脂肪肝作为人类第二大肝脏疾病，虽然早期症状相对简单，但潜在威胁很大。然而，其发病机制至今并不清楚。目前研究脂肪肝的动物模型主要有小鼠模型和斑马鱼模型。尽管这两种模型为我们研究脂肪肝病发机制能提供较好的手段，但由于其操作复杂、周期长、并发症状较多、以及投入成本较高等缺点限制了它们在脂肪肝致病机制研究中有效应用。我们实验室近期对果蝇中的肝脏同源组织--绛色细胞组织--进行的研究发现：该绛色细胞组织不仅在功能上与人肝脏细胞有很高相似性，其脂代谢相关的分子调控机制也很保守。因此，我们计划在果蝇绛色细胞组织中利用果蝇遗传学、生物化学、细胞生物学技术研究脂肪代谢规律，建立了遗传操作型和饮食诱导型脂肪肝果蝇模型。我们将利用这两种模型，大规模筛选脂肪肝易感基因并研究其功能，特别是在脂肪肝形成过程中的调节机制。果蝇脂肪肝模型将会提供有效工具在细胞水平研究体内脂肪积累的过程，为有针对性筛选降脂药物提供可能。

Fatty liver is the second common huamn liver disease, but the pathogenesis of fatty liver and related genes involved in this process are not well understood. Recently, the fatty liver models in mouse and zebrafish have been established to study the molecular mechanism of this liver disease, aiming for the basic understanding of the pathogenesis of fatty liver. However, these two kinds of models are not suitably used for genome-wide screen of fatty liver related genes due to their complexity, long time experimental procedure, expensive cost and so on. Here we use the newly identified Drosophila homologous tissue to human liver cells, the oenocytes, to study lipogenesis and lypolysis aiming for further information useful for fatty liver pathogenesis. Taking the advantages of fly genetics, we plan to establish the genetically- and food-induced fatty liver models in Drosophila. Using these models, we will globally screen for genes involed in the susceptibity of fatty liver. Our study will provide a useful platform for detailed study of the lipid metablism in the fly hetocytes, offering a possibility to screen for drugs that can be used for controlling fatty liver development.