The use of the adipose tissue transplantation technique to demonstrate that abnormalities in the adipose tissue metabolism of genetically obese mice are due to extrinsic rather than intrinsic factors.

Adipose tissue transplantation between genetically obese mice and their lean counterparts using the kidney capsule as the transplantation site has shown that the abnormally large fat cells of obese mice normalize in size when they are placed into a 'lean' environment. Furthermore, the abnormal fatty acid composition of the white adipose tissue of obese mice (higher proportion of palmitoleic acid and lower proportion of linoleic acid compared with lean) normalizes on transplantation into a 'lean' environment. Such experiments lead us to conclude that the differences in the lipolytic and lipogenic enzymes in the adipose tissue of genetically obese mice must be due to extrinsic factors rather than factors intrinsic to the adipocyte.