Asprosin in the fight against obesity

Asprosin is a hormone that regulates carbohydrate metabolism, which was discovered less than two years ago by a group of scientists led by Dr. Atul Chopra at Baylor College of Medicine, Texas (USA).

In a new study, it was found that asprosin also affects the central nervous system by stimulating the hunger center in the hypothalamus, and hence appetite and weight gain. This fact can be used to develop new methods of treating overweight people in cases where known techniques do not bring results.

Asprosin was discovered during the study of a rare genetic disease – neonatal progeroid syndrome, one of the symptoms of which is the absence of a subcutaneous fat layer and low body weight. In patients with this disease, mutations were found in the FBN1 gene responsible for the synthesis of the fibrillin-1 protein, which was manifested in the absence of a small fragment in it – asprosin. In patients without a mutation in FBN1, asprosin cleaves from fibrillin-1 and circulates in blood plasma.

To study the effect of asprosin on metabolism, Chopra and colleagues tracked the nutrition of patients with neonatal progeroid syndrome and the number of calories consumed per day. It turned out that compared with healthy people, they have an abnormally low appetite, which suggested that asprosin stimulates it.

To study in detail the effect of asprosin on the body, scientists conducted a study on mice in which mutations characteristic of neonatal progeroid syndrome were reproduced. As a result, the mice had low levels of asprosin in the blood, poor appetite and low body weight. The introduction of asprosin led to the expected effect – appetite improved, body weight began to grow.

In collaboration with a group led by Yong Xu from the USDA/ARS Baby Nutrition Research Center, Chopra began studying the effect of asprosin on the brain. It turned out that asprosin is able to influence the hunger center in the hypothalamus: activate AgRP neurons that increase appetite and inhibit POMC neurons that suppress appetite. At the same time, the effect of asprosin was absolutely unique, it extended only to two types of neurons. The other neurons were not affected.

In addition to the study of patients with neonatal progeroid syndrome, the authors determined the level of asprosin in the blood of obese patients. As expected, he turned out to be tall. The mechanisms of increasing the level of asprosin in the blood are unknown, but its control could affect appetite, which would make it possible to fight obesity. A drug that is an asprosin antagonist has been developed. In experiments on mice, it effectively suppressed the effect of asprosin – the appetite of mice decreased, body weight decreased. In addition, their blood glucose levels decreased, which could potentially be used to treat diabetes.

The authors plan to study the type of receptors of AgRP and POMC neurons in the hypothalamus, with which asprosin interacts, as well as the mechanisms of this process.

There is still a lot of work ahead to develop methods to combat obesity by controlling the level of asprosin in the blood, but the results of the studies provide a good basis for it.

Aminat Adzhieva, portal "Eternal Youth" http://vechnayamolodost.ru based on the materials of Baylor College Of Medicine: Regulating asprosin levels might help control appetite, weight.