Section: New Results

A model for adipocyte size based on size-dependent lipid fluxes

We proposed in a paper published this year [28] a novel model that explains some of the peculiarities in the fat tissue storage cells. Indeed, adipocytes, as they are called, come in various size – with up to one order of magnitude in amplitude – but do not possess any characteristic size. The cellularity, the cell size distribution, is bimodal. We showed that a simple model of size-dependent lipid fluxes (using data from Carmen Lab) can explain this bimodality and allow us to retrieve any target cell distribution. Our result also provides an elegant and testable hypothesis for the triggering of adipocytes proliferation. The amount of unstored free fatty acid is actually a marker that the population has reached its maximal volume. This amount could serve as an index to start the proliferation.

This was a joint work with experimentalists from the CARMEN Institute (INSERM UMR1060, Lyon), namely C. Soulage and A. Géloën, and was part of H. Julienne master's thesis.