Hypoxia-induced modulation of gene expression in human adipocytes - A microarray study

Obesity is characterised by expansion of white adipose tissue, accompanied by an inflamatory response. It has been proposed that the inflammatory state observed may be linked to relative hypoxia in clusters of adipocytes distant from vasculature. Adipose tissue hypoxia has been observed in both animal models and human studies in obesity, and has been linked to insulin resistance. This study has used Agilent whole-genome microarrays to examine the effects of acute hypoxia on the global gene expression in human adipocytes. Human adipocytes (Zen-bio cells) were incubated in hypoxic conditions (1% O2) for 24 h. Control human adipocytes were incubated under normoxic conditions (21% O2). Eight biological replicates were prepared for each experimental condition, and RNA was pooled from two biological replicates, giving a total of n=4 array replicates.