Apelin Inhibits Diet-Induced Obesity by Enhancing Lymphatic and Blood Vessel Integrity

Angiogenesis is tightly associated with the outgrowth of adipose tissue, leading to obesity, which is a risk factor for type 2 diabetes and hypertension, mainly because expanding adipose tissue requires an increased nutrient supply from blood vessels. Therefore, induction of vessel abnormality by adipokines has been well-studied, whereas how altered vascular function pro-motes obesity is relatively unexplored. Also, surviving Prox1 heterozygous mice have shown abnormal lymphatic patterning and adult-onset obesity, indicating that accumulation of adipo-cytes could be closely linked with lymphatic function. Here, we propose a new antiobesity strategy based on enhancement of lymphatic and blood vessel integrity with apelin. Apelin knockout (KO) mice fed a high-fat diet (HFD) showed an obese phenotype associated with abnormal lymphatic and blood vessel enlarge-ment. Fatty acids present in the HFD induced hyperpermeabilit