McGill Finds Glycerol‑TNAP Switch Activates Brown Fat
SkimNews Take
The body's use of glycerol as a fuel source in brown fat appears to link metabolic activity directly to bone health, suggesting a shared regulatory pathway between energy expenditure and skeletal maintenance.
Get the Health newsletter
Daily health & science — research, biotech, public health, the studies worth knowing. Free.
- Lawrence Kazak led a McGill University team that uncovered a molecular switch in mice that turns on a hidden energy‑burning system inside brown fat.
- Nature published the findings, highlighting a new insight into how brown fat generates heat beyond the previously known pathway.
- Glycerol binds to the enzyme TNAP at a glycerol pocket, activating the alternative heat‑producing futile creatine cycle.
- Alba Guarné collaborated as a structural biologist, helping to identify the glycerol‑TNAP interaction that triggers the switch.
- Bone disease is cited as a potential therapeutic target for the newly identified brown‑fat switch.
Why it matters: The identification of glycerol‑TNAP binding as the on‑switch for the futile creatine cycle gives researchers a concrete molecular target to manipulate brown‑fat thermogenesis, expanding the toolkit for metabolic studies and creating a direct link to bone‑disease therapeutic research and supports investigation of novel drug candidates.
