What if someone told you that the fix for many problems linked with obesity could be hidden away, ironically, in rolls of fat in the body?

Scientists at Scripps Research, US, recently said just this. They have found PGRMC-2, a protein present in abundance in fat tissues, which has the potential to manage metabolic diseases like diabetes.

Representational image. AFP

Progesterone Receptor Membrane Component 2 or PGRMC-2 is a protein which acts as a chaperone to an essential molecule called heme. And guess where we have a bunch of heme in the body? Brown fat, also known as good fat, of course. But the Scripps team also found the protein in the liver, in sperm, and even inside the placenta.

Heme is an iron-containing molecule that helps in binding with oxygen thus carrying out crucial life processes such as cellular respiration, cell reproduction, cell death and circadian rhythms (24-hour cycle of the body). It also gives blood its red colour.

PGRMC-2 encapsulates the heme and guides it to travel from the cell's mitochondria, where heme is formed, to the nucleus, where it carries out its functions. Without PGRMC-2 as a protective chaperone, free heme acts as a toxin and causes oxidative stress and inflammation leading to cellular and tissue injury.

Enrique Saez, PhD, associate professor in the Department of Molecular Medicine at Scripps Research, along with his team did further research on PGRMC-2 to find out if it can be effective in reversing some of the serious health effects of obesity.

The research was done on mice who didnt have PGRMC-2 and who were fed a high-fat diet. In due time it became clear that in the absence of the protein PGRMC-2, the mices bodies started becoming glucose intolerant and insulin insensitive.

Glucose intolerance is a prediabetic stage in which the blood glucose levels are above normal but they are not high enough for you to be diagnosed as a diabetic. Normal fasting blood glucose levels are less than 100 mg/dl but if it comes anywhere between 100-125 mg/dl, it is considered to be a prediabetic state.

Insulin insensitivity refers to the inability of insulin to absorb glucose in the body, thus leading to high blood sugar levels. When the scientists treated these mice with a drug that activated the PGRMC-2 protein in their bodies, they noted a substantial improvement in their symptoms: the mice were less glucose intolerant and less resistant to insulin.

The scientists found that in the absence of the protein, the mices body could not generate body heat. The reason, in the absence of the protein, the scientists said, the good brown fat in mices bodies had started looking white! Brown fat is packed with iron-rich mitochondria which burn calories to produce heat in the body.

With this discovery, the scientists believed that activating the heme chaperone in other organs like the liver, which is a reservoir for heme, could help alleviate the effects of other metabolic disorders such as non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH), which is one of the reasons why so many people need a liver transplant today.

Health articles in Firstpost are written by myUpchar.com, Indias first and biggest resource for verified medical information. At myUpchar, researchers and journalists work with doctors to bring you information on all things health. For more information, please read our article on Liver Transplant: Who Needs It, and Why?

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