“PEPCK-C (short for phosphoenolpyruvate carboxykinase) helps our bodies produce the glucose that our cells use as fuel. In 2006, scientists at Case Western Reserve University, in Ohio, engineered mice that made elevated levels of PEPCK-C in their muscles. This single alteration had far-reaching effects. For one, the modified rodents were natural marathoners. Whereas normal mice tired and quit on a treadmill after 200 metres, the modified mice went 25 times as far, cranking out 5 kilometres at a stretch. Even more remarkably, the engineered mice lived two years longer than normal mice, and the females were fertile for twice as long.”

mollwollfumble said:

“PEPCK-C (short for phosphoenolpyruvate carboxykinase) helps our bodies produce the glucose that our cells use as fuel. In 2006, scientists at Case Western Reserve University, in Ohio, engineered mice that made elevated levels of PEPCK-C in their muscles. This single alteration had far-reaching effects. For one, the modified rodents were natural marathoners. Whereas normal mice tired and quit on a treadmill after 200 metres, the modified mice went 25 times as far, cranking out 5 kilometres at a stretch. Even more remarkably, the engineered mice lived two years longer than normal mice, and the females were fertile for twice as long.”

This makes me wonder about humans and the human lineage. Many animals have the ability to conserve energy by doing nothing. Humans can’t conserve energy by doing nothing, we always have to be doing something (until we get old enough to have some chronic disease, and perhaps not even then). The same is true of gibbons, they always have to be doing something, and humans and gibbons come from a common lineage just 15+-2 million years ago. Humans also have the super-mouse property of living longer than they have any right to, and human females remain fertile for a very long time. Could humans have an over-expression of PEPCK?

On the other hand, if humans had even more PEPCK then that would overcome obesity.

Good morning!

Scientists… engineered mice?

Aquila said:

Scientists… engineered mice?

How about mice engineered Scientists?