DRWF funded researcher Professor Hari Hundal, Division of Molecular Physiology, University of Dundee has submitted his final report to the charity on his research on the ‘Regulation of TUB expression and function in adipose tissue: implications for obesity and insulin resistance’.
Professor Hundal was awarded a twelve month DRWF open funding grant in 2007 and has received one previously in 2003. His research has recently been published in Diabetes, American Journal of Physiology and a number of other scientific journals.
His research undertaken in 2008 supports a novel role for TUB in the mediation of insulin signalling and energy metabolism in peripheral tissues.
Professor Hundal said in his final report, ‘Although attempts to suppress TUB gene expression using RNAi technology proved to be problematic in 3T3-L1 adipocytes, we found the RNAi-mediated systems used to be highly efficient at suppressing target gene expression in cultured muscle cells’.
The research team was also able to successfully pursue several other avenues of research related to the control of insulin sensitivity in adipose tissue and skeletal muscle including the roles of the following proteins: serine palmitoyl transferase, an enzyme critical for the generation of ceramide from saturated fatty acids; cannabinoid receptor type I, a component of the endocannabinoid system which has been suggested to regulate whole body energy metabolism; and atypical PKCs, a family of proteins that have been demonstrated to be activated in response to fatty acids and implicated in the control of insulin signalling in both adipose and skeletal muscle.
In addition to this, they were also able to utilise many of the reagents and constructs purchased as part of this project in other studies within the laboratory looking at the hormonal control of both insulin and amino acid regulated pathways.
This research will likely form the basis for further work in this area.