Metabolic disease including obesity and diabetes is fast becoming one of the major health issues affecting human health to date. We have shown that SphK2 is an epigenetic regulator of fat formation when adipose derived stem cells are activated to become adipocytes, the major cellular component of adipose (fat)tissues, in both embryonic development and metabolic disease.
We wish to further characterise this novel mechanism by understanding the interaction between SphK2 and the chromatin in adipose derived stem cells to equistately control downstream expression of target genes that are responsible for many aspects of fat development in mouse and human tissue.
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