淋巴管的最主要功能是重吸收脂质并将其运输到血液循环中再利用。最近研究结果表明淋巴管发育异常所导致的功能失调会引起肥胖的发生。但是非常遗憾的是目前关于淋巴管与肥胖之间的互作及其具体的机制还未见深入的研究报道。本研究团队的前期结果显示，脂肪组织特异性血管内皮生长因子C（VEGFC）转基因的小鼠的脂肪组织中发生了淋巴管的大量增生。转基因小鼠对高脂饮食敏感度下降。并且，肥胖导致的胰岛素抵抗得到了明显改善。因此，本项目将以VEGFC为切入点，利用脂肪组织转基因小鼠以及VEGFC组织特异性敲除小鼠进行表型分析，利用脂肪细胞，巨噬细胞研究VEGFC 与脂肪细胞、免疫细胞间的关系，重点研究淋巴管系统与肥胖互作的分子调控机制，以期为肥胖及其相关疾病的治疗提供崭新的研究方法和思路。

The most important functions of lymphatic vessel (LV) are absorption of dietary fats and transporting them into blood system for the reutilization. Recently it has been indicated that LV malfunction which caused by lymphatic developmental abnormality led to a series of diseases such as obesity. Unfortunately, the molecular pathophysiology remains incompletely understood. Results of our initial study showed that adipose tissue specific vascular endothelial growth factor C (VEGFC ) transgenic(TG) mice have a large number of LV than those wild type control mice. TG mice were resistant to high fat diet induced obesity and improved in insulin sensitivity. In the current project, we will use adipose tissue-specific VEGFC transgenic or knock-out mouse model to make phenotypic analysis and reveal the mechanism between VEGFC、adipocytes and macrophages to study the molecular reciprocity of LV system and obesity to provide new avenue for treating obesity and related diseases.