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Departments of Medical Biochemistry and Physiology (J.S.), University Medical Center, Geneva, Switzerland
Address all correspondence and requests for reprints to: Dr. J.-P. Giacobino, Département de Biochimie Médicale, Centre Médical Universitaire, 1 rue Michel Servet, 1211 Geneva 4, Switzerland. E-mail: Giacobin{at}CMU.Unige.ch
| Abstract |
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| Introduction |
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In rodents, the main effector of cold- and diet-induced thermogenesis is brown adipose tissue (BAT). The thermogenic pathway involves the ventromedial nucleus of the hypothalamus (VMH) and the sympathetic nervous system (7), whose effects are mainly mediated, at the cellular level, by the ß3-adrenoceptor (8). Leptin could, therefore, affect energy expenditure by acting centrally via the VMH to activate the sympathetic nervous system and thereby increase BAT thermogenic activity. It has, in fact, recently been shown that in vivo administration of leptin to mice resulted in an increase in noradrenaline turnover in BAT (9).
In vivo studies, indeed, have shown that the ob gene is expressed not only in white adipose tissue (1, 10), but also in BAT (11, 12, 13, 14), and that conditions known to increase thermogenic activity, such as cold acclimation or the administration of a ß3-adrenoceptor agonist, decreased its expression (12). These findings suggest the existence of a feedback loop between the VMH and brown adipose tissue that would result in an inhibition of ob gene expression when the sympathetic system is activated. In obese rodents with a mutation of their ob gene or an alteration of their leptin-sensing system, increased expression of ob gene messenger RNA (mRNA) in white adipose tissue was reported (1, 10, 11, 14, 15, 16). This suggests by analogy that in obese rodents, the sympathetic tone of white adipose tissue is decreased.
To assess whether the in vivo down-regulation of ob gene expression by ß3-adrenoceptor stimulation (12) is a direct or an indirect effect, studies were performed in vitro on brown adipocytes differentiated in culture. The results show that stimulation of ß3-adrenoceptors induced a dose-dependent down-regulation of ob gene mRNA, mainly due to a decreased half-life, and a similar down-regulation of leptin secretion. ß1- and ß2-adrenoceptor agonists and cAMP also decreased ob gene mRNA expression. Fatty acids may play a minor role in this down-regulation.
| Materials and Methods |
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-32P]deoxy-CTP (3000 Ci/mmol), and
[
-32P]ATP (1000 Ci/mmol) were obtained from Amersham
(Aylesbury, UK). The Micro RNA Isolation Kit and Taq DNA
polymerase were obtained from Stratagene (La Jolla, CA). The
ß3-adrenoceptor agonist BRL 37344 was a generous gift
from SmithKline Beecham Pharmaceuticals (Epsom, UK), the
ß1-adrenoceptor agonist dobutamine was purchased from
Research Biomedicals International (Natick, MA), and the
ß2-adrenoceptor agonist terbutaline was purchased from
Sigma. The mouse leptin RIA kit was obtained from Linco Research (St.
Charles, MD). Three- to 4-week-old BALB/c mice (University Medical Center, Geneva, Switzerland) were used. After decapitation, interscapular and cervical BAT (carefully freed from surrounding white adipose tissue) as well as epididymal white adipose tissue were excised. Precursor cells from brown and epididymal adipose tissues were isolated by incubation for 30 min at 37 C in the presence of collagenase and cultured according to the method of Champigny et al. (17). Briefly, dissociated cells were centrifuged, and the pellet of precursor cells was washed twice in an erythrocyte lysing buffer and then in DMEM-Hams F-12 medium supplemented with 10% FCS, 20 nM insulin, 2 nM T3, 50 µg/ml garamycin, and 100 µM ascorbic acid. Cells suspended in the medium were plated in 35-mm diameter plastic dishes and allowed to grow at 37 C in a humidified atmosphere of 5% CO2 in air. The culture medium was changed the day after plating and then every third day. Experiments were performed on 7- to 8-day-old fully differentiated brown adipocytes and 7- to 14-day-old white adipocytes. In experiments in which the effect of various agents were tested, the culture medium was changed at time zero, and the drugs were immediately added at the indicated concentrations. After the indicated period at 37 C, the medium was collected, and the cells were washed once with cold phosphate buffer and collected for RNA and/or DNA extraction. Fatty acids were prepared by stirring sodium oleate at 37 C under nitrogen in the presence of fatty acid-free 13% BSA. The pH was adjusted at pH 7.4, and the solution was filtered through a 0.22-µm filter and kept at -20 C. The final concentration of BSA in the culture medium was 0.5%.
To compare the levels of ob gene mRNA in cultured brown
adipocytes with those of BAT, both interscapular and cervical BAT
depots were excised, immediately frozen in liquid nitrogen, and stored
at -70 C until use. Brown adipose tissue was homogenized, cultured
white and brown adipocytes were scrapped in 4 M guanidium
isothiocyanate, and total RNA was isolated using the Micro RNA
Isolation Kit. Ten micrograms of total RNA were electrophoresed in a
1% agarose gel containing formaldehyde as described by Lehrach
et al. (18) and transferred to Hybond N membranes by
capillary blotting. An ob gene probe of 354 bp was obtained
by reverse transcription-PCR of mouse white adipose tissue RNA as
previously described (12). The uncoupling protein (UCP) probe used was
that described by Bouillaud et al. (19). The probes were
labeled by random priming with [
-32P]deoxy-CTP to a
specific radioactivity of approximately 1 x 109
dpm/µg DNA. RNA blots were hybridized for 2 h at 68 C in
Quik-Hyb, then washed in a solution of 0.1 x SSC (1 x SSC
is 150 mM NaCl and 15 mM sodium citrate, pH
7.0)-0.1% SDS at 56 C for 15 min and exposed 24 h to Kodak X-AR
film (Eastman Kodak, Rochester, NY) at -70 C. Size estimates for the
RNA species were established by comparison with a RNA ladder. The
amount of RNA in the signals on the autoradiograms was quantified by
scanning photodensitometry. Hybridization of the blots with a
[
-32P]ATP-labeled synthetic oligonucleotide specific
for the 18S ribosomal RNA subunit was performed to assure that
equivalent amounts of total RNA were compared. The leptin level in the
culture medium was measured using the mouse leptin RIA kit of Linco
Research. After the addition of 1 ml 0.9% NaCl, the cells were
scrapped and sonicated, and DNA was measured according to the method of
Labarca and Paigen (20). The EC50 and half-life values were
calculated using the Microcal Origin 3.5 program (Boltzman model and
linear regression analysis). Students unpaired t test was
used to determine statistical significance.
| Results |
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The effects of ß-adrenergic agonists could be due to changes in gene
transcription and/or mRNA degradation. The latter possibility was
assessed by incubating the cells in the presence of the transcription
inhibitor actinomycin D at a concentration of 2 µg/ml, which was
previously shown to fully block transcription in these cells (22),
without or with BRL 37344 (1 nM), and by measuring
ob gene mRNA after various periods of time (Fig. 4
). The half-life of ob gene mRNA was
9.4 h (r = 0.74) in control cells and was decreased to
2.4 h (r = 0.99) in the presence of BRL 37344. The BRL 37344
inhibitory effect on ob gene expression observed after
4 h in the presence of actinomycin D was 66 ± 9%, similar
to that of 76 ± 2% observed in the absence of actinomycin D (see
Fig. 2
).
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| Discussion |
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The order of potency of the ß-adrenoceptor agonists tested on ob gene mRNA expression and leptin secretion was BRL 37344 > dobutamine >> terbutaline. The low EC50 values obtained suggest that the observed effects are of biological significance. A maximal inhibition of ob gene mRNA expression was obtained with each of the ß-adrenoceptor agonists tested. The adenylyl cyclase stimulation by catecholamines in rat BAT membranes was reported to be mediated by ß1- and ß3-adrenoceptors proportionally to their respective amounts in the adipocyte membrane (25), i.e. 30% and 70%, respectively (26). The complete inhibition observed with the ß1- or ß2-adrenoceptor agonists indicates that a partial occupancy of the brown adipocyte ß-adrenoceptors is sufficient to induce a full inhibition of ob gene expression.
The ob gene mRNA half-life of 9.4 h found in the present study is longer than that of 2 h reported by Leroy et al. (23) in murine 3T3-F442A white adipocytes. As mentioned above, the latter cells express very little ob gene mRNA and cannot, therefore, be readily compared with brown adipocytes in culture. The observation that BRL 37344 decreased the half-life of ob gene mRNA indicates that the ß3-adrenoceptor agonist destabilized ob gene mRNA. This destabilizing effect seems to account for the inhibitory effect of BRL 37344 observed in the absence of actinomycin D. These results are in agreement with those reported by Hadcock et al. (27), who showed that in DDT1 MF-2 hamster vas deferens cells, the ß-adrenoceptor mRNA down-regulation observed upon exposure to ß-adrenoceptor agonists was mediated by mRNA destabilization. The latter phenomenon might, therefore, be a common mechanism of ß-adrenoceptor-mediated down-regulations.
This study shows for the first time that brown adipocytes differentiated in culture produce levels of leptin comparable to those produced by isolated white adipocytes (28). The inhibition of ob gene mRNA expression by ß-adrenoceptor agonists was associated with a decrease in the amount of leptin secreted in the culture medium. It has been shown in isolated white adipocytes that 24-h exposure to the nonselective ß-adrenoceptor agonist (-)-isoproterenol (10 µM) and to (Bu)2cAMP decreased ob gene mRNA expression and leptin secretion, and that a high concentration of the ß3-adrenoceptor agonist ICI 201,651 (10 µM) was less effective than (-)-isoproterenol to decrease ob gene expression (28).
ß-Adrenoceptor agonists could act on the expression of the ob gene via cAMP, intracellular Ca2+ (29, 30), or a combination of the two. The data clearly show that forskolin and (Bu)2cAMP mimicked the effects of the ß-adrenoceptor agonists. The fact that ionomycin did not modify ob mRNA expression suggests that either the effects of ß-adrenoceptor agonists are not mediated by an increase in cytosolic Ca2+ or that this signal alone is not sufficient to produce a change in ob gene expression.
ß-Adrenergic stimulation of lipolysis induces an increase in
intracellular FFA. It is, therefore, tempting to speculate that this
increase could modify the rate of gene transcription via the recently
described peroxisome proliferator-activated receptors (PPARs) (31).
Intracellular FFA could thus reflect the energetic state of the cell
and act on food intake and energy store replenishment via leptin. When
exogenous fatty acids bound to albumin were added to the medium, a
small, not dose-dependent, inhibition of ob gene
expression occurred at concentrations of 150 and 800 µM.
The highest concentration used, which has been shown to maximally
stimulate brown adipocyte respiration (32), only slightly decreased
ob gene mRNA expression compared to the effect of BRL 37344.
Therefore, intracellular FFA do not appear to mediate the effect of
ß-adrenoceptor agonists to decrease ob gene expression.
These results do not exclude an involvement of PPARs in the regulation
of ob gene expression. The possibility remains that in brown
adipocytes, fatty acids are very rapidly oxidized and esterified, with
a consequent decrease in their potential role as PPAR ligands or ligand
precursors. Indeed, when either 2-bromopalmitate, a nonoxidizable fatty
acid, or PGJ2, a precursor of the ligand of PPAR
, is
added to brown adipocytes, a marked inhibition of ob gene
mRNA expression is observed (our manuscript in preparation). Rentsch
and Chiesi (24) reported an inhibitory effect of 2-bromopalmitate on
ob gene mRNA in 3T3 cells, and De Vos et al. (33)
found an inhibitory effect of thiazolidinediones on ob gene
mRNA expression in primary rat white adipocytes, suggesting an
involvement of PPAR activation.
In our study, under conditions of ß3-adrenergic stimulation or fatty acid supply, which are known to maximally stimulate BAT thermogenesis (32, 34), leptin expression was either strongly inhibited or hardly affected. This indicates that leptin expression is not controlled by the cell metabolic activity. The possibility remains that leptin expression is controlled by the cell lipid content.
In summary, we have shown that ob gene mRNA expression and leptin secretion are controlled by the ß-adrenoceptors in brown adipocytes differentiated in culture, indicating the existence of a retroregulatory pathway by which leptin production is inhibited when sympathetic tone and energy expenditure are increased. Thus, the decreased expression of a satiety signal is consistent with the physiological role of BAT, which is stimulated under conditions that require enhanced food intake to sustain higher thermogenic activity.
| Acknowledgments |
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| Footnotes |
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Received July 1, 1996.
| References |
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1- and
ß-adrenergic regulation of intracellular Ca2+ levels in
brown adipocytes. Biochem Biophys Res Commun 163:292300[CrossRef][Medline]
. J
Clin Invest 98:10041009[Medline]
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