Obesity, a pathology that affects more than one billion people in our society and is constantly growing, is characterized by an increase in body fat, and constitutes a risk factor for a set of diseases, including risk of cardiovascular, diabetes, cancer, stroke, hypertension, COVID, joint problems, and a long etc., which represent serious limitations in the expectations and quality of life of the affected people. Due to its high prevalence, this disease is considered by the World Health Organization as a priority in the field of public health and consequently it is a fundamental area of ​​research.

For this reason, a multidisciplinary and multicenter group made up of researchers in different Spanish centers has tackled the study of the mechanisms involved in the generation of obesity. A study carried out through the use of a diversity of genomic technologies, studies of metabolism, biochemistry, massive DNA sequencing, generation of genetically modified mice, with the result of the identification of new mechanisms through a gene involved in the control of it.

The work carried out at the CSIC in collaboration with researchers from the CNIC, and the Rey Juan Carlos University of Alcorcón, and published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) identify the gene, Dido, necessary for the development of adipose tissue. In their work, the authors demonstrate the ability of this gene to prevent, even in situations of feeding diets enriched in fat, the generation of adipose tissue cells responsible for obesity. The Dido gene acts through mechanisms that regulate the expression of genes essential for the metabolic activity associated with the generation of fat. This gene, which has been previously identified and studied in the CSIC laboratory for its ability to participate in the differentiation of embryonic stem cells, thus acquires a new function, its ability to regulate the generation of adipose tissue.

These results, although they must be taken with caution because they were obtained in experimental mice, may have important therapeutic implications in the control of obesity and associated metabolic pathologies in humans, because the study of the molecular and structural mechanisms already known of the Dido gene, open a new window for the identification of new therapeutic compounds with the same activity.

In similarity to Dido, queen of Carthage who fails to keep Aeneas at her side and decides to end her life, the presence of mutations in this gene, Dido, which regulates the differentiation of adipocytes, prevents the generation and accumulation of these , thus avoiding the formation of fat and consequently preventing obesity. The mythology of the queen of Carthage, spectacularly captured in the opera Dido and Aeneas by the playwright and poet Nahin Tate and music by Henry Purcel, thus transcends its mythological and cultural role and extends with a new vision with its incorporation into science.

Carlos Martínez Alonso He is a researcher in the Department of Immunology and Oncology of the National Center for Biotechnology. He has also been president of the CSIC and Secretary of State for Research.