Studies have shown that the methylation rate of the TSC1 promoter in the hypothalamus of obese rats is significantly increased (Wang et al., 2020), and inhibition of this methylation downregulates the expression of mTOR, thereby activating autophagy in the hypothalamus and alleviating the obesity phenotype (Wang et al., 2017; Qi et al., 2019). The gene discussed is TSC1; the disease is obesity due to melanocortin 4 receptor deficiency.