Second Edition of Advances in Adipose Tissue Biology

Dear Colleagues,

This Special Issue is the second edition of “Advances in Adipose Tissue Biology” https://www.mdpi.com/journal/cells/special_issues/Adipose_Tissue_Biology.

Much progress in the past two decades has revolutionized our understanding of adipose tissues in the body. Fat is no longer simply thought of as a homogeneous organ that shields the body from cold and mechanical shocks. Once believed to be an inert fat depot with few biological properties, recent advances facilitated by cutting-edge ‘omics’ and other novel scientific methodologies have probed and elucidated the pleiotropic nature of this organ at the molecular level. Even its role in fat storage can predispose adipose tissue toward pathological trajectories; new evidence supports fat expandability defects and ectopic fat deposition as drivers of metabolic disease. Apart from regulating triglyceride energy storage, adipocytes secrete numerous bioactive cargoes housed within extracellular vesicles, released from their cell membranes into the circulation, thereby exerting a broad range of distant endocrine effects elsewhere in the body. In addition, the plasticity of adipocytes has implications in remodeling and tissue engineering for obesity treatment aimed at the browning of white adipose tissues. We now appreciate how heterogeneity existing within adipose tissues orchestrates complex dynamics, signaling, and feedbacks in the maintenance of health and disease. Notably, adipocytes have been demonstrated to act as stromal cells in the tumor microenvironment, with molecular crosstalk having been proven to promote cancer-cell proliferation, migration, invasion, and metastasis. The disruption of adipocyte homeostasis caused by both genes and the environment with consequent metabolic dysfunction contributes to system-wide inflammation that underlies many non-communicable chronic disease pandemics, such as non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, and even cancers.

The study of adipose biology has thus entered a new era. In this respect, this Special Issue aims to showcase scientific advances and fascinating discoveries that may not only be translated to the bedside and address the burgeoning toll exacted by obesity, diabetes, and the like, but also further propel both basic scientists and clinical researchers to greater breakthroughs. Toward that end, the articles in this Special Issue will hopefully serve as an inspiring resource for all who wish to have up-to-date knowledge concerning this most fascinating biological field.

Prof. Dr. Melvin K. S. Leow
Guest Editor

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• adipocyte differentiation, progenitors, and stem cells
• adipokines, myokines, hepatokines, cytokines, cellular signaling, and molecular crosstalk
• white adipose tissue (WAT) and brown adipose tissue (BAT)
• beige fat and browning of WAT
• research techniques and methodologies
• diagnostics and therapeutics, genomics, metabolomics, other ‘omics’ technologies
• metabolic syndrome, obesity, insulin resistance, cancer

• Advances in Adipose Tissue Biology in Cells (4 articles)