UT Southwestern researchers author study on fat-controlling gene

The study's lead author is a wisecracking skinny guy. Anyone surprised?

by John P. Meyer

Naturally, it took a skinny doctor at UT Southwestern Medical Center to lead a study about how adipose - the so-called "skinny gene" - behaves in humans to control fat formation.

Dr. Jonathan Graff is lead author of the study, scheduled to appear in the Sept. 5 issue of Cell Metabolism, which - so help me! - the dang postman must have delivered to the wrong friggin' address, along with my Sept./Oct. issue of The Texas Philatelist.

The adipose gene, says Dr. Graff, may someday soon be used by "people who want to fit in their jeans... to overcome their genes." What a wagmeister! (Stick with your day job, Doc, and leave the lame-ass comedy to us journalists. Pun intended.)

The adipose gene has been recognized for over 50 years, but the mechanism by which it exerts control over an organism's fat-retention proclivities has 'til now been poorly understood. Doc Graff and his fellow researchers worked with (and by "worked with" I mean they sliced up and/or genetically reprogrammed) fruit flies, mice, worms and cultured cells to turn their adipose genes on and off at various life stages.

In mice, which seem to hold favored subjects status with UT Southwestern researchers, Doc Graff and crew found that increased adipose activity improved the critters' health in many ways, including allowing them to eat as much as their fellow mice who had less adipose move-busting going on and thereby ended up chunkier.

While the researchers succeeded in determining that adipose exerts quite the influence on fat retention, it remains to be discovered exactly how it does so. Which is probably why the study results can be found in Cell Metabolism and not on the cover of every mainstream news rag in the country.