Obesity Gene Therapy Target Found

Gene therapy could help reduce age-related obesity in mammals, University of Florida researchers have found.

Gene therapy could help reduce age-related obesity in mammals, University of Florida researchers have found. By stimulating production of a brain protein called pro-opiomelanocortin, or POMC, researchers helped obese, middle-aged rats lose weight and eat less. Scientists long have been baffled by brain resistance to leptin, a hormone produced in fat tissue that helps start a reaction controlling appetite and energy expenditure. Overweight mammals produce so much leptin the brain resists its effects, for reasons yet unknown. The researchers decided to stimulate the leptin pathway, targeting POMC. They injected a solution containing the POMC gene into rat brains and found, in 42 days, the animals were 19 percent lighter than another group that received a solution with a gene that produces a fluorescent protein with no therapeutic effect. Rats receiving the POMC gene also ate substantially less, albeit temporarily, and improved 19 percent in glucose metabolism and insulin sensitivity — measures related to diabetes — compared to the fluorescent protein group. (Source: United Press International, June 2004)