Patent ID: 6942967

Claim:
A method of identifying a drug candidate for the treatment of obesity or other diseases characterized by hyperlipidemia or type II diabetes (non insulin dependent), comprising: a) incubating a synthetic RNA sequence comprising the anchoring sequence of apobec-1 with a test inhibitor and an apobec-1 enzyme; b) adding a complementary primer of 3′ sequence of the synthetic sequence under hybridizing conditions; c) adding reverse transcriptase and a radiolabelled nucleotide; and d) detecting whether the inhibitor inhibits the apobec-1 enzyme by detecting the absence of deamination of the anchoring sequence, wherein inhibition of the apobec-1 enzyme is indicative that said test inhibitor is a drug candidate for the treatment of obesity or other diseases characterized by hyperlipidemia or type II diabetes (non insulin dependent).