Interactions between adipose tissue and endometrium
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Evaluating the crosstalk between adipose tissue and endometrium in obesity
IRAS ID
170490
Contact name
Dharani Hapangama
Contact email
Duration of Study in the UK
5 years, 0 months, 1 days
Research summary
People who are obese are more likely to develop type 2 diabetes and cancer. When the hormone insulin, doesn’t work in tissues in the normal way, there is an increase in sugar in the blood causing Type 2 diabetes. Increased amount of fat tissue in the body as in obesity disturbs the ways that fat cells work. We know that fat cells make various molecules and proteins that can interfere with the way hormones such as insulin work in the body. Fat cells release small vesicles that are essentially small containers that act like a bottle containing a message to carry inside active molecules, they are called microvesicles. The molecules contained in microvesicles can be delivered to another cell, where it is capable of changing the cell(s) work. Microvesicles are released by healthy and cancer cells. We know that cells associated with a variety of disease produce more of these vesicles and may also change their composition. Analysing these microvesicles could be an important way to examine how the cells behave as the disease is progressing and also to understand how cancer and diabetes occur. This understanding could lead to the development of new treatments based on these microvesicles. This project also aims to investigate the impact of obesity, on the cells that line the womb (endometrial cells) and potentially driving them to change to cancer. We are specifically looking at how the obesity impact the fat tissue making microvesicles and how these vesicles from obese women control other fat cells and endometrial cells. We aim to characterise these vesicles and analyse the molecular elements in them and in the laboratory, we will test the effects of these vesicles in changing the growth of fat and endometrial cells.
REC name
North West - Liverpool Central Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
16/NW/0445
Date of REC Opinion
22 Jun 2016
REC opinion
Unfavourable Opinion