Abstract
Adipose tissue in man is a major site for cholesterol storage. In obesity over half of total body cholesterol may reside within this tissue; however, relatively little attention has been directed toward understanding the cholesterol metabolism and its relationship to whole body cholesterol homeostasis in this tissue. In this review the factors which influence cholesterol storage are discussed, with particular emphasis on the effects of diet and drug treatment in both animals and man. The uptake, synthesis, and mobilization of adipose tissue cholesterol appears to be mediated and/or regulated, as in other tissues, by the plasma lipoproteins, and these processes are examined with regard to both normal and pathologic states.
Highlights
Adipose tissue is widely recognized for its efficient storage of excess calories in the form of triglyceride
That adipose tissue might be involved in the metabolism of cholesterol since significant 'correlations could be described between plasma cholesterol and various indices of obesity [1]
The concentration of cholesterol in the plasma can serve as a potential source of adipocyte cholesterol and influence the extent of adipose tissue cholesterol storage.It has been recognizedfor many years that plasma cholesterol is in dynamic equilibrium with tissues, including adipose tissue [31, 32]
Summary
Adipose tissue is widely recognized for its efficient storage of excess calories in the form of triglyceride. Expressing cholesterol content on the basis of wet weight probably provides the crudest estimate of cholesterol concentration and is inappropriate when body weights and adipose cellularity differ among treatment groups Such arguments have been presented previously in relation to the expression of lipolytic data in adipose tissue [16, 17] and have subsequently been used for expressing lipoprotein lipase activity in isolated fat cells [18, 19]. T h e aging process per se in the absence of cellular hypertrophy or hypercholesterolemia probably does not alter the extent of adipocyte cholesterol storage since adipocyte cholesterol content does not change with age in a strain of rat (Fischer 344) in which such “complications” of aging do not occur [30]
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