Watts Jennifer L
School of Molecular Biosciences, Washington State University, Pullman, WA 99164, USA.
Trends Endocrinol Metab. 2009 Mar;20(2):58-65. doi: 10.1016/j.tem.2008.11.002. Epub 2009 Jan 31.
Understanding the regulation of fat synthesis and the consequences of its misregulation is of profound significance for managing the obesity epidemic and developing obesity therapeutics. Recent work in the roundworm Caenorhabditis elegans has revealed the importance of evolutionarily conserved pathways of fat synthesis and nutrient sensing in adiposity regulation. The powerful combination of mutational and reverse genetic analysis, genomics, lipid analysis, and cell-specific expression studies enables dissection of complicated pathways at the level of a whole organism. This review summarizes recent studies in C. elegans that offer insights into the regulation of adiposity by conserved transcription factors, insulin and growth factor signaling, and unsaturated fatty acid synthesis. Increased understanding of fat-storage pathways might lead to future obesity therapies.
了解脂肪合成的调控及其调控失调的后果对于应对肥胖流行和开发肥胖治疗方法具有深远意义。近期对线虫秀丽隐杆线虫的研究揭示了脂肪合成和营养感知的进化保守途径在肥胖调控中的重要性。突变和反向遗传分析、基因组学、脂质分析以及细胞特异性表达研究的强大组合,使得能够在整个生物体水平上剖析复杂的途径。本综述总结了近期在秀丽隐杆线虫中的研究,这些研究为保守转录因子、胰岛素和生长因子信号传导以及不饱和脂肪酸合成对肥胖的调控提供了见解。对脂肪储存途径的更多了解可能会带来未来的肥胖治疗方法。