Hormone-sensitive lipase in human adipose tissue, isolated adipocytes, and cultured adipocytes

Employing a perifusion technique, the activity of hormone-sensitive lipase (HSL) in human adipose tissue and isolated adipocytes was found to be significantly stimulated by 5 microM epinephrine (5-fold. P less than 0.001) or 0.5 mM theophylline (2-fold, P less than 0.03). The stimulatory effect of both, however, was not cumulative; instead, theophylline appeared to blunt the epinephrine effect. The two effectors together produced a 3-fold increase in activity over basal (P less than 0.01). Basal lipolysis was highly and significantly correlated with epinephrine and/or theophylline stimulated lipolysis in the tissue as well as in the isolated cells. The activity of the enzyme was examined in cultured human adipocytes using a cell-free system. The basal activity of HSL in the 20,000 X g supernatant (S20) fraction of cultured cells grown in fat-enriched medium was significantly higher than the value in the same fraction of cells grown in regular medium (6.06 +/- 1.49 versus 2.78 +/- 0.89 nmole glycerol/min/mg protein, mean +/- S.D., P less than 0.01), an was similar in the S20 fractions of cells grown in the enriched medium and the original tissue (6.06 +/- 1.49 versus 5.44 +/- 2.73 nmole glycerol/Min/mg protein, mean +/- S.D., P greater than 0.83). When the tissue and cells were stimulated in vitro before fractionation, the HSL activity in the S20 fraction of the original tissue increased 4-fold over basal (P less than 0.001), whereas that in the cultured cells increased 2-fold (P less than 0.01) regardless of the culture medium employed. In the S20 fractions derived from basally incubated samples, but not in those derived from the epinephrine-stimulated samples, the HSL enzyme was slightly but significantly (P less than 0.002) activated by exogenous addition of ATP, cyclic AMP, and protein kinase. The data suggest that the activity of HSL is retained in cultured human adipocytes and could be enhanced under conditions of culture which favor lipid accumulation and adipose conversion.