Comparative transcriptome analysis of dedifferentiation in mouse mature adipocytes

In mammals, terminally differentiated cells are generally incapable of reversing the differentiation process. We showed that adipocytes (AC), which is a terminally differentiated cell type, can dedifferentiate during culture in vitro and acquire multipotency. We investigated the dedifferentiation mechanism of AC using global gene expression analyses. Using Affymetrix mouse genome array, we compared global gene expression profiles during dedifferentiation to search for particular biological functions in genes of which expression intensities were increased or decreased by AC dedifferentiation.