Research team finds fat-melting protein, development of weight-loss drug likely

A research team has found a microphage-derived protein is capable of breaking down fat masses, which it hopes will lead to the development of a weight-loss drug.

The research team, led by University of Tokyo professor Toru Miyazaki, discovered the macrophage-derived protein, AIM, in 1999. In a bid to examine how the protein functions, they engineered a mouse not to produce AIM and found it grew fatter than ordinary mice eating the same amounts of food.

Researchers then injected AIM into fat cells in the engineered mouse, and confirmed that its fat masses were reduced in size by three-fourths in 72 hours...