Adipose Tissue Residing Progenitors (Adipocyte Lineage Progenitors and Adipose Derived Stem Cells (ADSC)

Abstract

The formation of brown, white and beige adipocytes have been a subject of intense scientific interest in recent years due to the growing obesity epidemic in the United States and around the world. This interest has led to the identification and characterization of specific tissue resident progenitor cells that give rise to each adipocyte population in vivo. However, much still remains to be discovered about each progenitor population in terms of their "niche" within each tissue and how they are regulated at the cellular and molecular level during healthy and diseased states. While our knowledge of brown, white and beige adipose tissue is rapidly increasing, little is still known about marrow adipose tissue and its progenitor despite recent studies demonstrating possible roles for marrow adipose tissue in regulating the hematopoietic space and systemic metabolism at large. This chapter focuses on our current knowledge of brown, white, beige and marrow adipose tissue with a specific focus on the formation of each tissue from tissue resident progenitor cells.

Keywords: adipocyte progenitors; adipocytes; brown fat; differentiation; marrow fat; white fat.

Figure 1. Induction and Lineage Tracing of MAT

A. Adipocytes are largely absent from the bone marrow of C57BL/6 mice (left panel) unless bone marrow adipogenesis is induced with one of several techniques (right panel). B. Bone marrow adipocytes express the adipocyte hormone adiponectin as shown by eGFP+ bone marrow adipocyte plasma membranes in Adiponectin-cre:mT/mG mice fed a rosiglitazone diet for 8 weeks.