Adipose lipid turnover and long-term changes in body weight.

The worldwide obesity epidemic makes it important to understand how lipid turnover (the capacity to store and remove lipids) regulates adipose tissue mass. Cross-sectional studies have shown that excess body fat is associated with decreased adipose lipid removal rates. Whether lipid turnover is constant over the life span or changes during long-term weight increase or loss is unknown.

Impact of fat mass and distribution on lipid turnover in human adipose tissue.

Differences in white adipose tissue (WAT) lipid turnover between the visceral (vWAT) and subcutaneous (sWAT) depots may cause metabolic complications in obesity. Here we compare triglyceride age and, thereby, triglyceride turnover in vWAT and sWAT biopsies from 346 individuals and find that subcutaneous triglyceride age and storage capacity are increased in overweight or obese individuals. Visceral triglyceride age is only increased in excessively obese individuals and associated with a lower lipid removal capacity.

Differential expression of the chemokine receptors CX3CR1 and CCR1 by microglia and macrophages in myelin-oligodendrocyte-glycoprotein-induced experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis.

Chemokines are important for the recruitment of immune cells into sites of inflammation. To better understand their functional roles during inflammation we have here studied the in vivo expression of receptors for the chemokines CCL3/CCL5/CCL7 (MIP-1alpha/RANTES/MCP-3) and CX3CL1 (fractalkine), CCR1 and CX3CR1, respectively, in rat myelin oligodendrocyte glycoprotein-induced experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis. Combined in situ hybridization and immunohistochemistry demonstrated intensely upregulated CCR1 mRNA expression in early, actively demyelinating plaques, whereas CX3CR1 displayed a more generalized expression pattern.

Generation of microglia specific reagents from phage displayed peptide libraries.

The present report concerns the generation of specific markers and the establishment of a selection procedure for microglia specific molecules from phage displayed peptide libraries. Negative selection against a mouse monocytic cell line (IC-21) and positive selection against primary mouse microglia was combined in the selection procedures using a mixture of two random peptide libraries displayed on phage. In a first set of experiments, one clone was selected that bound microglia and IC-21 cells to equal extent, and three clones that bound to unsorted primary microglia to substantially higher levels than to IC-21 cells.