Gene that may strongly influence obesity uncovered
The paper published online this month in Genetics examines a "foraging gene" humans share in common with the flies, which plays multiple roles and is found in similar places, such as the nervous system, in the muscle and in fat. "What our study does is nails the gene for being very important for the traits of moving, feeding and fat storage," says University Professor Marla Sokolowski of the Department of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology (EEB) in U of T's Faculty of Arts & Science. In nature, fruit flies called "rovers" with high amounts of the gene tend to move a lot, eat very little and stay lean, while flies with low amounts of for called "sitters" are the opposite. The foraging gene encodes a cell signalling molecule called a cGMP dependent protein kinase. The same could apply to obesity in humans. "When we say the foraging gene is the same, what we're saying is that when you look at the DNA sequences of the hum...