Regeneration therapy of metabolic diseases based on chemical direct reprogramming of somatic cells

2015 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 15K15350
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Challenging Exploratory Research
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Research Field: Metabolomics
• Research Institution: Kyoto Prefectural University of Medicine
• Principal Investigator: Kishida Tsunao 京都府立医科大学, 医学(系)研究科(研究院), 准教授 (00370205)
• Co-Investigator(Renkei-kenkyūsha): Kawahito Yutaka 京都府立医科大学, 医学(系)研究科(研究院), 准教授 (50336731) ; Mazda Osam 京都府立医科大学, 医学(系)研究科(研究院), 教授 (00271164)
• Project Period (FY): 2015-04-01 – 2016-03-31
• Keywords: 褐色脂肪細胞 / 代謝疾患

Outline of Final Research Achievements

Transplantation of autologous brown adipocytes into diabetic patients may become a valid therapeutic intervention against diabetes mellitus. Recently we succeeded in directly converting fibroblasts into brown adipocytes by transducing genes encoding C/EBP-β and c-myc. These brown adipocytes robustly expressed UCP1, showed high metabolic activity, and ameliorated insulin resistance and other metabolic aberration after transplantation into diabetic mice. Based on these findings, we tried to establish a safer procedure to convert fibroblasts into brown adipocytes.
We explored chemical compounds that induce brown adipocyte-like phenotypes in human fibroblasts. As results, we have found some compounds that enable direct conversion of human fibroblasts into brown adipocytes without gene transduction. These compounds may be useful for a novel cell therapy against diabetes mellitus.

Free Research Field

代謝学