Endocrine Abstracts

Introduction: Obesity and its associated chronic comorbidities represent a worldwide health problem in epidemic increase. Recent researches have reported notable differences in the amino acids metabolism signatures between obese, mild insulin resistant but non-diabetic, and lean individuals. Moreover, amino acids metabolites are emerging as strong predictors in the development of diabetes in obesity. The contribution of the obese adipose tissue from various depots to the systemic altered amino acids pool is still under debate.

Goal: In the present study we applied a metabolomic approach to direct analyze the amino acids metabolites pattern of the secretomes of visceral and subcutaneous obese adipose tissue in obese subjects, without other major metabolic risk factors, as compared to lean controls.

Subjects and methods: Fat pads were isolated from obese (n=8) and non-obese (n=8) subjects during laparoscopic surgery. Subcutaneous (periumbilical) and visceral (omental) adipose tissue were incubated with serum-free medium to obtain their secretomes. Metabolite comparative profiling of the lean versus obese secretomes was performed by untargeted gas chromatography-mass spectrometry approach and results analyzed using standard tools.

Results: A significant increased release of alanine, 4-hydroxiproline and 2-ketoisocaproic acid was accounted for all the obese adipose tissue secretomes. Net visceral depot uptake of visceral obese adipose tissue of essential and branched-chain amino acids (BCAA: lysine, leucine; methionine and threonine) and glutamate was significantly diminished in obese as compared to the non-obese visceral adipose tissue secretomes.

Conclusion: This is the first translational metabolomic study reporting that obesity markedly affects the metabolic signature of adipose tissue secretomes. The highest alteration of the amino acids metabolite pattern is present in the visceral adipose fat depot secretome.

Declaration of interest: The authors declare that there is no conflict of interest that could be perceived as prejudicing the impartiality of the research project.

Funding: This work was supported, however funding details unavailable.