3D Imaging System Offers Insight Into Diabetes And Obesity

A new 3D tissue imaging system called iDISCO has been developed by researchers from the team at the Rockefeller University Laboratory of Molecular Metabolism that has revealed the inner workings of the fat cells in model mice, providing possible new insights into potential therapeutic targets for the combat against diabetes and the obesity epidemic as published in Cell Metabolism.

The team built upon previous studies to conduct this research of what is understood about the differences between 3 kinds of animal fat which are beige, brown, and white. Beige and brown fat may promote good health by way of burning energy, but white fat stores energy which as been long known to cause problems.

The end target of this research is the development of therapies that can manipulate beige fat in individuals with faulty metabolism to burn more energy. The researchers are interested in investigating how it is that beige fat cells interact with the sympathetic nervous system which signals cells on how much energy to either burn or store.

The density and presence of the nerve projections were found to predicted how active that the beige fat cells were, the most active cells had the most nerve projections. The protein called PRDM16 was studied and was shown to play a role in the beige fat energy burning process. In the animals without PRDM16 it was found that beige fat activity could not be induced resulting in many of the same complications as seen in humans with obesity such as insulin resistance.

Imaging studies of the animals that did not have PRDM16 in their fat cells showed that exposure to cold caused the beige fat cells to develop and burn energy. The images showed that when comparing beige fat cells without PRDM16 to those that did have it a striking reduction in the projection of fine nerve structures called neurites. This suggests that the 2 cell types have a dialogue that if the cell has the protein it guides the neurites, if you take it away you don’t have the neurites. Also that the molecules involved in mediating this dialogue could possible serve as therapeutic targets in the battles against obesity and the related diseases of it.