Columbia researchers have been working for a long time on (Highly charged nanomaterials treat obesity wherever you want) how to treat obesity, a serious disease that can lead to high blood pressure, diabetes, chronic inflammation and heart disease.
Research has also shown a strong link between obesity and cancer – recent data shows that smoking, alcohol consumption and obesity are the main causes of cancer worldwide. The development of fat cells, which are produced from a small fibroblast as a progenitor, not only activates the genes of various fat cells, but also causes them to grow by storing more lipids (adipocytes and adipose tissue). In fact, lipid storage is the defining function of fat cells. But storing too much fat can make fat cells unhealthy and lead to obesity.
The challenge of protecting fat cells
The ability to protect fat cells and safely eliminate bad fat from good fat would be the answer to many people’s prayers. A serious challenge in the treatment of obesity is that adipose tissue, which does not continue throughout the body but is found individually in “reserves”, is difficult to find in ‘a specific way, which is in a specific place.
There are two main types of fat: visceral fat, the tissue inside the abdomen, liver and intestines, and subcutaneous fat, which is all under the skin. Visceral fat creates a pot belly; subcutaneous fat can create chin jowls, arm fat, etc. Currently, there is no specific way to treat visceral adipose tissue. Current treatments for subcutaneous fat such as liposuction are aggressive and destructive.
New study uses cationic nanomaterials to measure fat
Two new studies by researchers at Columbia Engineering and Columbia University Irving Medical Center (CUIMC) can find answers to fat cell deposits in a healthy way. The reports show a new method for treating obesity using cationic nanomaterials that can target different fat areas and prevent the negative storage of large fat cells. Those things move fat instead of destroying it, like liposuction does, for example.
The first paper, published yesterday by Nature Nanotechnology, focuses on visceral adiposity or abdominal fat. The second book, published online Nov. 28 by Biomaterials, focusing on subcutaneous fat and chronic inflammation associated with obesity.
The research team, led by Li Qiang, assistant professor of pathology and cell biology at CUIMC, and Kam Leong, Samuel Y. Sheng professor of biomedical engineering and process biology at CUIMC realized that adipose tissue contains a large number of negatively charged extracellular cells matrix (ECM) consists of fat cells. They hypothesized that this negatively charged ECM network could provide a type of traffic system for positive molecules. So they took a well-designed nanomaterial, PAMAM generation 3 (P-G3), and injected it into obese mice. P-G3 spreads quickly through the body and the team is happy that their method specifically targets visceral fat and works.
Unexpected results
And then something exciting happened: P-G3 stopped the lipid storage program in the fat cells and the mice lost weight. This is unexpected, because P-G3 is very effective in neutralizing inflammatory factors, such as DNA/RNA cell debris, to reduce inflammation. .
“Our method is unique – it is out of the way of drugs or surgery,” said Qiang, an expert in obesity and adipocyte biology. “We use cationic loading to stimulate healthy fat cells, a method that no one else uses to treat obesity. I believe that this new strategy will pave the way for healthy and safe fat loss. .
P-G3 helps in the formation of new fat cells and also prevents the negative lipid storage of large fat cells.
In these two studies, the researchers found that the cationic substance, P-G3, can do an interesting thing for fat cells – while it helps to create new fat cells, it is not associated with fat storage. And because it prevents negative lipid storage in large fat cells, the mice have less fat cells, similar to those found in newborns and those who play sports. The researchers found that this uncoupled activity of P-G3 was also true in human fat biopsies, showing the potential for human translation. “With P-G3, fat cells can still be fat cells, but they can’t grow,” said Leong, a pioneer in the use of polycations to arrest bacterial infections. “Our study reveals an unexpected mechanism for treating visceral adiposity and suggests new directions for finding cationic nanomaterials for the treatment of metabolic syndrome.”
New applications for drug delivery, gene therapy and cosmetics
Now that they can choose to target visceral fat, Leong and Qiang are considering several applications. Biomaterials studies demonstrate a simple method that can be used to make cosmetics; like Botox, P-G3 can be injected locally into fat deposits under the skin.
Researchers, who have the right to wait, are now changing the P-G3 into different things to improve the performance, security and definition of deposits.
The researchers are excited to develop P-G3 as a platform that can deliver drugs and cell therapies specifically to a given fat depot. This can be controlled by many drugs from the immune system, such as thiazolidinediones (TZDs), powerful and dangerous drugs that are powerful fat modulators and used to treat type 2 diabetes, but have been used in heart failure and banned in many countries. .
“We are very excited to discover that cationic charging is the secret to targeting adipose tissue,” Qiang said. “Now we can reduce fat in a specific way – wherever we want – and in a safe way without destroying the fat cells. This is a big advance in the treatment of obesity.
