Key result
In subcutaneous adipose tissue of obese pigs, 134 differentially expressed genes were identified, revealing key sex-specific pathways including Ras-MAPK signaling in males and type I interferon response in females.
Why the study?
Although studies show a significant association between subcutaneous fat metabolism and sex, the underlying molecular mechanisms remain unclear.
This is the authors' abstract. We don't add key points for this paper.
BACKGROUND: Adipose tissues (ATs), including visceral ATs (VATs) and subcutaneous ATs (SATs), are crucial for maintaining energy and metabolic homeostasis. SATs have been found to be closely related to obesity and obesity-induced metabolic disease. Some studies have shown a significant association between subcutaneous fat metabolism and sexes. However, the molecular mechanisms for this association are still unclear. Here, using the pig as a model, we investigated the systematic association between the subcutaneous fat metabolism and sexes, and identified some key sex-specific pathways and genes in the SATs from pigs. RESULTS: The results revealed that 134 differentially expressed genes (DEGs) were identified in female and male pigs from the obese group. A total of 17 coexpression modules were detected, of which six modules were significantly correlated with the sexes (P < 0.01). Among the significant modules, the greenyellow module (cor = 0.68, P < 9e-06) and green module (cor = 0.49, P < 0.003) were most significantly positively correlated with the male and female, respectively. Functional analysis showed that one GO term and four KEGG pathways were significantly enriched in the greenyellow module while six GO terms and six KEGG pathways were significantly enriched in the green module. Furthermore, a total of five and two key sex-specific genes were identified in the two modules, respectively. Two key sex-specific pathways (Ras-MAPK signaling pathway and type I interferon response) play an important role in the SATs of males and females, respectively. CONCLUSIONS: The present study identified some key sex-specific pathways and genes in the SATs from pigs, which provided some new insights into the molecular mechanism of being involved in fat formation and immunoregulation between pigs of different sexes. These findings may be beneficial to breeding in the pig industry and obesity treatment in medicine.
Does not yet inform obesity management; hypothesis-generating for sex-specific adipose pathways in animal models.
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Wang et al. (2022) studied Obesity and subcutaneous adipose tissue metabolism (n=34). Sex (Female vs Male) vs. Male pigs was evaluated on Differentially expressed genes and coexpression modules correlated with sex. In subcutaneous adipose tissue of obese pigs, 134 differentially expressed genes were identified, revealing key sex-specific pathways including Ras-MAPK signaling in males and type I interferon response in females.
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