Cellular and Metabolic Processes in Regional Adipose Tissue

社会对肥胖问题十分关注。这种关注是深远的，从我们对身体脂肪的担忧延伸到食品和农业。例如，在农业方面，有一个重点是乳制品和牲畜中脂肪的数量和类型。作为一个群体或个人，我们不想太胖或太瘦。我们还专注于我们有多少脂肪，以及我们将其储存在哪里，无论是在我们的胃周围，还是在我们的臀部和大腿周围。男性和女性体内储存脂肪的地方是不同的。我们知道，并不是所有的脂肪都是平等的，根据脂肪储存的地点和位置的不同，脂肪的行为也不同。例如，我们知道储存在上身脂肪组织中的脂肪比在下半身中释放的脂肪更多，而且这种脂肪的释放在男性比女性更大。然而，尽管作为一个社会，我们全神贯注于脂肪，但我们对脂肪细胞本身、脂肪细胞生存的环境以及脂肪细胞如何与身体其他部位相互作用知之甚少。这项拟议的研究计划试图了解脂肪细胞是如何被编程来储存它们所做的脂肪量的，以及脂肪细胞编程如何影响其周围的组织环境和生物系统。我们还打算看看男性和女性的脂肪和脂肪细胞的行为是否存在差异。为了回答我们的问题，我们想要确定男性和女性早期脂肪细胞的编程是否影响：1)储存在肌肉中的脂肪如何用于锻炼，2)脂肪和肌肉细胞之间的沟通，3)脂肪如何产生激素和使用乙酰辅酶A，乙酰辅酶A是新陈代谢的中心分子。拟议研究项目的发现将有助于改变我们对脂肪组织和细胞的看法，以及它对生物系统的影响。如果我们能够理解脂肪组织和脂肪细胞的行为方式，我们就可以利用这些信息来针对它们行为的变化。这些信息可能会通过影响健康、农业和食品科学行业而使我们的社会受益。例如，这些信息可以用来维持肌肉或改善家畜肉类的质量。我们的发现的潜在好处影响深远，从个人到行业都是如此。

Society has a preoccupation with fat. This preoccupation is far-reaching and extends from our concern with body fat to food and agriculture. For example in agriculture, there is a focus is on the amount and type of fat in dairy products and livestock. As a population or individual, we do not want to be too fat or too skinny. We are also fixated on how much fat we have and where we store it, whether it is around our stomachs or around our hips and thighs. The places in the body where fat is stored is different in males and females. We know that not all fat is equal and that fat behaves differently based on where and in whom fat is stored. For example, we know that fat stored in the upper body fat tissue releases more fat than in the lower body and that this release of fat is greater in males than in females. However, though we are preoccupied with fat as a society, we don't know much about the fat cell itself, the environment in which the fat cell lives, and how the fat cells interact with the rest of the body. The proposed program of research seeks to understand how fat cells are programmed to store the amount of fat that they do and how fat cell programming affects its surrounding tissue environment and biological systems. We also aim to see whether there are differences in how fat and fat cells behave in males vs females. To answer our questions we want to determine if early-life programming of the fat cell in males and females affects: 1) how the fat stored in muscle is used in excercise, 2) the communication between fat and muscle cells,  3) how fat produces hormones and uses acetyl CoA, a central molecule of metabolism. The findings from the proposed research program will contribute towards changing how we think about fat tissues and cells and its impact on biological systems. If we can understand why fat tissues and fat cells behave the way they do, we can use that information to target changes in their behaviour. This information would potentially benefit our society through impacting health, agriculture, and food science industries. For example, the information could be used to maintain muscle or improve quality of meat from livestock. The potential benefits of our findings are far reaching spanning from individuals to industry.