New Publication by Allele Biotech Researchers on Adipogenesis

Title:

A Novel pro-adipogenesis factor abundant in adipose tissues and over-expressed in obesity acts upstream of PPARg and C/EBPa

Authors:

Yuhui Ni, Chenbo Ji, Bin Wang, Jie Qiu, Jiwu Wang, Xirong Guo

Abstract:

An important question about adipogenesis is how master adipogenesis factors (defined as being able to initiate adipogenesis when expressed alone) peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor (PPAR) initiate adipogenesis only in differentiating preadipocytes. The objective of our research was to find previously unidentified factors that are unique or highly enriched in cells of the adipocyte lineage during adipogenesis that may provide functional tissue specificity to preadipocytes. We reasoned that such factors may alter expression profile specifically in obese individuals. Omental adipose tissues were obtained from obese and non-obese male patients undergoing emergency abdominal surgery. mRNAs extracted from either group were used for suppression subtraction hybridization (SSH). Genes corresponding to mRNAs enriched in obese versus non-obese patients were identified through sequencing and further analyzed for tissue distribution. Out of ~20 genes, we found several that showed clear fat cell specific expression patterns. In this study, we functionally studied one of these genes, previously designated as open reading frame C10orf116. Our data demonstrated that C10orf116 is highly expressed in adipose tissue and is localized primarily within the nucleus. Over-expression studies in 3T3-L1 cells indicated that it up-regulates the levels of CCAAT/enhancer binding protein a (C/EBPa) and PPARg and promotes adipogenic differentiation starting from the early stage of adipogenesis. Over-expressed in omental tissues from obese patients, C10orf16 manifested the characteristics of an adipocyte lineage-specific nuclear factor that can modulate the master adipogenesis transcription factors early during differentiation. Further studies of this factor should help reveal tissue-specific events leading to fat cell development at the transcriptional level.

Link to the original publication: http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs10863-012-9492-6
Here is Allele Biotech’s webpage showing relevant cell and development biology products: www.allelebiotech.com

Making brown adipose tissues from RiPSCs

From AlleleNews

Compared to the generation of other tissue types, adipogenesis is relatively well studied because of the long availability of mouse cell line 3T3-L1 that can be readily differentiated into white adipocytes upon a simple treatment of a few chemicals. For human adipogenesis cell models, either mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) from bone marrow or other tissues or adipose-derived stromal vascular cells18 (ADSVCs) could be derived into fat cells. However, these cells have limited potential for expansion for continued studies.

Using iPS cells for tissue development has been a hot topic in many fields of developmental biology. Although one could transfect or transduce iPSCs, it is still often necessary to grow the stem cells into some type of progenitor cells through 3-D suspension culture as embryonic bodies. In a recent Nature Cell Biology paper, Ahfeldt and colleagues in Cowan lab created MSCs from RiPSCs generated by the Luigi Warren mRNA method, then derived them into either white adipose tissues (with lentivirus carried PPARG2) or brown (PPARG2–CEBPB–PRDM16) adipose tissues. It is particularly interesting that brown fat tissues, often considered the “good fat”, could be derived in a dish. This study will open doors for further use of the footprint-free mRNA-derived iPSCs for virtually unlimited supply of precursor cells for in vitro differentiation.

News and Views: http://www.nature.com/ncb/journal/v14/n2/full/ncb2430.html#/references

Original article: http://www.nature.com/ncb/journal/v14/n2/full/ncb2411.html