The Rheumatologist
COVID-19 News
  • Connect with us:
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn
  • YouTube
  • Feed
  • Home
  • Conditions
    • Rheumatoid Arthritis
    • SLE (Lupus)
    • Crystal Arthritis
      • Gout Resource Center
    • Spondyloarthritis
    • Osteoarthritis
    • Soft Tissue Pain
    • Scleroderma
    • Vasculitis
    • Systemic Inflammatory Syndromes
    • Guidelines
  • Resource Centers
    • Ankylosing Spondylitis Resource Center
    • Gout Resource Center
    • Rheumatoid Arthritis Resource Center
    • Systemic Lupus Erythematosus Resource Center
  • Drug Updates
    • Biologics & Biosimilars
    • DMARDs & Immunosuppressives
    • Topical Drugs
    • Analgesics
    • Safety
    • Pharma Co. News
  • Professional Topics
    • Ethics
    • Legal
    • Legislation & Advocacy
    • Career Development
      • Certification
      • Education & Training
    • Awards
    • Profiles
    • President’s Perspective
    • Rheuminations
  • Practice Management
    • Billing/Coding
    • Quality Assurance/Improvement
    • Workforce
    • Facility
    • Patient Perspective
    • Electronic Health Records
    • Apps
    • Information Technology
    • From the College
    • Multimedia
      • Audio
      • Video
  • Resources
    • Issue Archives
    • ACR Convergence
      • Systemic Lupus Erythematosus Resource Center
      • Rheumatoid Arthritis Resource Center
      • Gout Resource Center
      • Abstracts
      • Meeting Reports
      • ACR Convergence Home
    • American College of Rheumatology
    • ACR ExamRheum
    • Research Reviews
    • ACR Journals
      • Arthritis & Rheumatology
      • Arthritis Care & Research
      • ACR Open Rheumatology
    • Rheumatology Image Library
    • Treatment Guidelines
    • Rheumatology Research Foundation
    • Events
  • About Us
    • Mission/Vision
    • Meet the Authors
    • Meet the Editors
    • Contribute to The Rheumatologist
    • Subscription
    • Contact
  • Advertise
  • Search
You are here: Home / Articles / Researchers Probe the Role of Fat Cells in Inflammation

Researchers Probe the Role of Fat Cells in Inflammation

September 20, 2018 • By Thomas R. Collins

  • Tweet
  • Email
Print-Friendly Version / Save PDF
Kateryna Kon / shutterstock.com

Kateryna Kon / shutterstock.com

AMSTERDAM—It’s been many years since adipose tissue came to be appreciated not just as a store of energy, but also as a regulator of metabolism and an important player in immune function. Rheumatology researchers continue to drill down into the role of fat cells in the search for mechanisms that could reveal targets for the treatment of rheumatic diseases, and experts shared recent findings in a session at EULAR: the Annual European Congress of Rheumatology.

You Might Also Like
  • 2014 ACR/ARHP Annual Meeting: Fat’s Role in Inflammation
  • What Fat Does to Arthritis
  • Study Reveals Role of IL-17–Secreting CD4+ T Cells in Lupus
Explore This Issue
September 2018
Also By This Author
  • Research on Ixekizumab in Psoriatic Arthritis and More Presented at EULAR 2016

Response to the Western Diet

Henk Schipper, MD, PhD, a pediatric cardiology fellow at University Medical Center Utrecht in The Netherlands who specializes in the study of adipose tissue, said the understanding of adipose tissue has continued to deepen over the past 30 years, with such milestones as the discovery of the hormone leptin and adipose tissue macrophages. The volume of work in the field has soared.

ad goes here:advert-1
ADVERTISEMENT
SCROLL TO CONTINUE

Recently, an international group of investigators found that mice on a high-fat, high-glucose Western diet showed a more aggressive response to stimulation with lipopolysaccharide (LPS) than control mice, but that this response was long lasting—seen again weeks after the mice were put back on a normal chow diet.1 This lasting response must mean the Western diet causes a fundamental change in the mice, the researchers say.

Dr. Schipper

Dr. Schipper

“What they claim in this paper … is that there must be transcriptomic, epigenomic changes induced by the Western diet to really have long-lasting effects on the response of the immune cells,” Dr. Schipper said. “This is definitely something that’s also relevant for many rheumatoid disorders.”

ad goes here:advert-2
ADVERTISEMENT
SCROLL TO CONTINUE

Dr. Schipper said he is optimistic about the potential for therapeutic breakthroughs that can repair the “holes” that arise when the relationship between fat tissue and immune function is disrupted.

“There has been a huge increase in papers dealing with adipose-tissue immunology, adipose-tissue inflammation and immune-metabolism over the last few decades,” he said. “This is supposed to be the era of translation. Hopefully in the next few years we’ll see a lot of trials—and successful trials—to fix these holes in the co-evolution of adipose tissue and immunology.”

‘There must be transcriptomic, epigenomic changes induced by the Western diet to really have long-lasting effects on the response of the immune cells,’ Dr. Schipper said.

Adipokines

Silvia Bosello, MD, PhD, professor of rheumatology at the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart in Rome, presented findings on how adipokines—proteins produced by white adipose tissue that are involved with endothelial cell homeostasis and angiogenesis and that regulate the immune response and systemic inflammatory process—are reduced in systemic sclerosis (SSc).2

Researchers assessed three types of adipokines—chemerin, leptin and adiponectin—in 100 SSc patients and 30 matched controls. They found all three types of adipokines were reduced in the SSc patients.

They also found that adipokine levels directly correlated with a more aggressive pattern on nailfold videocapillaroscopy.

Further, they found, patients with greater lung capacity—a diffusion level of carbon monoxide of at least 50%—had higher levels of adiponectin than patients with lung capacity below that threshold.

The downregulation of adipokines in the context of more severe disease, Dr. Bosello said, “suggests a possible role of chemerin, leptin and adiponectin in the impaired angiogenesis and in the development of vasculopathy of SSc patients.”

Fat-Associated Lymphoid Clusters

Dr. Caamaño

Dr. Caamaño

Jorge Caamaño, PhD, a reader in cellular immunology at the University of Birmingham in the U.K., discussed his group’s latest findings on fat-associated lymphoid clusters (FALCs)—platforms that form quickly after infection or injury to help coordinate interaction among immune cells, and that support innate and adaptive immune responses.3

The group has recently shown that bacteria and helminth infections bring about a big increase in the number of FALCs, with recruitment of B and T lymphocytes and macrophages.

Dr. Caamaño suggested that immune lymphoid cells, a group of innate immune cells, in FALCs are early responders to intestinal infections and spur expression of cytokines, depending on the infecting agent and the metabolism of the host. Their work is continuing.

“It is essential to understand the mechanisms that induce FALC formation and their function in intestinal infection and inflammation,” Dr. Caamaño said, “in order to facilitate immune responses and to control the deleterious reactions during chronic inflammatory diseases.”


Thomas R. Collins is a freelance writer living in South Florida.

References

  1. Christ A, Gunther P, Lauterbach MAR, et al. Western diet triggers NLRP3-dependent innate immune reprogramming. Cell. 2018 Jan 11;172(1–2):162–175.e14.
  2. Bosello S, De Lorenzis E, Canestrari G, et al. Adipocytokines imbalance is associated with vascular damage in systemic sclerosis [abstract OP0107]. Ann Rheum Dis. 2018 Jun 14;77(suppl):A104.
  3. Cruz-Migoni S, Caamaño J. Fat-associated lymphoid clusters in inflammation and immunity. Front Immunol. 2016 Dec 21;7:612.
ad goes here:advert-3
ADVERTISEMENT
SCROLL TO CONTINUE

Pages: 1 2 | Multi-Page

Filed Under: Conditions Tagged With: adipose tissue, fatIssue: September 2018

You Might Also Like:
  • 2014 ACR/ARHP Annual Meeting: Fat’s Role in Inflammation
  • What Fat Does to Arthritis
  • Study Reveals Role of IL-17–Secreting CD4+ T Cells in Lupus
  • Mouse Model Suggests Regulatory T Cells Play Important Role in Sjögren’s Syndrome Pathophysiology

Meeting Abstracts

Browse and search abstracts from the ACR Convergence and ACR/ARP Annual Meetings going back to 2012.

Visit the Abstracts site »

American College of Rheumatology

Visit the official website for the American College of Rheumatology.

Visit the ACR »

Simple Tasks

Learn more about the ACR’s public awareness campaign and how you can get involved. Help increase visibility of rheumatic diseases and decrease the number of people left untreated.

Visit the Simple Tasks site »

The Rheumatologist newsmagazine reports on issues and trends in the management and treatment of rheumatic diseases. The Rheumatologist reaches 11,500 rheumatologists, internists, orthopedic surgeons, nurse practitioners, physician assistants, nurses, and other healthcare professionals who practice, research, or teach in the field of rheumatology.

About Us / Contact Us / Advertise / Privacy Policy / Terms of Use

  • Connect with us:
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn
  • YouTube
  • Feed

Copyright © 2006–2021 American College of Rheumatology. All rights reserved.

ISSN 1931-3268 (print)
ISSN 1931-3209 (online)

loading Cancel
Post was not sent - check your email addresses!
Email check failed, please try again
Sorry, your blog cannot share posts by email.
This site uses cookies: Find out more.