Fat cells store excess energy and signal these levels to the
brain. In a new study this week in
Nature Medicine, Georgios Paschos PhD, a research associate in the lab of
Garret FitzGerald, MD, FRS director of the Institute for Translational Medicine
and Therapeutics, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania,
shows that deletion of the clock gene Arntl, also known as Bmal1, in fat cells,
causes mice to become obese, with a shift in the timing of when this nocturnal species
normally eats. These findings shed light on the complex causes of obesity in
humans.