Adipocyte nuclei captured from VAT and SAT.

Area of Science:

• Epigenetics
• Adipose Biology
• Obesity Research

Background:

• Obesity-related diseases stem from epigenome changes in tissues like visceral and subcutaneous adipose tissue (VAT and SAT).
• Understanding chromatin remodeling in mature adipocytes is challenging due to isolation difficulties.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop a method for cell-type specific analysis of mature adipocyte nuclei.
• To investigate the epigenome of mature adipocytes in VAT and SAT.

Main Methods:

• Construction of MA-INTACT (Mature Adipocyte-Isolation of Nuclei TAgged in specific Cell Types) mice.
• Utilizing the adiponectin promoter to tag mature adipocyte nuclei with a reporter protein (SUN1mRFP1Flag).
• Immuno-capture of mature adipocyte nuclei from VAT and SAT.

Main Results:

• MA-INTACT mice efficiently isolated mature adipocyte nuclei (MVA and MSA) from VAT and SAT.
• Isolated nuclei showed high expression of adipocyte-specific transcripts and distinct profiles of leukocyte/endothelial markers.
• Differential expression of chromatin remodelers and thermogenic markers (PRDM16, UCP1) was observed between MVA and MSA nuclei.

Conclusions:

• The MA-INTACT mouse model provides a simple method for analyzing purified mature adipocyte nuclei.
• Isolated VAT and SAT adipocyte nuclei exhibit distinct transcriptomic patterns relevant to metabolic diseases.
• This model aids in studying the impact of lifestyle and therapeutics on obesity-related epigenomic health risks.