Asian Scientist (Feb. 25, 2014) – Scientists have discovered a faster way of telling ‘good’ fat cells apart from ‘bad’ fat cells. The discovery, published in Stem Cell Reports, may further our understanding of fats and lead to better health outcomes.
Adipose or fat cells are essential for proper body function. Yet, being too fat is detrimental to health and raises the risk of developing metabolic diseases like diabetes, heart disease and hypertension.
Fat stem cells are “young” cells that mature into fully functioning fat cells. In their study, the research team looked at two different fat stem cells types: subcutaneous fat found beneath the skin and visceral fat surrounding internal organs.
It is known that subcutaneous fat and visceral fat have different capabilities at storing excess lipids. Subcutaneous fat cells are able to effectively store excess lipids and keep them from leaking into other organs. However, visceral fat is less efficient at storing fat resulting in excess lipids entering the blood and other organs.
Abnormally high levels of free lipids circulating in the body lead to inflammation, high blood pressure, diabetes and coronary plaque formation – a major cause of heart attack and stroke. Because of this, subcutaneous fat is viewed as ‘good’ or high-quality while visceral fat is thought to be ‘bad’ or low-quality in relation to their ability to store lipids.
In their study, the researchers came up with a method to tell apart subcutaneous from visceral fat stem cells using specific cell markers. The researchers focused their study on two markers called CD10 and CD200 found on the surface of fat stem cells. They detected these markers individually by latching them with florescence tags and then using an imaging technique to spot them.
Through this imaging study, they discovered that subcutaneous fat contained more CD10 signals while visceral fat exhibited more CD200. By using the different composition of CD10 and CD200 on fat stem cell surface, scientists can differentiate subcutaneous from visceral fat.
Using the new method, identification of fat stem cell types and their quality can be performed within two or three days, compared to the current two weeks. The method also paves the way for scientists to speed up the identification of potential drug targets to treat metabolic diseases caused by visceral fat.
The article can be found at: Ong WK et al. (2014) Identification Of Specific Cell-Surface Markers Of Adipose-Derived Stem Cells From Subcutaneous And Visceral Fat Depots.
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Source: A*STAR; Photo: Ionics/Flickr/CC.
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