The new study found metabolite that converts white fat cells to treat metabolic conditions such as obesity, type II diabetes and cardiovascular diseases.
Metabolic diseases are often caused by an imbalance in the energy homeostasis, when the body receives more energy than it consumes. This is why some therapeutic approaches focus on turning white fat cells into brown cells. White adipocytes store excess energy and eventually lead to metabolic diseases such as obesity, and brown adipocytes dissolve stored energy into heat, which ultimately increases energy consumption in the body and helps restore its balance.
As part of the study, scientists used data from the ReFRAME Calibr drug reprofiling library from 14,000 known drug compounds that approved the FDA for other diseases or had undergone extensive human safety tests. Using high-performance screening, scientists scanned the ReFRAME in search of a drug with such specific capabilities.
So they discovered a syrluctast, an FDA-approved drug used to treat asthma, and it turns out that it can turn the adipocyte predators into mostly brown adipocytes, and the white adipocytes themselves into brown cells.
The problem is, it's toxic at higher doses, and scientists didn't know how a syrlukast transforms fat cells, so the biologists went to the metabolites experts, they destroyed the chemicals in the syrup machine, and they found metabolite that produced the same functional effect as a syrluctast, but no side effects.
Using liquid chromatography and mass spectrometry, scientists searched for metabolites in the fatty tissue that would lead to brown adipocytes. By reducing 30,000 metabolic signs to 17 metabolites, they discovered myristoylglycin, an indigenous metabolite that causes brown adipocytes without damaging the cell. Of the thousands of metabolics measured in the analysis, only myristoylglycin had this special characteristic, even among almost identical metabolites.
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