Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.

The present article summarizes some of the studies available on steroid hormone conversion through the specific expression of steroidogenic enzymes in adipose tissue (adipose tissue intracrinology) and discusses the potential impact of local adipose tissue steroid metabolism on the regulation of adipocyte function and other metabolic parameters. Several studies have demonstrated significant steroid hormone uptake and conversion by adipose tissues from various body sites and in various cell fractions. Activities and/or mRNAs of aromatase, 3beta-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase (HSD), 3alpha-HSD, 11beta-HSD, 17beta-HSD, 7alpha-hydroxylase, 17alpha-hydroxylase, 5alpha-reductase and UDP-glucuronosyltransferase 2B15 have been detected in adipose tissue or adipose cells. These studies have demonstrated potentially important roles for these enzymes in obesity, central fat accumulation, and the metabolic syndrome. Future studies on adipose tissue intracrinology will contribute further to our understanding of steroid action in adipocytes.

Abstract. This work presents a novel procedure for computing (1) distances between nodes of a weighted, undirected, graph, called the Euclidean Commute Time Distance (ECTD), and (2) a subspace projection of the nodes of the graph that preserves as much variance as possible, in terms of the ECTD -a principal components analysis of the graph. It is based on a Markov-chain model of random walk through the graph. The model assigns transition probabilities to the links between nodes, so that a random walker can jump from node to node. A quantity, called the average commute time, computes the average time taken by a random walker for reaching node j for the first time when starting from node i, and coming back to node i. The square root of this quantity, the ECTD, is a distance measure between any two nodes, and has the nice property of decreasing when the number of paths connecting two nodes increases and when the "length" of any path decreases. The ECTD can be computed from the pseudoinverse of the Laplacian matrix of the graph, which is a kernel. We finally define the Principal Components Analysis (PCA) of a graph as the subspace projection that preserves as much variance as possible, in terms of the ECTD. This graph PCA has some interesting links with spectral graph theory, in particular spectral clustering.

Studies comparing adipose tissue metabolism in central versus peripheral fat depots have generated equivocal data. We examined whether regional differences in abdominal subcutaneous and omental adipose tissue metabolism in women exist and whether they persist across the spectrum of body fatness and abdominal adiposity values. We measured adipocyte size; lipoprotein lipase (LPL) activity; and basal, isoproterenol-, forskolin-, and dibutyryl cAMPstimulated lipolysis in adipose tissue or mature adipocytes isolated from the omental and subcutaneous fat depots in a sample of 55 healthy women undergoing elective gynecological surgery. Measures of body fat mass and body fat distribution were also obtained by dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry and computed tomography. Subcutaneous adipocytes were significantly larger than omental adipocytes (P < 0.0001). LPL activity expressed as a function of cell number was significantly higher in subcutaneous versus omental adipose tissue (P < 0.0001). Basal, isoproterenol-stimulated, dibutyryl cAMP-stimulated (10 ؊3 mol/l) and forskolin-stimulated (10 ؊5 mol/l) lipolysis (expressed as a function of cell number) were all significantly higher in subcutaneous versus omental adipocytes (P < 0.05 to P < 0.0001). However, the response of omental adipocytes to lipolytic stimuli tested (fold increase over basal level) was significantly greater in magnitude compared with subcutaneous adipocytes (P < 0.01). These differences were relatively constant across total body fat mass and visceral adipose tissue area tertiles. In conclusion, compared with adipocytes from the omental fat compartment, subcutaneous adipocytes are larger, have higher LPL activity, and are more lipolytic on an absolute basis, which may reflect a higher fat storage capacity in this depot in women. In contrast, omental adipocytes display greater relative responsiveness to both adrenergic receptor-and postreceptor-acting agents compared with subcutaneous adipocytes. Overall and visceral obesity have only minor effects on regional differences in adipose tissue metabolism.