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Modifying Mouse Metabolism
(Friday July 10 2009)
 | For all that I see modifying metabolism for the better to be harder and less beneficial than reversing damage caused by our existing metabolism, early technology demonstrations of modified metabolisms in mice are taking place. Here, h+ Magazine looks at one example: "We know plants and bacteria digest fats differently from humans, from mammals. Plant seeds usually store a lot of fat. When they germinate, they convert the fat to sugar to grow. The reason they can digest fat this way is because they have a set of enzymes that's uniquely present in plants and bacteria. These enzymes are called the 'glyoxylate shunt' and are missing in mammals. ... the researchers introduced genes for these enzymes from E. coli bacteria into cultured human cells and found that they increased the metabolism of fats in the cells. Rather than converting the fat into sugar as bacteria do, the cells converted the fat completely into carbon dioxide. ... The research team then introduced the genes into the livers of mice. While normal mice gain weight when put on a high-fat diet, [the] engineered mice 'remained skinny despite the fact that they ate about the same and produced the same waste' and were as active as their normal counterparts. They also had lower fat levels in the liver and lower cholesterol levels." |
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