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PPAR Research
Volume 2007 (2007), Article ID 68202, 7 pages
doi:10.1155/2007/68202
PPARs and Adipose Cell Plasticity
1IFR 31, Institut Louis Bugnard, CNRS/UPS UMR 5241, Toulouse Cedex 4 31432, France
2Laboratorio de Diabetes y Obesidad Experimentales, Institut d'Investigacions Biomèdiques August Pi i Sunyer (IDIBAPS), Hospital Clínic de Barcelona, Villarroel, 170, Barcelona 08036, Spain
Received 28 February 2007; Accepted 18 April 2007
Academic Editor: Jeffrey M. Gimble
Copyright © 2007 Louis Casteilla et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Abstract
Due to the importance of fat tissues in both energy balance and in the associated disorders arising when such balance is not maintained, adipocyte differentiation has been extensively investigated in order to control and inhibit the enlargement of white adipose tissue. The ability of a cell to undergo adipocyte differentiation is one particular feature of all mesenchymal cells. Up until now, the peroxysome proliferator-activated receptor (PPAR) subtypes appear to be the keys and essential players capable of inducing and controlling adipocyte differentiation. In addition, it is now accepted that adipose cells present a broad plasticity that allows them to differentiate towards various mesodermal phenotypes. The role of PPARs in such plasticity is reviewed here, although no definite conclusion can yet be drawn. Many questions thus remain open concerning the definition of preadipocytes and the relative importance of PPARs in comparison to other master factors involved in the other mesodermal phenotypes.