Biochemists discover 'parking position' of fat-burning enzymes
Fat is a curse and a blessing at the same time. While we would rather not have any fat deposits on our body, especially in summer, accumulated fats in plants are desirable as they make them especially nutritious. Biochemists from Graz University of Technology demonstrated in 2010 that two enzymes of the fat metabolism have a twofold function, being responsible both for the breakdown and the metabolic formation of fats. When they investigated the fat depleting function, Günther Daum and doctoral candidate Claudia Schmidt from the Institute of Biochemistry of Graz University of Technology found that the enzymes are "parked" under certain conditions and suspend the breakdown of fat. The result was recently published in the renowned Journal of Biological Chemistry.