Researchers have figured out how to turn ordinary white fat cells, which store calories, into beige fat cells that burn calories to maintain body temperature.
New UCSF study shows that suppressing a protein turns ordinary fat into a calorie burner and may explain why drug trials attempting the feat haven't been successful.
Until now, researchers believed creating beige fat might require starting from stem cells. The new study published July 1 in the, showed that ordinary white fat cells can be converted into beige fat simply by limiting production of a protein. Humans and many other mammals are born with brown fat deposits that help them maintain body temperature after birth. But, while a human baby's brown fat disappears in the first year of life, beige fat persists.
Feldman knew from his earlier experiments that a protein called KLF-15 plays a role in metabolism and the function of fat cells. The researchers then looked at how KLF-15 exerts this influence. They cultured human fat cells and found that the protein controls the abundance of a receptor called Adrb1, which helps maintain energy balance.
Feldman's approach might avoid side effects like nausea because its activity would be limited to fat deposits, rather than affecting the brain. And the effects would be long lasting, because fat cells are relatively long-lived.
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