TITLE:
Age and depot-specific adipokine responses to obesity in mice
AUTHORS:
Claudia Hantschel, Asja Wagener, Christina Neuschl, Armin O. Schmitt, Gudrun A. Brockmann
KEYWORDS:
Obesity; Leptin; Adiponectin; Gene Expression; Lipids
JOURNAL NAME:
Health,
Vol.4 No.12A,
December
31,
2012
ABSTRACT: Leptin and adiponectin are the most abundant adipokines that regulate
energy homeostasis. Here, we report the changes of leptin and adiponectin in
response to age and their depot-specific expression
in lean and genetically obese mice. Fat deposition patterns, adipokine
levels and their adipose-tissue depot-specific expression patterns were
examined in both sexes of lean and obese mice on two different diets at four
and 20 weeks. In obese mice, body fat mass was higher than in lean mice and was
increased with age. Leptin levels correlated with body fat mass and therefore
increased with age. Leptin levels were correlated higher with the weight of subcutaneous
than with the weight of reproductive
adipose tissue. Likewise, leptin mRNA levels in subcutaneous adipose tissue corresponded well with serum
leptin levels. Adiponectin levels did not differ significantly between the ages
and did not correlate with body fat mass or with either of the adipose-tissue depots, although obese mice had lower
adiponectin levels than lean mice. Nevertheless, serum adiponectin levels
showed a pattern of changes that was similar to that of the adiponectin
transcript amounts in the reproductive adipose tissue. Our results confirm that
serum leptin levels are regulated by the body fat mass, predominantly by the
subcutaneous adipose tissue mass. Furthermore, our data provide evidence that
serum adiponectin levels are influenced by other factors than body fat mass
alone.