Chau You-Ying, Hastie Nick
Medical Research Council Human Genetics Unit; Institute of Genetics and Molecular Medicine at the University of Edinburgh; Western General Hospital ; Edinburgh, UK.
Adipocyte. 2015 Jan 29;4(3):217-21. doi: 10.4161/21623945.2014.985009. eCollection 2015 Jul-Sep.
One major gap in adipocyte biology has been a lack of understanding of the developmental origins of the different visceral white adipose tissue (WAT) depots and subcutaneous WAT. In a recent study we showed that most visceral WAT but no subcutaneous WAT arises from cells expressing the Wilms' tumor 1 (Wt1) gene late in mouse gestation.(1) Wt1 continues to be expressed in visceral WAT progenitors into adult life. We also showed that visceral WAT is lined by a mesothelium and provided evidence that this structure is the source of adipocytes. Our study also adds to the growing body of evidence that there is heterogeneity in the visceral progenitors, such that there are Wt1-expressing and non-expressing subsets, the relative proportions of which vary between depots. This raises the enticing prospect that the adipocytes arising from these progenitor subsets may have different properties and our preliminary data support this notion. Finally, evidence from our study and one from Spiegelman's group(2) suggests that Wt1 is not just a marker but regulates visceral WAT identity and the progenitor population. We discuss the implications of this work and some of the questions and future directions that arise from it.
脂肪细胞生物学领域的一个主要空白在于，人们对不同内脏白色脂肪组织（WAT）库和皮下WAT的发育起源缺乏了解。在最近的一项研究中，我们发现，大多数内脏WAT而非皮下WAT源自小鼠妊娠后期表达威尔姆斯瘤1（Wt1）基因的细胞。（1）Wt1在内脏WAT祖细胞中持续表达直至成年。我们还发现，内脏WAT内衬有间皮，并提供证据表明该结构是脂肪细胞的来源。我们的研究还进一步证明，内脏祖细胞存在异质性，即存在表达Wt1和不表达Wt1的亚群，各亚群的相对比例在不同脂肪库之间有所差异。这引发了一个诱人的前景，即源自这些祖细胞亚群的脂肪细胞可能具有不同特性，而我们的初步数据支持这一观点。最后，我们的研究以及斯皮格曼团队（2）的一项研究证据表明，Wt1不仅是一个标志物，还能调节内脏WAT的特性和祖细胞群体。我们讨论了这项工作的意义以及由此产生的一些问题和未来方向。
