ESPE Abstracts

Background: The new adipokine/myokine meteorin-like (Metrnl) has been proposed to be of interest for obesity and metabolic disease through its potential role for brown/beige fat thermogenesis and macrophage activation in mice. METRNL was reported to be expressed in white adipose tissue (AT) and upregulated during adipogenesis and by exercise and.Aims: In this study we analysed the expression of METRNL during human adipogenesis and its regulation...

Background: Obesity is characterized by an increase in fat mass caused by an increase in adipocyte number and adipocyte size and is often associated with adipose tissue (AT) dysfunction contributing to metabolic impairment. It is suspected that adipocyte progenitor cells play an important role during healthy and obesity-related AT expansion. Studies in adults showed that the stroma vascular fraction (SVF) of AT is composed of different progenitor cell subpopul...

Background: The leptin signaling cascade is a crucial regulator of satiety and energy homeostasis in the hypothalamus, comprising extracellular leptin binding to its receptor, phosphorylation and nuclear translocation of STAT3 (signal transducer and activator of transcription 3) and consecutively the generation of a central satiety signal via neuropeptide secretion. We identified three variants in the extracellular domains of the LEPR gene in two children with severe ...

Context: Childhood obesity is supposed to affect growth and development in children but there is uncertainty with regard to dynamics and potential causes. We analyzed differences in age-related growth patterns of obese and normal-weight children and their association with circulating endocrine and metabolic factors.Objective/Design: In a large German childhood cohort from Leipzig including 7986 children (22793 data sets) we compared cross-sectional and l...

Background: The phosphatase and tensin homolog (PTEN)/phosphatidylinositol-3-kinase (PI3K)/AKT signaling pathway is central for cell cycle control, differentiation, migration, and metabolism. Unrestricted growth of adipose tissue in particular is frequently seen in humans with germline PTEN and mosaic activating PIK3CA mutations, respectively.Objective and hypotheses: We assume that adipocytes from affected tissue show hyperproliferation and modified dif...

Background: We have identified a novel tandem duplication leading to ubiquitous expression of the agouti-signaling protein (ASIP) in a female patient with severe early onset obesity, red hair, tall stature, and insulin resistance (Kempf, E. et al, 2022). Due to the ectopic expression, ASIP - which normally is only expressed in the skin - can interact with the Melanocortin-4-Receptor receptor in the hypothalamus thereby causing the obesity phenotype. <p cla...

Here we identified and characterized a heterozygous tandem duplication at the ASIP (agouti-signaling protein) gene locus causing ubiquitous, ectopic ASIP expression in a female index patient with extreme childhood obesity. In patient-derived adipose tissue samples, we observed pronounced differentiation of stroma-vascular fraction (SVF) cells into adipocytes in the patient compared to normal control cells. We further found reduced mitochondrial maximum respir...