1. In the most immediate application of the method, overweight or obese, young or old, mouse models with excess visceral fat are treated separately in the same experiment with the ZKPr1 and ZKPr2 proteins. These overweight or obese mice may also carry any other experimentally induced disorder(s) as required by the given study. A causal role of excess visceral fat in the studied disorder requires that both proteins affect the latter proportionally to their effects on the former.

Our research, using obese mice treated with the two proteins, has already revealed important relationships between excess visceral fat and certain physiological disorders, some of the results clearly not agreeing with conclusions drawn from observational human studies. Our belief is that further studies with such mouse model systems by a pharmaceutical company and/or research institutions can serve as guides for human studies and then for clinical applications while in the process saving money.

The two proteins are commercially available for research, and as confidential information they can be identified along with their so far recognized effects.

2. Since GLP-1-based drugs, unlike rZKPr1, do not have specific effects on excess visceral fat, the relevant drug companies may want to consider developing this protein for the efficient treatment of obesity without side effects along with normalizing visceral fat. The additional benefits worth considering include (a) normalization of high triglyceride level (through large reduction of visceral fat) for which at the present no efficient drug is available (including statins) in the clinical practice, (b) great reduction of high insulin levels which in itself is a significant health benefit (for example, preventing tumor promotion), (c) significant reduction of high cholesterol (total and LDL) levels, (d) large reduction of blood glucose level which may help the effects of other diabetes drugs, and (e) greatly reducing the loss of skeletal muscle proteins.

3. Other important properties of ZKPr1:

    1. It’s half-life time in the human circulation is ~10 days.

    2. It affords proliferation and maintenance of mesenchymal stem cells in low serum and serum-free medium, respectively, which helps performing the transplantation process for a variety of health applications without side effects.

    3. It increases life expectancy of old mice by 20-30% (relevant in case of humans?).