Review Article Different Adipose Depots: Their Role in the Development of Metabolic Syndrome and Mitochondrial Response to Hypolipidemic Agents

Copyright © 2011 Bodil Bjørndal 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. Adipose tissue metabolism is closely linked to insulin resistance, and differential fat distributions are associated with disorders like hypertension, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease. Adipose tissues vary in their impact on metabolic risk due to diverse gene expression profiles, leading to differences in lipolysis and in the production and release of adipokines and cytokines, thereby affecting the function of other tissues. In this paper, the roles of the various adipose tissues in obesity are summarized, with particular focus on mitochondrial function. In addition, we discuss how a functionally mitochondrial-targeted compound, the modified fatty acid tetradecylthioacetic acid (TTA), can influence mitochondrial function and decrease the size of specific fat depots. 1