When food is scarce, some brain cells begin to devour themselves, activating an appetite-stimulating molecule in the process.
A brain region called the hypothalamus contains neurons that regulate feeding in response to nutritional signals. Rajat Singh and his colleagues at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in the Bronx, New York, found that these neurons cannibalize their own organelles, proteins and lipid stores — a process known as autophagy — when starved of nutrients. This liberates fatty acids that cause the cells to express higher levels of an appetite-stimulating compound called agouti-related peptide.
When the researchers deleted a gene required for autophagy in the mouse neurons that produce this peptide, the mice ate less and were slimmer than control animals with normal autophagy.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Hungry cells eat from within. Nature 476, 128–129 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1038/476128d
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/476128d
