Repainting fat
A metabolite has been found that converts dangerous fat into useful fat
Svetlana Maslova, Hi-tech+
From dangerous white fat, the metabolite creates a useful brown one. And since scientists use it to simulate a natural process for the body, the results open up fundamentally new possibilities for the treatment of obesity, diabetes and cardiovascular diseases.
Researchers from the Scripps Institute have identified a metabolite that converts the so-called bad white fat into useful brown. The first is necessary for storing excess energy, and the second regulates thermogenesis by burning calories. In the new work, scientists sought to find endogenous metabolites produced naturally in the body to control the process of turning white fat into brown in order to prevent or treat the problem of overweight and its consequences.
Endogenous metabolites are very promising tools. For example, a recently created drug based on this principle has already been approved for the treatment of amitrophic lateral sclerosis, the authors explain.
First, scientists began to test existing drugs that could stimulate the production of brown fat adipocytes. Soon they discovered zafirlukast, previously approved for the treatment of asthma. The drug could transform adipocyte progenitor cells into predominantly brown adipocytes, as well as turn white adipocytes into brown ones. The problem was that zafirlukast was toxic to the body in high dosages. In addition, scientists could not understand the mechanism of action of the drug.
In search of a solution, they launched a new series of experiments and began to study the metabolic activity triggered by the drug. So they identified the endogenous metabolite myristoylglycine, which promotes the formation of brown adipocytes without cell damage.
For preadipocytes treated with zafirlukast (right image), brown adipocytes (shown in red) were more common than preadipocytes grown as part of the experiment (left image). Provided by: Scripps Research and Calibr – VM.
"Of the thousands of metabolic traits measured during the analysis, only myristoylglycine had this special characteristic even among almost identical metabolites in structure," the authors explain. They are currently continuing research to evaluate the therapeutic potential and safety of their strategy for the treatment of metabolic and cardiovascular diseases in humans.
Article by Guijas et al. Drug-Initiated Activity Metabolomics Identifies Myristoylglycine as a Potential Endogenous Metabolite for Human Brown Fat Differentiation published in the journal Metabolites.
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