Chemerin—A new adipokine that modulates adipogenesis via its own receptor

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Abstract

Chemerin, an 18 kDa protein secreted by adipose tissue, was reported to modulate immune system function through its binding to the chemerin receptor (chemerinR). We herein demonstrate that chemerin also influences adipose cell function. Our data showed that chemerin and chemerinR mRNA expressions were highly expressed in adipose tissues, and that their expression levels were up-regulated in mice fed a high-fat diet. Both chemerin and chemerinR mRNA expression dramatically increased during the differentiation of 3T3-L1 cells and human preadipocytes into adipocytes. Furthermore, recombinant chemerin induced the phosphorylation of extracellular signal-regulated kinases 1/2 (ERK 1/2) and lipolysis in differentiated 3T3-L1 adipocytes. Thus, the adipokine chemerin likely regulates adipocyte function by autocrine/paracrine mechanisms.

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Materials and methods

Animals. The mice were used C57BL/6J mice obtained from Charles River Japan. And then weighed and divided into two groups of six with approximately equal mean body weights. One group was fed the standard diet (Oriental Yeast, Chiba, Japan) containing 8.5% (w/w) fat, 43.7% carbohydrate, and 29.7% protein, with an energy content of 3.69 kcal/g, and the other received a high-fat diet for 11 weeks (4–15 weeks of age). The high-fat diet was contained 41% fat, 36% carbohydrate, and 23% protein, with

Expression of chemerin and chemerinR in adipose tissues and mature adipocytes

First of all, we investigated the expression levels of chemerin and chemerinR mRNA in various tissues of mice using RT-PCR analysis. While chemerin and chemerinR mRNA transcripts were expressed ubiquitously in mice, they were expressed most highly in adipose tissue (Fig. 1A). Subsequently, whether chemerin and chemerinR mRNA were expressed in adipocytes and S-V cells, we determined the expression in these two cells. The expression of chemerin and chemerinR mRNA was significantly higher in

Discussion

Chemerin is known to be produced by the liver and to act as a chemotactic agent through its binding to chemerinR, which is expressed at high levels on immune cells such as plasmacytoid dendritic cells and macrophages [10], [15], [16], [17]. To date, however, the status of chemerin expression in adipose tissues has not elucidated. Our results suggest that chemerin regulates adipose tissue function in an autocrine/paracrine manner through its binding to chemerinR. The expression of chemerin and

Acknowledgments

This work was supported in part by a Grant-in-Aid (No. 17380168 and 19658096) for scientific research from the Ministry of Education, Science, Sports and Culture of Japan.

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    Some data of this paper were presented at the 9th annual meeting of Study Group on Adiposcience (2004) in Japan and The Molecular Biology Society of Japan Forum 2006.

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