10.1074/jbc.M502501200.

LaRusso N, Shneider B, Black D, Gores G, James SP, Doo E, Hoofnagle JH. Primary sclerosing cholangitis: Summary of a workshop. Hepatology, 44:746-764, 2006.
 
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