Talk abstracts

Talk on Tuesday 04:15-04:30pm submitted by Revati Dewal

Transplantation of Pre-adipocytes and Stem Progenitors from Brown Adipose Tissue (BAT) Stromal Vascular Fraction (SVF) Improves Glucose Metabolism of the Recipients

Revati S. Dewal (MCDB), Joseph D. White (Physiology and Cell biology), Peter J. Arts (Physiology and Cell biology), Lisa A. Baer (Physiology and Cell biology), Kristin I. Stanford (Physiology and Cell Biology)

Abstract:
Brown adipose tissue (BAT) is a thermogenic tissue that can dissipate chemical energy in the form of heat and has recently emerged as a potential therapeutic against obesity and type 2 diabetes. Previous work in our laboratory has shown that increasing the amount of BAT by transplantation greatly improves glucose homeostasis and insulin sensitivity in a mouse model. We hypothesize that specific cell types within the BAT are responsible for this effect. The cell types in BAT include mature brown adipocytes and the stromal vascular fraction (SVF), which contains various cell types including pre-adipocytes, stem progenitor cells and immune cells. Importantly, while tissue transplantation is a viable option in rodent models, it is not easily adaptable to human application. Transplantation of cells however is a more translatable approach for human use. Here, we isolated the SVF and cultured pre-adipocytes and stem-progenitor cells from BAT to identify if these cell types can improve glucose homeostasis upon transplantation. Cells were isolated from Luciferase Transgenic mice and then differentiated by adipogenic induction and injected into the visceral cavity of recipient wild-type C57BL/6 mice on days 0, 1, 3, 6 and 8 of differentiation. Cell viability was measured by injecting the recipients with Luciferin and studying the bio-luminescence produced. We injected low (100k) and high (1.2 million) cell numbers. Metabolic tests (including measurements of glucose tolerance and insulin sensitivity) were performed at 4 weeks post-transplantation. We found that transplantation of pre-adipocytes on days 3 and 8 of differentiation improves glucose tolerance in recipient mice. These exciting data indicate that pre-adipocytes isolated from BAT SVF and differentiated into adipocytes can improve glucose metabolism upon transplantation. These data will be used to develop efficient identification and transplantation approaches for cell types from BAT SVF that improve glucose homeostasis and be an important strategy to combat obesity and type 2 diabetes.

Keywords: Brown adipose tissue, Obesity, Type 2 diabetes