Regulation of cell fate by hormones and nutrients

维生素和植物化学物质是我们所吃的食物和人类日常接触的环境的重要成分。一些维生素的行为方式类似于我们非常熟悉的经典类固醇激素，包括生殖激素雌激素和睾丸激素。虽然人们很容易接受维生素D对牙齿和骨骼的正常生长和发育很重要，但它作为一种激素在控制血液和上皮组织发育方面的作用却鲜为人知。此外，尽管细胞核（细胞的大脑）经常被认为是类固醇激素的目标，但我们最近确定，维生素D的大部分作用是由一种主要存在于反应细胞表面的受体介导的。目前的研究项目试图描述这种受体-激素复合物的性质，它是细胞行为变化信号能力的关键参与者，以及通过细胞环境变化（包括暴露于omega-3脂肪酸和食物中的非营养成分，通常被描述为植物化学物质）来调节这种反应的潜力。希望这些信息能给我们提供关键的见解，让我们了解细胞如何以及为什么在受到周围特定分子的挑战时做出分裂、死亡、分化或变得安静的决定。这可以为构思供动物和人类食用的新型功能食品提供必要的知识，同时有助于我们了解食物的营养和非营养成分如何促进正常生长发育以及疾病发展的失败。

Vitamins and phytochemicals are important constituents of the foods we eat and the environment in which humans find themselves in daily contact. Some vitamins behave in a similar fashion to classical steroid hormones with which we are very familiar, including the reproductive hormones estrogen and testosterone. While people readily accept that vitamin D is important for normal growth and development of teeth and bones, much less is known about its activity as a hormone in the control of blood and epithelial tissue development. Furthermore, though the nucleus (the brains of a cell) is frequently assumed to be the target of steroid hormones, we recently determined that much of vitamin D action was mediated by a receptor that resides largely at the surface of responsive cells. The current research program attempts to characterize the nature of this receptor-hormone complex, the critical participants in its ability to signal changes in cell behaviour, and the potential to regulate this response through changes in cell environment including exposure to omega-3 fatty acids and non-nutritive components of foods, usually described as phytochemicals. The hope is that this information will give us critical insight into how and why cells make the decisions to divide, die, differentiate or become quiet when challenged with specific molecules in their surroundings. This could provide the knowledge necessary to conceive of novel functional foods for animal and human consumption along with contributing to to our understanding of how the nutritive and non-nutritive components of foods contribute to normal growth and development and failure in the development of disease.