Touchstone Diabetes Center, Department of Internal Medicine, The University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, TX, USA.
Nat Rev Mol Cell Biol. 2019 Apr;20(4):242-258. doi: 10.1038/s41580-018-0093-z.
Obesity is characterized by increased adipose tissue mass and has been associated with a strong predisposition towards metabolic diseases and cancer. Thus, it constitutes a public health issue of major proportion. The expansion of adipose depots can be driven either by the increase in adipocyte size (hypertrophy) or by the formation of new adipocytes from precursor differentiation in the process of adipogenesis (hyperplasia). Notably, adipocyte expansion through adipogenesis can offset the negative metabolic effects of obesity, and the mechanisms and regulators of this adaptive process are now emerging. Over the past several years, we have learned a considerable amount about how adipocyte fate is determined and how adipogenesis is regulated by signalling and systemic factors. We have also gained appreciation that the adipogenic niche can influence tissue adipogenic capability. Approaches aimed at increasing adipogenesis over adipocyte hypertrophy can now be explored as a means to treat metabolic diseases.
肥胖的特征是脂肪组织质量增加，并且与代谢疾病和癌症的强烈易感性有关。因此，它构成了一个主要的公共卫生问题。脂肪储存的扩张可以通过脂肪细胞大小的增加（肥大）或通过前体细胞在脂肪生成过程中的分化形成新的脂肪细胞（增生）来驱动。值得注意的是，通过脂肪生成实现的脂肪细胞扩张可以抵消肥胖的负面代谢影响，并且这种适应性过程的机制和调节剂正在出现。在过去的几年中，我们已经了解了很多关于脂肪细胞命运是如何决定的，以及信号和系统因素如何调节脂肪生成的。我们也意识到脂肪生成的生态位可以影响组织的脂肪生成能力。现在可以探索旨在增加脂肪生成而不是脂肪细胞肥大的方法，作为治疗代谢疾病的手段。
