Guo Wen, Bigornia Sherman, Leizerman Ilit, Xie Weisheng, McDonnell Marie, Clemente Kara, Pirtskhalava Tamara, Kirkland James L, Gokce Noyan, Corkey Barbara E, Sullivan Lisa M, Apovian Caroline M
Department of Medicine, Boston University School of Medicine, 650 Albany Streeet, Room 805, Boston, MA 02118, USA.
Obesity (Silver Spring). 2007 Jul;15(7):1657-65. doi: 10.1038/oby.2007.198.
To evaluate a new scanning electronic microscopic (EM) method for assessing fat cell sizes and compare fat cell size distribution in human adipose tissue from different fat depots before and after weight loss.
Identical human fat tissue biopsies were separated into two fractions: one used to prepare a fat cell suspension by collagenase digestion followed by photomicrography (collagenase method) and the other fixed in formalin for EM analysis. The EM method was evaluated further by determining fat cell sizes from lean and ob/ob mice. Finally, the EM method was used to assess fat cell sizes in biopsies of different human depots from before and after weight loss.
Fat cell size distributions measured by the two methods were not identical, but differences were generally small. The EM method reproduced the well-documented fat cell size difference between lean and ob/ob mice. Large variation was detected in fat cell distributions among three depots in humans. Weight loss reduced fat cell sizes in subjects with large baseline fat cells but had no effect in subjects with small baseline fat cell sizes.
Our results suggest that the EM method may be a useful alternative for fat cell size analysis of clinical samples.
评估一种用于评估脂肪细胞大小的新型扫描电子显微镜（EM）方法，并比较减肥前后不同脂肪储存部位的人体脂肪组织中脂肪细胞大小分布情况。
将相同的人体脂肪组织活检样本分为两部分：一部分通过胶原酶消化制备脂肪细胞悬液，随后进行显微摄影（胶原酶法）；另一部分用福尔马林固定用于电子显微镜分析。通过测定瘦小鼠和ob/ob小鼠的脂肪细胞大小，进一步评估电子显微镜方法。最后，使用电子显微镜方法评估减肥前后不同人体脂肪储存部位活检样本中的脂肪细胞大小。
两种方法测得的脂肪细胞大小分布并不完全相同，但差异通常较小。电子显微镜方法重现了瘦小鼠和ob/ob小鼠之间已被充分记录的脂肪细胞大小差异。在人体的三个脂肪储存部位中，检测到脂肪细胞分布存在较大差异。减肥使基线脂肪细胞较大的受试者的脂肪细胞大小减小，但对基线脂肪细胞较小的受试者没有影响。
我们的结果表明，电子显微镜方法可能是临床样本脂肪细胞大小分析的一种有用替代方法。
