Exploring obesity with respect to the mTOR pathway and its regulating micro-RNAs and to epigenetic changes in the methylation pattern of obesity associated genes

肥胖目前被认为是一种慢性疾病，伴随着发病率和死亡率的增加。由于肥胖经常与2型糖尿病和代谢综合征相关，我们计划在本申请中探索mTOR通路及其调节micro-RNA miR-496在肥胖疾病中的作用。根据目前的知识状态，DNA的先天和后天变化广泛影响体重的变化。由于与正常体重的志愿者相比，肥胖患者的甲基化模式异常已经得到证实，我们还计划研究与肥胖发展相关的表观遗传变化。总之，我们的目的是研究肥胖疾病的原因和发展与mTOR通路及其调节micro-RNA miR-496，并研究肥胖相关基因甲基化模式的表观遗传学变化。

Obesity is currently considered a chronic disease attended by increased morbidity and mortality risk. As obesity is frequently associated with diabetes mellitus type 2 and metabolic syndrome, we plan to explore the role of the mTOR pathway and its regulating micro-RNA miR-496 with respect to the obesity disease in this application. According to the current state of knowledge, innate and also acquired changes of DNA impact widely variance of body weight. Since an aberrant methylation pattern was already demonstrated in obese patients compared to volunteers with normal weight we also plan to study epigenetic changes associated with the development of obesity. In conclusion, we aim to investigate the cause and development of the obesity disease with respect to the mTOR pathway and its regulating micro-RNA miR-496 and to investigate epigenetic changes in the methylation pattern of obesity associated genes.