Scientists find cellular culprit behind age-related abdominal fat

A team of US researchers has uncovered the cellular culprit behind agerelated abdominal fat providing new insights into why our midsections widen with middle agePublished in the journal Science the findings suggest a novel target for future therapies to prevent belly flab and extend our healthy lifespansPreclinical research by City of Hope one of the largest and most advanced cancer research and treatment organisations in the US has done this researchldquoPeople often lose muscle and gain body fat as they age mdash even when their body weight remains the samerdquo said Qiong Annabel Wang an associate professor of molecular and cellular endocrinology at City of Hopersquos Arthur Riggs Diabetes and Metabolism Research InstituteldquoWe discovered aging triggers the arrival of a new type of adult stem cell and enhances the bodyrsquos massive production of new fat cells especially around the bellyrdquo Wang addedIn collaboration with the UCLA laboratory cocorresponding author Xia Yang the scientists conducted a series of mouse experiments later validated on human cellsWang and her colleagues focused on white adipose tissue WAT the fatty tissue responsible for agerelated weight gainWhile itrsquos wellknown that fat cells grow larger with age the scientists suspected that WAT also expanded by producing new fat cells meaning it may have an unlimited potential to growTo test their hypothesis the researchers focused on adipocyte progenitor cells APCs a group of stem cells in WAT that evolve into fat cellsThe team first transplanted APCs from young and older mice into a second group of young mice The APCs from the older animals rapidly generated a colossal amount of fat cellsWhen the team transplanted APCs from young mice into the older mice however the stem cells did not manufacture many new fat cells The results confirmed that older APCs are equipped to independently make new fat cells regardless of their hostrsquos ageUsing singlecell RNA sequencing the scientists next compared APC gene activity in young and older mice While barely active in young mice APCs woke up with a vengeance in middleaged mice and began pumping out new fat cellsA signalling pathway called leukemia inhibitory factor receptor LIFR proved critical for promoting these CPA cells to multiply and evolve into fat cellsldquoWe discovered that the bodyrsquos fatmaking process is driven by LIFR While young mice dont require this signal to make fat older mice dordquo explained Wang ldquoOur research indicates that LIFR plays a crucial role in triggering CPAs to create new fat cells and expand belly fat in older micerdquoldquoOur findings highlight the importance of controlling new fatcell formation to address agerelated obesityrdquo said WangThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoeveratOptionskeyd0ddb8ef8f1a62a8cdd22fac27fc5ea7formatiframeheight90width728params