Farmers’ dreams are all alike: high yield, good quality and homesome price. One way to make their dream come true lies on the basic research of our scientists.

For this reason, a team of researchers led by YIN Yulong from the Institute of Subtropical Agriculture, Chinese Academy of Sciences (ISA) has conducted a basic research to investigate the energy repartition in cell line model. Their aims are to improve animal products of livestocks and provide some thoughts for direction-depositing of animal protein.

Myostatin is known as an inhibitor of muscle development, but its role in adipogenesis and lipid metabolism is still unclear, especially the underlying mechanisms. Using 3T3-L1 cell samples, researchers investigated the mechanisms. In their research, researchers demonstrated that myostatin inhibited 3T3-L1 preadipocyte differentiation into adipocyte by suppressing C/EBPα (CCAAT/enhancer-binding protein α) and PPARγ (peroxisome-proliferator-activated receptor γ), also activated ERK1/2 (extracellular-signal-regulated kinase 1/2). Besides, myostatin enhanced the phosphorylation of HSL (hormone-sensitive lipase) and ACC (acetyl-CoA carboxylase) in fully differentiated adipocytes, as well as ERK1/2. Furthermore, we noted that myostatin markedly raised the levels of leptin and adiponectin release and mRNA expression during preadipocyte differentiation, but the levels were inhibited by myostatin treatments in fully differentiated adipocytes. “These results suggested that myostatin suppressed 3T3-L1 preadipocyte differentiation and regulated lipid metabolism of mature adipocyte, in part, via activation of ERK1/2 signalling pathway, which gives a new insight into myostatin function, and suggests that myostatin exposure may be a therapeutic pathway for improving animal products of livestocks and curing human beings with metabolic syndrome diseases.”said researcher LI Fengna from ISA.

The research was supported by the National Nature Science Foundation of China (31001015), funds from the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Knowledge Innovation Project (Kscx2-Yw-N-051), and by the CAS/SAFEA International Partnership Program for Creative Research Teams (20100491005-8 and KZCX2-YW-T07).

The study entitled “Myostatin regulates preadipocyte differentiation and lipid metabolism of adipocyte via ERK1/2” has been published in Volume 35, 1141-1146, November 2011 of Cell Biology International, details could be found at http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21510842