PubMed1975
UNLABELLED: Former investigations (Rakow et al., 1970, 1971a, b 1974) have demonstrated a constancy of the adipocyte number in white adipose tissue (parepididymal fat pads) of lean NMRI-albino-mice and aurothioglucose-obese NMRI-albino-mice during starvation and subsequent refeeding. In contrast the number of cells of connective tissue showed great variations under the experimental conditions mentioned above. The present paper describes which changes of the different cell populations within the adipose tissue could be demonstrated in lean and obese C57BL/6 J-mice. MATERIAL AND METHODS: The investigations were performed with obese and lean male C57BL/6 J-mice. The control animal groups were fed for six weeks 2.5 g (lean mice) and 2 g (obese mice), respectively, Altromin 1115R daily (starvation phase). After this time some of these animalwere killed (exp. groups H). The remaining animals now were fed Altromin 1115R and additional oat falkes ad libitum. Three (exp. groups HW3) and seven (exp. groups HW 7) days, respectively, after the beginning of the refeeding phase the animals were killed. After sacrifice the epididymal fat pads were weighed and treated with either (fat extraction). The dry mass was hydrolized with PCA (0.5 m, 90 degrees C, 40 min). In the supernatant the DNA (Burton, 1956), RNA (Ceriotti, 1955) and polysaccharide content (Seifter et al., 1950) were measured. The sediment was hydrolized with NaOH (0.5 n, 37 degrees C, 24 hrs). In this solution the protein content (Lowry et al., 1951) was determined. In addition fat cells were isolated according to Rodbell (1964). The fat cell diameters were determined microscopically and the average masses of the fat cells were estimated. From the wet weight of the fat pads and the average fat cell mass and number of fat cells were calculated. The remaining suspension of fat cells and cells of connective tissue were utilized for cell smears. These cell smears were stained with Schiff's reagent (Feulgen et al., 1924; Graumann, 1953). With an integrating microdensitometer (Deeley, 1955) the average relative DNA-content of single cell nuclei was measured and the ploidy patterns were estimated. The DNA-content was measured chemically according to Burton (1956). From the whole DNA-content of the fat pads and the DNA-content of the fat cell population the number of cells of the connective tissue was calculated...