U.S. researchers have discovered a gene, which keeps mice and fruit flies lean that might offer a means to put a stop to obesity and diabetes in people.

In the journal Cell Metabolism, the researchers reported that the gene, detected over 50 years ago in fruit flies, makes mice fat when tweaked in one direction and thin when manipulated in a different way.

Winifred Doane discovered the gene when she was analyzing infertility in fruit flies as a graduate student at Yale University.

Winifred was examining fruit flies and discovered that a few were particularly fat whereas others were quite thin.
Doane, now a professor emeritus at Arizona State University, delineated the dissimilarities in fly health to a single gene, which she called "adipose."

Researchers reposed on Doane’s study and began looking for additional information on the gene, which had caught her attention.

Scientists took up some of the descendents of the skinny fruit flies from Doane to take a closer look at their genetics. Certainly, fruit flies with resourceful copies of the adipose gene were skinny. Those with badly functioning copies were short and fat.

They next required identifying whether the gene functioned the same way in more complex animals.

First of all they tried out with single cells in a test tube. When the gene was erased from ordinary cells, they transmuted themselves into fat cells.

Dr. Jonathan Graff, an associate professor of developmental biology and internal medicine at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center said the cells in reality turned plump as they gathered fat droplets.

The university team reported that it (gene) would work in the same manner in human beings, because mice and people are both mammals,.

This gene appears in all the body cells, which means that researchers will need to carefully look for fallouts when they adjust levels of the gene or the protein it encodes.