SYDNEY, March 25 (Xinhua) -- Australian researchers have announced a discovery which ultimately could play a major role in reducing obesity.

In a report published in the Science journal and revealed on Friday, scientists from the Monash Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences (MIPS) and the ARC Center for Cryo-EM of Membrane Proteins (CCeMMP), affiliated with Monash University, have pinpointed how a promising group of anti-obesity drugs known as DACRAs (dual amylin and calcitonin receptor agonists) activate various receptors in the body.

Previously the activation process had not been fully understood, which limited the clinical advancement of this class of weight-loss drug.

"Our work opens up opportunities for the design and development of more effective DACRA therapies that could be used to better treat the spectrum of overweight and obese patients, and those with related metabolic disease," Monash University Professor of Drug Discovery Biology and CCeMMP director Patrick Sexton told Xinhua on Friday.

MIPS structural biologist doctoral candidate Jason Cao said the breakthrough was made by using cutting-edge technology called cryo-electron microscopy (cryo-EM).

"To really understand how these drugs may work, we needed to visualize molecular level details of how the different types of template peptides were bound to each of the four different target receptors," he said.

Cao said cryo-EM enabled the scientists to "capture molecular details of the interactions that drive activity" along with "information on the dynamics of the protein that are critical to selectivity and function."

The researchers said they were surprised by their findings because it had been assumed the "molecular architecture of the amylin receptors would dictate how the peptides worked."

Instead, they saw "dramatic differences in the conformations and dynamics of the individual receptors when bound to different peptides."

The quest for such discoveries has become ever more urgent, with World Health Organization estimating that by 2025, approximately 167 million people -- adults and children -- will become less healthy because they are overweight or obese. Enditem

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