Induced expression of adipophilin mRNA in human macrophages stimulated with oxidized low‐density lipoprotein and in atherosclerotic lesions

Abstract

Oxidized low-density lipoprotein (OxLDL) plays a critical role in foam cell formation and atherosclerogenesis. A cDNA encoding adipophilin was identified in cultured human macrophages stimulated with OxLDL using mRNA differential display. Adipophilin is a 50 kDa protein known to be a specific marker for adipocyte cell differentiation and lipid accumulation in a variety of cells. The time-dependent induction of adipophilin mRNA in macrophages was specific to OxLDL but not native LDL, and not to various cytokines and serum. In human atherosclerotic lesions, adipophilin mRNA expression was localized in a subset of lipid-rich macrophages. These data suggest that adipophilin-expressing macrophages may represent foam cells and this gene expression is likely to be associated with the lipid accumulation in foam cells of the atherosclerotic lesions.z 1999 Federation of European Biochemical Societies.

Large Scale Gene Expression Analysis of Cholesterol-loaded Macrophages

“…Adipophilin, the only gene up-regulated at 2.5 h, is a known marker for Most Highly Regulated Genes-A list of the 10 most highly up-regulated genes (Table I) shows that eight of these genes are most up-regulated at day 4. This group includes three genes that have previously been shown to be responsive to Ox-LDL loading of macrophages in culture and/or to appear in foam cell-rich regions of plaque tissue: adipophilin, heparin-binding epidermal growth factor-like growth factor (HB-EGF), and thrombomodulin (23)(24)(25). These latter findings help validate the THP-1 cell model and the microarray procedures.…”

Identification of High and Low Responders to Lipopolysaccharide in Normal Subjects: An Unbiased Approach to Identify Modulators of Innate Immunity

“…ADFP is an ϳ50 kDa protein that is highly expressed as adipocytes differentiate into mature adipocytes (48), as well as in monocytes (27) and macrophages (49), and belongs to the perilipin family of lipid storage proteins (50). Immunofluorescence staining has shown that ADFP coats the cytosolic surface of intracellular neutral lipid droplets (51).…”

Live Cell Analysis and Targeting of the Lipid Droplet-binding Adipocyte Differentiation-related Protein

“…Examination of a variety of tissue culture cells also has revealed ADRP as a ubiquitous component of lipid droplets (6,15). Moreover, enhanced expression of ADRP is a useful marker for pathologies that are characterized by increased accumulations of lipid droplets (6,(21)(22)(23)(24). Hence, analysis of ADRP would provide valuable insight into the nature of proteins that associate with lipid droplets.…”