A surprise discovery that calorie-burning brown fat can be produced from muscle precursor cells in mice has raised the prospect of new ways to combat obesity.

The finding, outlined in the newest issue of the scientific journal Nature, indicates that brown fat – which is considered the “good” form of fat because it burns calories and releases energy, unlike “bad” white fat that simply stores extra calories – can be generated from unspecialised precursors that regularly produce skeletal muscle.

The research team that made the discovery, based at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston, showed that a previously known molecular switch, PRDM16, regulates the formation of brown fat from immature muscle cells.

The study confirms that PRDM16 is the “master regulator” of brown fat creation.

The results will likely spur ongoing research to see if drugs that speed up PRDM16 in mice – and possibly in people, too – could convert white fat into brown fat and treat obesity.

Another potential strategy might be to transplant brown fat cells into an overweight person to turn on the calorie-burning process.

老鼠体内的肌肉前体细胞可以形成消耗卡路里的棕色脂肪。这一惊人发现提高了找出新办法以抗击肥胖症的可能性。

此项发现在最新一期科学杂志《自然》(Nature)中得到了概述。发现指出，棕色脂肪——因为能消耗卡路里、释放能量而被认为是“有利”的脂肪形式，不像“有害”的白色脂肪只会储存多余的卡路里——能够由尚未分化的前体细胞形成，这种前体细胞通常会形成骨骼肌。

发现这一现象的研究小组来自波士顿的丹娜-法伯癌症研究所(Dana-Farber Cancer Institute)。他们指出，一种已知分子开关，PRDM16，控制着未成熟的肌肉细胞向棕色脂肪的转变。

研究证实，PRDM16是形成棕色脂肪的“支配性调控因子”。

该结果有望推动正在进行的一项研究发展，即看看能促进老鼠体内——也有可能是人体内——PRDM16形成的药物，能否将白色脂肪转化为棕色脂肪，以治疗肥胖症。

另一种潜在方法可能是将棕色脂肪细胞移植入超重者体内，以激活燃烧卡路里的过程。