antimicrobial fat cells

A Surprising New Role for Body Fat?

Posted on by Kari Kenefick
This cloaked fat cell just might be a superhero.

Forty-some years ago fat was just fat. And it was regarded with disdain, to say the least.

An entire industry existed to help get rid of fat, using what was then the latest mass media technology, television. If you wanted to get rid of fat you could exercise with Jack LaLanne as he worked out on television. We exercised in elementary school PE class to a vinyl recording of “Chicken Fat”. You could strap into a device that employed shaking to get rid of the fat from your “hips”, or eat a piece of chocolate fudge with a hot beverage before meals to curb your appetite.

Fat was not our friend. We knew long before the current diabetes epidemic that being overweight was not good for our health.

Fast forward to the 21st century, where we’ve learned that some forms of fat are actually good for you–important in metabolism, growth and immunity. The variety of types of mammalian fat include brown adipose tissue, beige adipose tissue and white adipose tissue, and it’s possible to convert one to the other under certain conditions. For details on these types of adipose tissue, read this article —after you finish this blog.

Continue reading “A Surprising New Role for Body Fat?”

Differentiating but not Mature Adipocytes Provide a Defense Against S. aureus Infection

Posted on by Kari Kenefick

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/65/Blausen_0012_AdiposeTissue.png
Cross-section of skin and adipose tissue enlargement. Used courtesy of Wikimedia Commons, Blausen.

A basic tenet of immunology is that antibodies produced by B cells are very important and specific immunoprotective agents, released in response to infection.

However, antibodies do not supply immediate protection. The invading organism needs to get into the host, meet up with T cells and then B cells, in order for antibody production to occur. If the host has seen this particular pathogen previously, the antibody response occurs somewhat more quickly, but we’re still talking about days. If the invading organism is a bacterium, it can multiply and double in numbers in just hours. Thus an infection could potentially gain a foothold in a body prior to an antibody response.

Fortunately we have a more rapid, first line of defense to invading pathogens, a cellular response. In the case of a puncture or skin wound, epithelial cells, mast cells and leukocytes are activated quickly in response to pathogens. Neutrophils and monocytes also aid the cellular response.

Now a recently published report demonstrates that fat cells also play a part in the cellular response to invading bacteria. R. Gallo et al. published a study on Jan. 2 in Science, providing more in depth information on the role of adipocytes in the host response to the bacterium Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus). Continue reading “Differentiating but not Mature Adipocytes Provide a Defense Against S. aureus Infection”