Isolation of genes showing increased expression during bovine adipocyte differentiation

The adipocyte is important not only for the storage of excess energy as fat, but also for the secretion of homeostatic factors. Gene expression profiles during adipocyte differentiation have been reported previously for mouse 3T3-L1 cells. However, the profiles of adipogenic gene expression in mice and cattle may be different because several metabolic pathways of the ruminant adipose tissue are different from those of non-ruminants. The gene expression profile in a clonal bovine intramuscular preadipocyte cell line during adipogenesis was examined using the polymerase chain reaction-subtraction method. Six hundred and twenty-one clones, which were expressed at an early stage of differentiation, from the preadipocyte to adipocyte, were isolated and characterized. Further detailed studies were carried out for 86 selected genes using northern blotting. Ten genes were found to be highly expressed after differentiation of bovine intramuscular preadipocyte cells. In particular, the expression profiles of genes for stearoyl CoA desaturase and FK506 binding protein were quite different from the time course of differentiation of that seen in the 3T3-L1 cells reported previously. In addition, these genes were assigned to bovine chromosomes using a bovine/hamster somatic cell hybrid panel and public database.