Timing of first appearance and subsequent distribution of adipose tissue were assessed in 488 normal-for-age human fetuses. The sample represented each of the three trimesters of normal pregnancies. Light microscopy showed that adipose tissue first appears and progressively develops from the 14th to 24th week of gestation (100-216 mm crown-rump length) in those areas where it characteristically accumulates after birth. No significant sex differences were found in patterns of early fat deposition. It is suggested that the second trimester of gestation is the critical or key period in fat adipogenesis.

805 normal-for-age human embryos and fetuses were used to study early prenatal fat development. The investigation included observations on stages of fat morphogenesis at the light microscopic level and computerized image analyses of fat lobule size and number. The buccal fat pad was selected as a model system for the analyses. Fat tissue differentiates between the 14th and the 16th weeks: there are five morphogenic phases in adipose tissue formation, strongly associated with the formation of blood vessels. Fat lobules are the earliest structures to be identified before typical vacuolated fat cells appear. Concerning fat lobule size and number, we show that after the 23rd week the total number of fat lobules remains approximately constant, while from the 23rd to 29th week the growth of adipose tissue is determined mainly by an increase in size of the lobules. These results suggest that the 14th through the 23rd week is a sensitive period in fat lobule development, and that disturbances of normal adipogenesis during this period may play a role in the etiology of obesity in later life.

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A cellular compartment from brown adipose tissue (BAT) of newborn rats was isolated by Percoll-density-gradient centrifugation and was shown to proliferate and to undergo adipose conversion in vitro in primary culture. The features of the effector requirement for adipose conversion as well as the differentiated morphological and biochemical phenotype are almost identical with that of a compartment designated HCF, from white adipose tissue (WAT). A possible role for these precursors from BAT and WAT in the involution of BAT into WAT, on the one hand, and in the development of brown adipose cells among typical WAT deposits, on the other, is discussed.