Every pound goes through the mouth, it often sounds vicious when it comes to excess weight. But that is thinking too simply. British scientists have now discovered two genes that may increase the risk of obesity by up to six times.
The rare variants of the genes BSN and APBA1 are the first obesity-related genes in which the increased risk only occurs when people are adults. Moreover, genetic variations with such an impact on obesity risk have almost never been found before.
The Bassoon gene
The researchers of the University of Cambridge used the data of more than 500,000 people from the UK Biobank for something called exome sequencing. In this genetic engineering technique, all protein-coding regions of genes are sequenced. Sequencing is a technique that reads the code from DNA.
The British discovered that genetic variants of the BSN gene, also known as Bassoon, can increase the risk of obesity sixfold. The gene variant also caused an increased risk of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease and type 2 diabetes. The gene variants of the Bassoon gene occur in 1 in 6,500 adults, so this amounts to around 10,000 people in the United Kingdom alone .
Looking at cake
Some people seem to get fat just by looking at a cake, we sometimes say. That is of course not the case, but it has been known for some time that there are genes that partly determine why some people gain weight more easily than others. However, there has been little clarity about this until now.
Previous research identified several gene variants that already have an effect in childhood and work via leptin-melanocortin, which plays a key role in the brain in regulating hunger. Although both BSN and APBA1 encode proteins in the brain, they are not known to be involved in the leptin-melanocortin pathway. They are also not linked to obesity in children.
New mechanism discovered
That’s why the researchers think, wie study in Nature appeared that they may have discovered a new biological mechanism for obesity, different from those already known through previously identified obesity genes. BSN and APBA1 probably play a role in the transmission of signals between brain cells and aging affects the extent to which people with these gene variants can control hunger.
Professor John Perry of Cambridge said: “These findings are yet another example of the power of large-scale genetic research to increase our knowledge of the biological basis of disease. The genetic variants we found in the BSN gene have the greatest impact on obesity, diabetes and fatty liver disease that we have seen to date and demonstrate a new biological mechanism to regulate hunger.”
Very large database
Because the researchers had access to the enormous database of the UK Biobank, they could search for rare gene variants that are responsible for, among other things, obesity. Because they wanted to extend their findings more broadly, they worked closely with AstraZeneca. This also gave them access to data from people in Pakistan and Mexico. This is important because the results apply to more people than just Europeans.
Ultimately, the discovery should lead to better treatment of obesity. “Large-scale studies like this accelerate the pace at which we gain new insights into the biology of human disease,” said genetic researcher Slavé Petrovski of AstraZeneca. “Through collaborations between universities and industry, we can better utilize global datasets and apply a genetic approach to drug research. This way we understand diseases better and better, which is only good for patients.”
New insights
But more research is needed. “We have identified two genes with variants that have the most profound effect on obesity that we have ever seen, but perhaps even more importantly, the variation in the Bassoon gene is linked to adult obesity and therefore does not apply to children. These findings therefore give us new insight into the relationship between genes, neurological development and obesity,” concludes Professor Giles Yeo.
2024-04-04 17:02:24
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