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Melanie Maya Kaelberer

Melanie Maya Kaelberer

Adjunct Assistant Professor in the Department of Medicine
Medicine, Gastroenterology
melanie.kaelberer@duke.edu
Box 2651, MSRB-I, 203 Research Drive, Durham, NC 27710
MSRB-1, Room 215, 203 Research Drive, Durham, NC 27710

Selected Publications

A gut sense for a microbial pattern regulates feeding.

Journal Article Nature · September 2025 To coexist with its resident microorganisms, the host must have a sense to adjust its behaviour in response to them. In the intestine, a sense for nutrients transduced to the brain through neuroepithelial circuits guides appetitive choices1-5. However, a s ... Full text Link to item Cite

The pressure not to eat.

Journal Article Nat Metab · March 2024 Full text Link to item Cite

The preference for sugar over sweetener depends on a gut sensor cell.

Journal Article Nat Neurosci · February 2022 Guided by gut sensory cues, humans and animals prefer nutritive sugars over non-caloric sweeteners, but how the gut steers such preferences remains unknown. In the intestine, neuropod cells synapse with vagal neurons to convey sugar stimuli to the brain wi ... Full text Link to item Cite

Neuropod Cells: The Emerging Biology of Gut-Brain Sensory Transduction.

Journal Article Annu Rev Neurosci · July 8, 2020 Guided by sight, scent, texture, and taste, animals ingest food. Once ingested, it is up to the gut to make sense of the food's nutritional value. Classic sensory systems rely on neuroepithelial circuits to convert stimuli into signals that guide behavior. ... Full text Link to item Cite

Activation of a nerve injury transcriptional signature in airway-innervating sensory neurons after lipopolysaccharide-induced lung inflammation.

Journal Article Am J Physiol Lung Cell Mol Physiol · May 1, 2020 The lungs and the immune and nervous systems functionally interact to respond to respiratory environmental exposures and infections. The lungs are innervated by vagal sensory neurons of the jugular and nodose ganglia, fused together in smaller mammals as t ... Full text Link to item Cite

A gut sensor for sugar preference

Journal Article · March 8, 2020 Summary Paragraph/AbstractAnimals innately prefer caloric sugars over non-caloric sweeteners. Such preference depends on the sugar entering the intestine.1–4Although the brain is aware of the stimulus w ... Full text Cite

An intravital window to image the colon in real time.

Journal Article Nat Commun · December 11, 2019 Intravital microscopy is a powerful technique to observe dynamic processes with single-cell resolution in live animals. No intravital window has been developed for imaging the colon due to its anatomic location and motility, although the colon is a key org ... Full text Link to item Cite

A Neural Circuit for Gut-Induced Reward.

Journal Article Cell · October 18, 2018 Full text Link to item Cite

A Neural Circuit for Gut-Induced Reward.

Journal Article Cell · October 18, 2018 The gut is now recognized as a major regulator of motivational and emotional states. However, the relevant gut-brain neuronal circuitry remains unknown. We show that optical activation of gut-innervating vagal sensory neurons recapitulates the hallmark eff ... Full text Link to item Cite

A gut-brain neural circuit for nutrient sensory transduction.

Journal Article Science · September 21, 2018 The brain is thought to sense gut stimuli only via the passive release of hormones. This is because no connection has been described between the vagus and the putative gut epithelial sensor cell-the enteroendocrine cell. However, these electrically excitab ... Full text Link to item Cite

The now and then of gut-brain signaling.

Journal Article Brain Res · August 15, 2018 Since their very beginnings, animals had gut sensory epithelial cells. In one of the first multicellular animals, Trichoplax - a literal wandering gut - food sensing and feeding was coordinated by specialized ventral sensor cells. In mammals, including hum ... Full text Link to item Cite

Where the gut meets the brain.

Journal Article Brain Res · August 15, 2018 Full text Link to item Cite

The intestinal tuft cell nanostructure in 3D.

Journal Article Sci Rep · May 10, 2017 Once referred to as "peculiar," tuft cells are enigmatic epithelial cells. Here, we reasoned that future functional studies could be derived from a complete account of the tuft cell ultrastructure. We identified and documented the volumetric ultrastructure ... Full text Link to item Cite

IL-33/ST2 signaling excites sensory neurons and mediates itch response in a mouse model of poison ivy contact allergy.

Journal Article Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A · November 22, 2016 Poison ivy-induced allergic contact dermatitis (ACD) is the most common environmental allergic condition in the United States. Case numbers of poison ivy ACD are increasing due to growing biomass and geographical expansion of poison ivy and increasing cont ... Full text Link to item Cite

A Method to Target and Isolate Airway-innervating Sensory Neurons in Mice.

Journal Article J Vis Exp · April 19, 2016 Somatosensory nerves transduce thermal, mechanical, chemical, and noxious stimuli caused by both endogenous and environmental agents. The cell bodies of these afferent neurons are located within the sensory ganglia. Sensory ganglia innervate a specific org ... Full text Link to item Cite

TRPV4 inhibition counteracts edema and inflammation and improves pulmonary function and oxygen saturation in chemically induced acute lung injury.

Journal Article Am J Physiol Lung Cell Mol Physiol · July 15, 2014 The treatment of acute lung injury caused by exposure to reactive chemicals remains challenging because of the lack of mechanism-based therapeutic approaches. Recent studies have shown that transient receptor potential vanilloid 4 (TRPV4), an ion channel e ... Full text Link to item Cite

Introduction

Journal Article Yale Journal of Biology and Medicine · June 1, 2012 Cite