Perivascular Adipose Tissue in Vascular Function and Disease

Abstract

Perivascular adipose tissue (PVAT), long assumed to be nothing more than vessel-supporting connective tissue, is now understood to be an important, active component of the vasculature, with integral roles in vascular health and disease. PVAT is an adipose tissue with similarities to both brown and white adipose tissue, although recent evidence suggests that PVAT develops from its own precursors. Like other adipose tissue depots, PVAT secretes numerous biologically active substances that can act in both autocrine and paracrine fashion. PVAT has also proven to be involved in vascular inflammation. While PVAT can support inflammation during atherosclerosis via macrophage accumulation, emerging evidence suggests that PVAT also has anti-atherosclerotic properties related to its abilities to induce non-shivering thermogenesis and metabolize fatty acids. We here discuss the accumulated knowledge of PVAT biology, and related research on models of hypertension and atherosclerosis.

Organic cation transporter 3 contributes to norepinephrine uptake into perivascular adipose tissue

“…PVAT of mesenteric resistance arteries most closely resembles white adipose tissue in that it contains adipocytes that have large unilocular lipid droplets (10). We focused on adipocytes from normal rats as studies of NE transport in adipocytes are sparse and none have been performed on PVAT adipocytes specifically.…”

Somatic PIK3CA Mutations are Present in Multiple Tissues of Facial Infiltrating Lipomatosis

“…These same somatic mosaic mutations have been identified in cancers, vascular malformations, and other disorders with overgrowth (4,7,9). In the present study, we sought to determine if overgrowth in patients with FIL was caused by a somatic mutation in one tissue type (subcutaneous adipose) that exerts paracrine effects on neighboring structures (10)or by the presence of mutant cells in each of a patient's overgrown tissues (11).…”

Body fat distribution: the answer to the apparent paradox of obesity in cardiology?

“…Chatterjee и соавт. указывают на то, что про-филь экспрессии генов в периваскулярных адипоци-тах, окружающих коронарные артерии, соответствует белой жировой ткани [55]. Выявленные различия могут быть связаны с тем, что при заборе материала не всегда удается отделить периваскулярную ткань от эпикарди-ального жирового депо, так как между ними нет фас-ции.…”