A fat-regulating enzyme could hold the key to obesity, diabetes, cancer, other diseases
But scientists at Rutgers University-New Brunswick have now found that getting rid of the enzyme entirely can increase the risk of cancer, inflammation and other ills. Their findings were published online in the Journal of Biological Chemistry last month. "The goal of our lab is to understand how we can tweak and control this enzyme," said George M. Carman, Board of Governors professor in the Department of Food Science in the School of Environmental and Biological Sciences. "For years, we have been trying to find out how to fine-tune the enzyme's activity so it's not too active, and creating too much fat, but it's active enough to keep the body healthy." The enzyme was discovered in 1957 and Gil-Soo Han, research assistant professor in the Rutgers Center for Lipid Research, discovered the gene encoding the enzyme in 2006. The enzyme determines whether the body's phosphatidic acid will be used to create fat, or create the lipids in cell membr...