Abstract
BackgroundThe expansion of adipose tissue is linked to the development of its vasculature, which appears to have the potential to regulate the onset of obesity. However, at present, there are no studies highlighting the relationship between human adipose tissue angiogenesis and obesity-associated insulin resistance (IR).ResultsOur aim was to analyze and compare angiogenic factor expression levels in both subcutaneous (SC) and omentum (OM) adipose tissues from morbidly obese patients (n = 26) with low (OB/L-IR) (healthy obese) and high (OB/H-IR) degrees of IR, and lean controls (n = 17). Another objective was to examine angiogenic factor correlations with obesity and IR.Here we found that VEGF-A was the isoform with higher expression in both OM and SC adipose tissues, and was up-regulated 3-fold, together with MMP9 in OB/L-IR as compared to leans. This up-regulation decreased by 23% in OB/-H-IR compared to OB/L-IR. On the contrary, VEGF-B, VEGF-C and VEGF-D, together with MMP15 was down-regulated in both OB/H-IR and OB/L-IR compared to lean patients. Moreover, MMP9 correlated positively and VEGF-C, VEGF-D and MMP15 correlated negatively with HOMA-IR, in both SC and OM.ConclusionWe hereby propose that the alteration in MMP15, VEGF-B, VEGF-C and VEGF-D gene expression may be caused by one of the relevant adipose tissue processes related to the development of IR, and the up-regulation of VEGF-A in adipose tissue could have a relationship with the prevention of this pathology.
Highlights
The expansion of adipose tissue is linked to the development of its vasculature, which appears to have the potential to regulate the onset of obesity
There were no differences in the homeostasis model assessment (HOMA) indices between healthy OB/L-insulin resistance (IR) and controls, and both groups in turn displayed significant differences in this index respect to the OB/H-IR group
The fact that some morbidly obese subjects having vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF)-A overexpressed in their adipose tissue did not develop IR leads us to believe that the enhancement of VEGF-A, which is known be responsible for most of adipose tissue’s angiogenic capacity [26], could probably be in response to the impaired lymphangiogenic capacity, which was reflected by VEGF-B, VEGF-C and VEGF-D reduction
Summary
The expansion of adipose tissue is linked to the development of its vasculature, which appears to have the potential to regulate the onset of obesity. At present, there are no studies highlighting the relationship between human adipose tissue angiogenesis and obesity-associated insulin resistance (IR). Obesity is very often accompanied by other diseases, the most common being type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) and cardiovascular complications [1,2,3]. T2DM and obesity both involve genetic and environmental factors. Progression to overt diabetes in patients with obesity is not clearly predicted. While some obese individuals progress to T2DM, others only have mild metabolic abnormalities suggesting that the absolute amount of fat stored may not be the most important factor in determining the relationship between obesity and T2DM [4,5,6,7]
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