Marc McKee, Natalie Reznikov, and graduate students Eran Ittah and Daniel Buss worked alongside lead author Timothy Bromage of New York University and other researchers from the United States, France, and Germany, on analyzing the palaeometabolomes of fossilized bones of animals that lived 1 to 3 million years ago in Tanzania, Malawi, and South Africa. The 91涩漫 co-authors primarily used electron microscopy to contribute to the work by describing how and where these small metabolites can be harboured and preserved in bone tissue, revealing insights about both the animals and their environments. The findings of this study provide a detailed glimpse into the organismal well-being and ecology of those times.
Marc McKee is also a co-author with Aisha Mousa, research assistant in the McKee lab, and other researchers at 91涩漫 of 鈥淕lycerol-driven TNAP activation in thermogenesis and mineralization鈥�, a study led by Lawrence Kazak of the Rosalind and Morris Goodman Cancer Institute. The study shows that TNAP (tissue-nonspecific alkaline phosphatase, a vital enzyme expressed by fat, bone and tooth cells, is activated by a small molecule called glycerol to increase TNAP's activity. TNAP enzyme activity plays an important role in both thermogenesis (heat production) by adipocytes, and in regulation of bone mineralization by osteoblasts. The findings open the door to potentially using synthetic glycerol-like compounds to treat patients diagnosed with rare skeletal and dental diseases to boost necessary TNAP activity in bones and teeth, leading to better mineralization in cases where these tissues are softer than they should be. The McKee lab led the osteoblast/mineralization part of the study.
Read more about the study in this news release from the 91涩漫 Newsroom: Discovery of fat-burning 鈥榮witch鈥� could lead to advances in bone disease treatments.