On the morning of Nov. 21, 2016, Dr. Shihuan Kuang of Purdue University was invited to guest on Fishery Forum at HZAU and gave a special lecture entitled “Lipid Metabolism and Regulation”, attracting hundreds of teachers and students from the College of Fisheries. The lecture was chaired by Prof. Liang Xufang of the College.

Dr. Kuang first introduced his story with the discipline of fisheriesand motivated attendees to fishery research. Subsequently, he introduced his current study on lipid metabolism by mentioning “frequent occurrence of obesity in the younger”, which is a research focus in recent years. Obesity is caused by excessive adipose tissue in vivo, which can be divided into white and brown adipose. The study on brown bear showed that brown adipose will accumulate during the hibernation then generate heat to maintain body temperature. The study of human body indicated that the lean has more brown-adipose than that of obese humans. The control of hormones will induce the browning of white adipose and turn it into beige adipose (which is an intermediate material between white adipose and brown adipose) when the ambient temperature decreases.

On the basis of that, Dr. Kuang’s research team found that in the mice experiment, the Notch signaling pathway would be inhibited when white adipose turned into beige adipose under the low temperature. Tissue-specific gene knockout and drug inhibition of Notch signaling protein improved the level of beige adipose cell and proved the regulation of Notch signal pathway in the turning of white adipose into beige adipose. At present, the research team is carrying out further research related to Notch signal pathway.

After the lecture, Dr. Kuang had a further discussion with teachers and students concerning the lecture, the significance of fish lipid metabolism and other related research findings.

http://news.hzau.edu.cn/2016/1125/47600.shtml

(By Hu Wendie)