Impact of caloric restriction on AMPK and endoplasmic reticulum stress in peripheral tissues and circulating peripheral blood mononuclear cells from Zucker rats.

The activation of endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress and a reduction of AMP-dependent protein kinase (AMPK) phosphorylation have been described in obesity. We hypothesize that a moderate caloric restriction (CR) might contribute to reducing ER stress and increasing AMPK phosphorylation in peripheral tissues from genetically obese Zucker fa/fa rats and in peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs). Zucker Lean and Zucker fa/fa rats were fed with chow diet either ad libitum (AL) (C, as controls) or 80% of AL (CR) for 2 weeks, giving rise to four experimental groups: Lean C, Lean CR, fa/fa C and fa/fa CR.