Scientists Discover Identification Technique of Good Fat

Scientists have determined an easier way to identify good fat that's stored in the body. While good fat can typically be identified as brown tissue that burns energy in order to keep you warm and metabolically active, white fat stores excess amounts of energy, typically near the waiste.

According to researchers at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth) Medical School, they're looking into this specific identification with the hopes of fighting obesity.

"Brown adipose tissue, responsible for heat generation, has high importance in the context of metabolic diseases. Brown fat is more common in children but has recently been discovered in adult humans. However, measurement of its body distribution has remained technically challenging. We report a peptide probe that zeroes in on brown fat and can be used for localization of this tissue in mice by whole body imaging," said Mikhail Kolonin, Ph.D., the study's senior author and associate professor at the UTHealth Center for Stem Cell & Regenerative Medicine, via a press release.

The study notes that if the brown fat detection proves effective in clinical trials, it could allow doctors to personalize treatments based on ratio of brown fat to white fat of their patients. It could also help them monitor fat through prospective therapies.

 "This is the first targeted imaging approach for the detection of brown fat," Kolonin said, via the release.

The following concludes the study's findings and workings, via a press release: "Kolonin teamed up with UTHealth medical imaging researcher Eva Sevick-Muraca, Ph.D., to develop a near-infrared fluorescence imaging probe that binds to brown adipose vasculature and emits tiny amounts of skin-penetrating light that can be picked up by highly sensitive cameras. Sevick-Muraca is professor, director of the Center for Molecular Imaging and holder of the Nancy and Rich Kinder Distinguished Chair in Cardiovascular Disease Research at UTHealth.

"The probe is a peptide comprised of a series of amino acids. Kolonin's team tested numerous combinations before finding one that selectively localizes to brown fat when administered intravenously. Sevick-Muraca's team coupled the peptide with a dye that could be picked up during whole body scans."

More information regarding the study can be found via Nature Communications.