In vitro synthesis of lipids from C-14 acetate by adipose tissue from four types of obese mice

¹ Department of Internal Medicine, School of Medicine, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia

Adipose tissue slices from four types of fasted obese mice (mice with the hereditary obesity diabetes syndrome, yellow mice, gold thioglucose obese mice and mice made obese by the subcutaneous implantation of pellets of 11-dehydrocorticosterone) and appropriate controls were incubated with C-14-labeled acetate. Adipose tissue slices from mice with the hereditary obesity diabetes syndrome and mice made obese with 11-dehydrocorticosterone incorporated considerably more C-14 into lipids per milligram of adipose tissue nitrogen than did control animals. Slices from yellow mice incorporated less C-14 into lipids than Balb/c controls, but the difference is not clearly significant. These findings, coupled with the evidence that mice with the hereditary obesity diabetes syndrome and mice treated with 11-dehydrocorticosterone have islet cell hypertrophy of their pancreata, suggests that the obesity in these animals may be related to increased insulin production with a resultant increase in lipid synthesis by adipose tissue.