Relationships between Rodent White Adipose Fat Pads and Human White Adipose Fat Depots

The development of obesity not only depends on the balance between food intake and caloric utilization but also on the balance between white adipose tissue, which is the primary site of energy storage, and brown adipose tissue, which is specialized for energy expenditure. In addition, some sites of white fat storage in the body are more closely linked than others to the metabolic complications of obesity, such as diabetes. In this Review, we consider how the developmental origins of fat contribute to its physiological, cellular, and molecular heterogeneity and explore how these factors may play a role in the growing epidemic of obesity.

Excess caloric intake can lead to insulin resistance. The underlying reasons are complex but likely related to ectopic lipid deposition in nonadipose tissue. We hypothesized that the inability to appropriately expand subcutaneous adipose tissue may be an underlying reason for insulin resistance and beta cell failure. Mice lacking leptin while overexpressing adiponectin showed normalized glucose and insulin levels and dramatically improved glucose as well as positively affected serum triglyceride levels. Therefore, modestly increasing the levels of circulating full-length adiponectin completely rescued the diabetic phenotype in ob/ob mice. They displayed increased expression of PPARgamma target genes and a reduction in macrophage infiltration in adipose tissue and systemic inflammation. As a result, the transgenic mice were morbidly obese, with significantly higher levels of adipose tissue than their ob/ob littermates, leading to an interesting dichotomy of increased fat mass associated with improvement in insulin sensitivity. Based on these data, we propose that adiponectin acts as a peripheral "starvation" signal promoting the storage of triglycerides preferentially in adipose tissue. As a consequence, reduced triglyceride levels in the liver and muscle convey improved systemic insulin sensitivity. These mice therefore represent what we believe is a novel model of morbid obesity associated with an improved metabolic profile.

Although excess visceral fat is associated with noninfectious inflammation, it is not clear whether visceral fat is simply associated with or actually causes metabolic disease in humans. To evaluate the hypothesis that visceral fat promotes systemic inflammation by secreting inflammatory adipokines into the portal circulation that drains visceral fat, we determined adipokine arteriovenous concentration differences across visceral fat, by obtaining portal vein and radial artery blood samples, in 25 extremely obese subjects (mean +/- SD BMI 54.7 +/- 12.6 kg/m(2)) during gastric bypass surgery at Barnes-Jewish Hospital in St. Louis, Missouri. Mean plasma interleukin (IL)-6 concentration was approximately 50% greater in the portal vein than in the radial artery in obese subjects (P = 0.007). Portal vein IL-6 concentration correlated directly with systemic C-reactive protein concentrations (r = 0.544, P = 0.005). Mean plasma leptin concentration was approximately 20% lower in the portal vein than in the radial artery in obese subjects (P = 0.0002). Plasma tumor necrosis factor-alpha, resistin, macrophage chemoattractant protein-1, and adiponectin concentrations were similar in the portal vein and radial artery in obese subjects. These data suggest that visceral fat is an important site for IL-6 secretion and provide a potential mechanistic link between visceral fat and systemic inflammation in people with abdominal obesity.