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Written By: Editorial Team | Published : May 21, 2014 1:36 PM IST
A lean 'Supermodel' mouse type has revealed the potentially critical role played by a largely unknown gene that regulates metabolism, findings that could provide new insight into diseases ranging from diabetes to obesity.
The Supermodel mouse's phenotype - the physical characteristics that result from its gene makeup - include being very small in size, with an unusual body form caused by abnormal distribution of fat, said Dr. Zhe Chen, Assistant Professor of Biophysics, and Dr. Bruce Beutler, Professor of Immunology, with UT Southwestern's Center for the Genetics of Host Defense. The mouse phenotype is nicknamed 'Supermodel.'
Nobel Laureate Dr. Beutler, Director of the Center for the Genetics of Host Defense, said this mouse is important because it has revealed a new regulatory protein that's very important for normal metabolism, but was never known to exist before.
He said the implications of the work may be felt in diabetes and obesity research, the study of wasting in chronic disease, the study of muscle cell function, and perhaps other fields.
While at the Scripps Research Institute, Dr. Beutler developed a mouse mutagenesis program, which at UT Southwestern has become the largest and most technologically advanced in the world.
The new mouse phenotype was discovered in the lab's colony of mutant mice several years ago, but the mutation was discovered and studied entirely at UT Southwestern, in a collaboration that also involved researchers Dr. William Holland, Assistant Professor of Internal Medicine, Dr. Aktar Ali , Assistant Professor of Internal Medicine, and John Shelton, lab manager in Internal Medicine.
Together, they found that a mutation in a gene called Samd4, about which almost nothing was known in mammals, results in the abnormally lean mice, which also have diminished insulin responses to glucose and arginine.
The mice seem to waste energy, consuming excessive oxygen and producing a commensurately higher amount of CO2, despite being relatively inactive. Much of the fat in these mice seems to be abnormal, similar to 'brown fat' of hibernating species.
The findings have been published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
What is Obesity?
Obesity refers to increased body fat but it is not same as being overweight. A person who is overweight need not be obese but a person who is obese is overweight. Overweight is the term used for a person who weighs more. The weight can be muscle weight, bone weight or fat weight. But a person is said to be obese when he/she consumes more number of calories than the number of calories used by the body. If your Body Mass Index or BMI (calculated by dividing height by weight) is more than 30, then you are obese. Obesity is becoming a global epidemic not only in developed nations but also in developing nations like India. Obesity is linked to a host of lifestyle disorders like diabetes, heart diseases, hypertension and stroke. Easy availability of sugars and fats, messing with our body clocks and an increased sedentary lifestyle are responsible for obesity. Being overweight and obesity are the fifth leading risk for global deaths with at least 2.8 million adults dying each year due to them.
What is diabetes?
Diabetes is a metabolic disease which is characterised by high blood sugar levels. It can be caused either due to the lack of insulin (type 1 diabetes) or because the body's cells fail to respond to the insulin produced (type 2 diabetes). There's another form of diabetes that afflicts pregnant women called gestational diabetes.
For more articles on diabetes and obesity, check out our diabetes and obesity section and Diabetes and obesity page. Follow us on Facebook and Twitter for all the latest updates! For daily free health tips, sign up for our newsletter. And to join discussions on health topics of your choice, visit our forum.
