Obesity breakthrough: Metabolic master switch prompts fat cells to store or burn fat
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
By analyzing the cellular circuitry underlying the strongest genetic association with obesity, the researchers have unveiled a new pathway that controls human metabolism by prompting our adipocytes, or fat cells, to store fat or burn it away. However, previous studies have failed to find a mechanism to explain how genetic differences in the region lead to obesity. They found evidence of a major control switchboard in human adipocyte progenitor cells, suggesting that genetic differences may affect the functioning of human fat stores. They found that the risk version activated a major control region in adipocyte progenitor cells, which turned on two distant genes, IRX3 and IRX5. Switching the C to a T in risk individuals turned off IRX3 and IRX5, restored thermogenesis to non-risk levels, and switched off lipid storage genes.