A fat-derived metabolite regulates a peptidergic feeding circuit in Drosophila

Enough already, fat cells tell brain

14 December 2017

Fat cells are not just passive blobs that store energy, but active players that control feeding behaviour, a fruit fly study shows.

A South Korea–based team led by researchers at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology identified a fat-derived molecule that tells the fly brain to stop eating when energy reserves are large enough.

The authors showed that there are three enzymes — two in fat cells, one in the brain — that respond to feeding by producing a molecule, called tetrahydrobiopterin, that signals to particular neurons to reduce their expression of an appetite-promoting neurotransmitter.

Because fruit flies and humans share many of the same feeding-related regulatory mechanisms and genes, it’s possible that a similar process controls our food intake. That raises the tantalizing possibility of manipulating this appetite-suppression system to treat weight gain or loss.

The research was published in PLOS Biology.

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References

1. PLOS Biology 15, e2000532 (2017). doi: 10.1371/journal.pbio.2000532