In obese individuals, fat cells may act like inflammatory white blood cells by using communication machinery once considered to be exclusive to immune cells.
High numbers of several types of immune cell patrol the fat tissues of people who are obese. This inflammation is highly correlated with health risks such as insulin resistance and metabolic syndrome, although how it gets started is unclear. Willa Hsueh and her colleagues at the Methodist Hospital in Houston, Texas, show that it may begin with adipocytes, or fat cells. The authors compared gene expression in lean and obese women and noticed that adipocytes expressed many genes connected to the major histocompatibility complex II, which certain white blood cells use to activate other white blood cells. An array of follow-up studies in mice fed high-fat diets indicate that it is the fat cells themselves that prompt inflammation.
The researchers suggest that obesity triggers alterations in fat cells that are then escalated by white blood cells.
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Fat cells use immune signal. Nature 495, 413 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1038/495413b
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/495413b
