Abstract
Background:
Inflammatory factors derived from adipose tissue have been implicated in mediating insulin resistance in obesity. We sought to identify these using explanted human adipose tissue exposed to innate and adaptive immune stimuli.
Methods:
Subcutaneous and omental adipose tissue from obese, insulin-resistant donors was cultured in the presence of macrophage and T-cell stimuli, and the conditioned medium tested for its ability to inhibit insulin-stimulated glucose uptake into human Simpson–Golabi–Behmel Syndrome (SGBS) adipocytes. The nature of the inhibitory factor in conditioned medium was characterized physicochemically, inferred by gene microarray analysis and confirmed by antibody neutralization.
Results:
Conditioned medium from omental adipose tissue exposed to a combination of macrophage- and T-cell stimuli inhibited insulin action and adiponectin secretion in SGBS adipocytes. This effect was associated with a pronounced change in adipocyte morphology, characterized by a decreased number of lipid droplets of increased size. The bioactivity of conditioned medium was abolished by trypsin treatment and had a molecular weight of 46 kDa by gel filtration. SGBS adipocytes exposed to a bioactive medium expressed multiple gene transcripts regulated by interferon-gamma (IFN-γ). Recombinant human IFN-γ recapitulated the effects of the bioactive medium and neutralizing antibody against IFN-γ but not other candidate factors abrogated medium bioactivity.
Conclusions:
IFN-γ released from inflamed omental adipose tissue may contribute to the metabolic abnormalities seen in human obesity.
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Acknowledgements
We are grateful to the trial participants. This work was supported by the Australian National Health and Medical Research Council (Program Grant 1037321 and Fellowship 1080887 to LCH, Program Grant 1016647 to JGZ, Program Grant 1054618 and Fellowship 1058892 to GKS and CRE 1078106 Fellowship to JMW). This work was made possible through Victorian State Government Operational Infrastructure Support and Australian National Health and Medical Research Council Research Institute Infrastructure Support Scheme.
Author contributions
JMW takes full responsibility for the work as a whole, including the study design, access to data and the decision to submit and publish the manuscript. JMW and LCH designed the study, analyzed the data and prepared the manuscript. JMW performed most experiments, with contributions from JGZ, EB and GN. CL, MR and GS analyzed the microarray data. PEO recruited participants and obtained tissue samples. All authors edited the manuscript.
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Wentworth, J., Zhang, JG., Bandala-Sanchez, E. et al. Interferon-gamma released from omental adipose tissue of insulin-resistant humans alters adipocyte phenotype and impairs response to insulin and adiponectin release. Int J Obes 41, 1782–1789 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1038/ijo.2017.180
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/ijo.2017.180