8th International Workshop on Adverse Drug Reactions and Lipodystrophy in HIV San Francisco, California - September 24 - 26, 2006

IMMUNE CELL/PRE-ADIPOCYTE INTERACTIONS INDUCE CYTOKINES WHICH ENHANCE ADIPOCYTE DIFFERENTIATION

Antiviral Therapy 2006; 11:L26 (abstract no. 38)

D Lewis, J Couturier, C Horne and A Balasubramanyam
Departments of Immunology and Medicine, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX, USA

Lipodystrophy in HIV involves both loss of adpocytes in some regions and accumulation of fat at other locations, such as the trunk. Explanations for the loss of fat resolves around reduced diffentiation or increased death of adpocytes, perhaps due to drugs and/or HIV interactions. However, accumulation of fat in HIV infected people has been more difficult to explain. We cocultured human preadipocytes with mononuclear cells (lymphocytes/monocytes) from peripheral blood divided by a transwell for 3 days. The supernatants were then removed and assayed via cytokine head arrays using flow cytometry. We found that coincubation of mononuclear cells with preadipocytes caused a large increase in IL-6 and IL-8 in the supernatants (10–100 fold), with little change in IL-1, IL10 or TNFα levels.

Fat differentiation factors were then added and the accumulation of fat monitored over 15 days. Pre-adipocytes that had been cultured with mononuclear cells produced more fat as quantitated by digital microscopy of Oil Red O staining. We are now testing whether IL-6 and IL-8 enhance human fat differentiation directly.

These results suggest that mononuclear cells and preadipocytes chemically communicate and that such interactions can enhance fat differentiation. Such a mechanism might be involved in the accumulation of fat in HIV lipodystrophy.

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2006-09-24
38

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