Expansion of white adipose tissue (WAT) via recruitment of adipocytes (hyperplasia) is metabolically healthy, whereas that through the enlargement of pre-existing adipocytes (hypertrophy) leads to metabolic complications. Previous reports suggest that in animals receiving a high-fat diet (HFD), only adipocyte progenitors (APs) in gonadal WAT (gWAT) have proliferative potential. However, the proliferative and adipogenic capacity of APs in the inguinal WAT (iWAT) of male mice remains contradictory. Our objective is to elaborate on the proliferative and adipogenic potential of APs in iWAT of HFD-fed male mice. We generated PDGFRα-GFP-CreERT2/tdTomato (KI/td) mice and performed comprehensive analysis, including immunohistochemistry, flow cytometry, and gene expression analysis. Contrary to the findings of others, we found increased numbers of newly-generated tdTomato+ adipocytes in iWAT than that in gWAT of male mice. We found that in male mice, iWAT has more proliferating tdTomato+ APs with higher expression of Dpp4 and Pi16 than gWAT of mice fed HFD for 8 weeks. Collectively, in male mice, compared with gWAT, iWAT undergoes hyperplasia in response to 8 weeks of HFD feeding through the recruitment of newly generated adipocytes.

Authors List :
Muhammad Bilal1, Allah Nawaz1,2, Sana Khalid3, Muhammad Rahil Aslam1, Tomonobu Kado1, Nguyen Quynh Phuong1 Memoona1, Shiho Fujisaka1, Kazuyuki Tobe1.
Presenting Author :
Muhammad Bilal
Affiliations :
1First Department of Internal Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, University of Toyama, Toyama, Japan 930-0194. 2Section of Integrative Physiology and Metabolism, Joslin Diabetes Center, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA. 3Department of Molecular Neuroscience, Faculty of Medicine, University of Toyama, Toyama, Japan 930-0194.
Email :
drbilal@med.u-toyama.ac.jp
Key Words (5 Words Maximum) :
Adipocyte progenitors, Adipocyte hyperplasia, Adipogenesis, Healthy expansion