Adipocytes play an important role in human body

Adipocytes are not simply large in the presence of large amounts of lipids in the body, whereas they emit hormones and other signaling proteins that affect many other types of tissues. In a new study in the United States, scientists have determined through research using recombinant human proteins that adipocytes can deliver microRNAs through the exosomes pathway and regulate other organs. This suggests that fat cells are promising in the use of gene therapy for metabolic diseases such as fatty liver disease.

Professor Ronald Kahn from the Joslin Diabetes Center published a study on Nature on Feb. 15 that revealed that the mechanism which could provide a potential for new treatments to develop the possibility of using adipocytes to develop gene therapy to help treating the liver or other organ metabolic diseases, cancer and so on.

MicroRNAs are not translated into proteins but can regulate other RNA to produce proteins. All cells of our body can produce microRNAs, and some of these microRNAs are known to be released from the cells into the bloodstream. However, once they enter the blood, what they have done is what scientists have been arguing about.

Joslin scientists have focused on microRNAs from adipocytes that are released into the blood through the "exosomes" pathway. Researchers have constructed a genetically modified mouse model that prevents adipocytes from producing microRNAs. Joslin researchers later found that the number of circulating microRNAs in the exosomes decreased significantly in mice that did not originate from adipocyte microRNAs. This reduction in the number of circulating microRNAs can be restored when the investigator transplanted normal fat into these mice, indicating that most of the circulating microRNAs were from fat.

Next, the scientists studied two forms of fat malnutrition: fat loss or hereditary fat metabolism. In both groups, they found that circulating microRNA levels in exosomes were below normal levels. "This suggests that these circulating microRNAs produced by fat may help diagnose metabolic diseases such as obesity, type 2 diabetes and fatty liver disease," Kahn said. Flarebio provides you with good-quality recombinant proteins including recombinant COLEC12 at reasonable prices.