Mice, human skin cells converted into fat burners

Harvard Medical School researchers have succeeded in converting mouse and human skin cells into brown fat cells--a discovery that may advance research on medicines to fight obesity and Type II diabetes. Just under a year ago, researchers announced findings that indicated that brown fat cells were responsible for burning calories, while white fat cells stored fat. The team found that by injecting mice with a key protein, the subjects were able to generate more brown fat and gain less weight.

In an article published in Nature, the Harvard team says that by targeting two key proteins that help generate brown fat, they were able to turn mice embryonic cells and human skin cells into cells with levels of brown fat genes comparable to naturally produced brown fat cells. A second experiment in which researchers injected engineered cells into mice--cells expressing both key proteins PRDM16 and C/EBP-ß functioned as brown fat cells.

Infants generate brown fat to maintain body heat. It was thought that the tissue was not found in adults, but discoveries made earlier this year showed that adults do in fact generate brown fat. If scientists are able to find a way to produce more brown fat in adults, it could lead to better weight control treatments. Researchers say the discovery may lead to treatments that involve removing tissue from a patient, adding the proteins and returning it to the patient to generate brown fat. Another possibility is developing a drug that can produce the effects of the protein switch.

- here's the US News article
- read more at MedPage Today

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