The gene of obesity Obesity is a high fat deposition in special cells of the human body – adipocytes
The gene of obesity
Obesity is a high fat deposition in special cells of the human body – adipocytes. Today this is a fairly common problem. According to statistics, every second inhabitant of the land aged after 50 years is obese.
Genetic predisposition is one of the causes of obesity. The existence of the gene for obesity has been proven by scientists for a long time, and its name is obese gene. Mutations in it and lead to obesity.
Mutations in the leptin gene, which regulates the mass of fat tissue, lead to the formation of the following troubles: excessive deposition of fat in the tissue, high appetite and excessive consumption of food. People with such a mutation in the leptin gene are very likely to develop type 2 diabetes.
How does this protein work? If a low level of leptin is present in the blood of a person, then for the organism it is a beacon indicating a reduced level of fat stores. Then the mechanism is launched to immediately accumulate them, which leads to uncontrollable appetite and, as a result, to obesity. In people with normal protein levels, leptin can also develop fat, can gain weight afterwards. To date, scientists are researching the possibility of using leptin for the prevention and treatment of obesity.
It is known that some genes are associated with an increased risk of various heart lesions and many of them are still not accurately determined. The difficulty of studying the processes at the RNA level is due to the lack of materials for the study. It’s very difficult to get human heart tissue for genetic analysis explains Norbert Hübner one of the leading authors of the work. To conduct the study scientists took the necessary material from the left ventricle during heart transplantation. A total of 97 patients with dcmw and 108 healthy donors were involved in the work. An analysis of the transcriptome was conducted during which 228 genes were found which were differentially expressed in healthy and diseased dcm patients. The researchers noted that most of these differences were found in genes that are already known as risk factors for dcmd. But in addition 60 new genes have been found which until now have not been associated with the development of this disease. The findings are a valuable resource for the study of cardiovascular disease in general says matthias haining lead author of the study. He also added that the development of diagnostic measures based on the analysis of genetic material taking into account the data obtained will help identify people with an increased risk of early dcm. Norbert hübner noted that the results are important for another reason: we have become better at understanding the processes leading to the development of dcmp. Such genetic changes go beyond ordinary mutations.
