Abstract
The differential associations of adipose depots with metabolic risk during obesity have been proposed to be controlled by environmental and genetic factors. We evaluated the regional differences in transcriptome signatures between abdominal (aSAT) and gluteal subcutaneous adipose tissue (gSAT) in obese black South African women and tested the hypothesis that 12-week exercise training alters gene expression patterns in a depot-specific manner. Twelve young women performed 12-weeks of supervised aerobic and resistance training. Pre- and post-intervention measurements included peak oxygen consumption (VO2peak), whole-body composition and unbiased gene expression analysis of SAT depots. VO2peak increased, body weight decreased, and body fat distribution improved with exercise training (p < 0.05). The expression of 15 genes, mainly associated with embryonic development, differed between SAT depots at baseline, whereas 318 genes were differentially expressed post-training (p < 0.05). Four developmental genes were differentially expressed between these depots at both time points (HOXA5, DMRT2, DMRT3 and CSN1S1). Exercise training induced changes in the expression of genes associated with immune and inflammatory responses, and lipid metabolism in gSAT, and muscle-associated processes in aSAT. This study showed differences in developmental processes regulating SAT distribution and expandability of distinct depots, and depot-specific adaptation to exercise training in black South African women with obesity.
Highlights
The differential associations of adipose depots with metabolic risk during obesity have been proposed to be controlled by environmental and genetic factors
As a key result of our unbiased analysis, we found 15 differentially expressed genes (DEGs) between these fat depots at baseline, which were mainly associated with embryonic development (e.g. homeobox A5 (HOXA5), doublesex and mab-3 related transcription factor 2 (DMRT2), homeobox B8 (HOXB8), iroquois homeobox protein 5 (IRX5), iroquois homeobox 2 (IRX2)) and regulation of anatomical structure morphogenesis (e.g. DMRT2, doublesex and mab-3 related transcription factor 3 (DMRT3), HOXA5, R-Spondin 3 (RSPO3))
Depot-specific Adipose tissue (AT) transcriptome signatures were strongly pronounced in response to the 12-weeks structured exercise training program, such that 318 genes were differentially expressed between the depots, and only three genes commonly changed in abdominal SAT (aSAT) and gluteal subcutaneous adipose tissue (gSAT)
Summary
The differential associations of adipose depots with metabolic risk during obesity have been proposed to be controlled by environmental and genetic factors. We evaluated the regional differences in transcriptome signatures between abdominal (aSAT) and gluteal subcutaneous adipose tissue (gSAT) in obese black South African women and tested the hypothesis that 12-week exercise training alters gene expression patterns in a depot-specific manner. While central fat accumulation (both in visceral and abdominal subcutaneous areas) has been associated with greater risk for developing metabolic diseases, lower-body fat (gluteo-femoral) appears to have positive effects on metabolic health[3,4,5]. Numerous studies have reported an extensive number of differentially expressed genes (DEGs) between visceral adipose tissue (VAT) and subcutaneous adipose tissue (SAT) (both abdominal and gluteal)[4,8,10,11] This suggests that the gene expression profile of SAT depots is ethnic-specific and might have divergent metabolic effects in black African compared to European women
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