Abstract
Mature white fat cells (unilocular fat cells) have generally been considered to be in terminal differentiation and, hence, to have no proliferative ability. A new method, referred to as "ceiling culture," has been devised in our laboratory to culture unilocular fat cells in vitro. Under such culture conditions, the fat cells continue to exhibit specific functions of lipid metabolism and proliferate extensively. Intracytoplasmic lipid droplets did not inhibit division of the cells. There were two modes of proliferation of unilocular fat cells: "loculus-dividing" cell division, in which the single loculus of fat in the dividing cell was broken down into multiple droplets and distributed evenly between the daughter cells, and "loculus-preserving" cell division, in which the loculus in the dividing cell was minimally broken down and inherited with its shape preserved by one of the daughter cells with the other getting only a small number of fine lipid droplets. Such findings suggest that unilocular fat cells in mature fat tissue in vivo are probably capable of proliferation in such modes under some conditions.
Highlights
Mature white fat cells have generally been considered to be in terminal differentiationand, to have no proliferative ability
The lipogenesis is accelerated by insulin [1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8] and the lipolysis is stimulated by norepinephrine, ACTH, TSH, or GH [1, 3, 4,6,7,8]
No in vitro description of proliferation has been available. This problem has been resolved by a new method designated as “ceiling culture,” which we have recently reported elsewhere [9]
Summary
Mature white fat cells (unilocular fat cells) have generally been considered to be in terminal differentiationand, to have no proliferative ability. There were two modes of proliferation of unilocular fat cells: “loculus-dividing“ cell division, in which the single loculus of fat in the dividing cell was broken down into multiple droplets and distributed evenly between the daughter cells, and “loculus-preserving”cell division, in which the loculus in the dividing cell was minimally broken down and inherited with its shape preserved by one of the daughter cells with the other getting only a small number of fine lipid droplets. The lipogenesis is accelerated by insulin [1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8] and the lipolysis is stimulated by norepinephrine, ACTH, TSH, or GH [1, 3, 4,6,7,8] These fat cells typically have a large single lipid droplet and a peripherally located nucleus, are named unilocular fat cells. In the loculus-preserving mode the droplet in the dividing cells is minimally broken down and inherited (with its shape preserved) primarily by one of the daughter cells while the other daughter cell receives only a small number of finer lipid droplets
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