Introduction and objectives:

The subcutaneous adipose tissue is considered as a depot with a protective role from a metabolic point of view. An excess of adipose tissue is triggered in obesity, which is accompanied by insulin resistance, dyslipidemia and arterial hypertension. However, it is known that, there is a subgroup of obese people who seem to be protected from obese complications. These individuals are defined as metabolically healthy obese. Despite the advances in the knowledge of the alterations that occur in adipose tissue during obesity, the mechanisms underlying the development of insulin resistance are still unknown. Therefore, in this work, we studied the association between obesity and the development of metabolic disease, we identified factors and processes that determined the transition of healthy and unhealthy obesity phenotype, using preadipocytes from subcutaneous adipose tissue.

Methods:

Data obtained from a comparative proteomics study of subcutaneous adipose tissue preadipocytes from normoglycemic obese patients-not resistant to insulin and from obese patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus were used. The proteomic study was carried out using the iTRAQ combined with LC -MSMS.

Results and conclusions:

The differences between pre-adipocytes of subcutaneous adipose tissue in normoglycemic subjects and with diabetes affect mainly cytosolic proteins and, in particular, proteins related to metabolic processes while, membrane proteins do not change between obese phenotypes. In this study, we identified significant differences in the proteomic profile of preadipocytes from subcutaneous adipose tissue in obesity in both, normoglycemic and diabetic subjects, supporting the importance of these cells in the maintenance of the fat depot identity. We also found that, the transition from unhealthy to healthy phenotype in obesity, leads to further development of oxidative stress and inflammation in adipocyte precursor cells.