Patent Application: US-34848003-A

Abstract:
this invention relates to new immortalized human pre - adipose cell lines capable of differentiating into adipose cells and methods of obtaing the immortalized cells . in particular , the present invention pertains to immortalized pre - adipocyte cell lines derived from white adipose tissue and methods of producing the cell lines . the immortalized pre - adipocyte cells are capable of maturing into immortalized white adipose cells useful in developing drugs , food ingredients and supplements against obesity , diabetes and cardiovascular diseases .

Description:
cell lines have played an important role in the development of molecular and cellular biology , particularly in the elucidation of intracellular activities , the effects of extracellular molecules and cell - cell interactions . cell lines are normally established stepwise by explantation of tissue containing a heterogeneous cell population , separation of the cells , isolation of a cell clone of interest and culturing the cell clone so that the total cell number increases over several generations and the population is uniform in its lineage . yet these cells will survive only a limited number of passages in an in vitro culture before they start to senesce . according to a preferred embodiment , the cell line is any of the cell lines deposited according to the budapest treaty with the institute pasteur at 28 rue du docteur roux f - 55724 paris , france on jul . 13 , 2000 , receiving the immortalized human pre - adipose cell line identified as adscsv40 - c6 and having deposit no . cncm i - 2520 , or on apr . 27 , 2001 , receiving the immortalized human pre - adipose cell line identified as chub - s7 and having deposit no . cncm i - 2663 . both cncm i - 2520 and cncm i - 2663 include the human papillomavirus e7 oncoprotein gene and the human telomerase reverse transcriptase gene . the present invention now provides for novel immortalized cell lines capable of differentiate and to mature to white adipocytes . these immortalized adipocytes exhibit essentially the same morphological pattern as do normal white adipocytes obtained from living tissue , i . e ., the polypeptide expression or cellular appearance . the following abbreviations are used herein : ap2 : adipocyte fatty acid binding protein ; bsa : bovine serum albumin ; c / ebpα : ccaat / enhancer binding protein alpha ; dex : dexamethasone ; fas : fatty acid synthase ; fbs : fetal bovine serum ; gpdh : glycerol - 3 - phosphate dehydrogenase ; htert : human telomerase reverse transcriptase ; hpv - e7 : human papillomavirus e7 oncoprotein ; ibmx : isobuthyl methyl xanthine ; lpl : lipoprotein lipase ; oa : oleic acid ; pparγ : peroxisome proliferator - activated receptor gamma ; rplp0 : ribosomal preotein large p0 ; sv40 t - ag : sv40 t - antigen ; and trap : telomerase repeat application protocol . the term “ normal human white adipose cell ” shall mean a non - immortalized human white adipose cell that is not tumorigenic . having a metabolic pattern “ essentially identical or the same ” shall mean an immortalized mature white adipose cell that express at least four normal human white adipose cell markers selected from the group consisting of : lipoprotein lipase ; fatty acid synthase ; adipocyte fatty acid binding protein ; leptin ; adipsin ; adiponectin ; peroxisome proliferator - activated receptors γ ; peroxisome proliferator - activated receptors β ; ccaat / enchancer binding protein alpha ; and hormone sensitive lipase . the present invention is directed to a culture of an immortalized human pre - adipose cell line and to methods of preparing the same . the culture of the present invention includes immortalized human pre - adipose cells capable of maturing into a immortalized mature white adipose cells . the mature adipose cells derived from the cell line exhibit metabolic patterns of normal human white adipose cells making them extremely useful for use in research and development programs . typically , when the immortalized mature cells are cultured on serum - free medium they express at least four normal human white adipose cell markers selected from the group consisting of : lipoprotein lipase ; fatty acid synthase ; adipocyte fatty acid binding protein ; leptin ; adipsin ; adiponectin ; peroxisome proliferator - activated receptors γ ; peroxisome proliferator - activated receptors β ; ccaat / enchancer binding protein alpha ; and hormone sensitive lipase . preferably , the immortalized cells express the following normal adipoctye markers lipoprotein lipase ; leptin ; adiponectin ; and peroxisome proliferator - activated receptors γ and more preferably , they also express ccaat / enhancer binding protein alpha , adipocyte fatty acid binding protein or adipsin . the immortalized white adipose cell produced from the pre - adipose cell line has a karypotpe identical to a normal white adipose cell . the pre - adipose cell lines of the present invention may be differentiated to mature white adipocytes with compounds known in the art , such as insuline , triiodothyronine , dexamethasone and activators of peroxisome proliferator - activated receptors ( ppar ). the white adipocytes thus obtained will then essentially show the same metabolic markers as do normal white adipose cells , such as enzymes involved in triglyceride synthesis , e . g . lipoprotein lipase and fatty acid synthase , adipocyte fatty acid binding protein , leptin , adipsin , adiponectin , peroxisone proliferator - activated receptors γ and β ( ppar γ , β ) and the hormone sensitive lipase . the white adipocytes may be kept in culture for at least 12 passages , preferably at least 20 passages , more preferably at least 30 passages and most preferably at least 50 passages . according to a preferred embodiment the cell line is any of the cell lines deposited according to the budapest treaty with the institute pasteur at 28 rue du docteur roux f - 55724 paris , france on jul . 13 , 2000 , receiving the deposit no . cncm i - 2520 or on apr . 27 , 2001 , receiving the deposit no . cncm i - 2663 . the present invention is also directed to a method for preparing an immortalized pre - adipose cell line capable of maturing into mature white adipose cells that exhibit essentially identical metabolic patterns as normal white adipose cells . the methods generally comprises the following steps : ( a ) separating cells from a human adipose tissue ; ( b ) de - differentiating and proliferating the cells obtained in ( a ) to obtain a pre - adipocyte clone ; and ( c ) immortalizing a pre - adipose clone isolated under step ( b ). ( d ) selecting for immortalized cells , and ( e ) selecting for cells capable of differentiating into white adipose cells . during step ( a ) white adipose cells are isolated in vitro from an appropriate adipose tissue from a human donor . the primary tissue obtained from the donor is first treated such that the adipocytes are separated from other cells present , such as , e . g ., by treatment of the tissue sample with a solution containing collagenase and separating adipocytes from the other cells by successive filtrations followed by a centrifugation . in the subsequent step ( b ) the adipose cells obtained in step ( a ) are de - differentiated , which may be effected by using e . g . the so called “ ceiling culture method ” previously described for rodent adipocytes ( sugihara h ., yonemitsu n ., miyabara s ., yun k . 1986 , primary culture of unilocular fat cells : characteristics of growth in vitro and changes in differentiation properties , differentiation , 31 : 42 - 49 ). according to this method the adipocytes are transferred into a culture flask , that is filled to the top with culture medium and positioned upside down . after six days under these conditions , adipocytes de - differentiated spontaneously into fibroblast - like cells deprived of lipid droplets . the resulting de - differentiated adipocytes are then proliferated under the same culture condition as above to obtain actively growing pre - adipocytes . in the next step ( c ) the pre - adipocytes thus obtained are immortalized . this may be achieved by infecting cells with a recombinant vector , such as with a recombinant plasmid , a recombinant virus or a retrovirus , e . g . a recombinant retroviral vector carrying the large t antigen gene of sv40 virus ( simian virus ) or the e6 or e7 genes of hpv virus ( human papilloma virus ). according to an alternative method the recombinant vector harbors the telomerase reverse transcriptase ( tert ) genes , which are preferably derived from the same species as the cells being immortalized . the gist of the latter method resides in essentially preventing the shortening of the chromosome &# 39 ; s telomeres . telomere shortening has been linked with senesce of cells . telomere maintenance and cellular immortalization has been reported in epithelial cells by kiyono et al , nature 396 ( 1998 ), 84 - 88 , which document is incorporated herein by way of reference . a successive infection with sv40 virus ( simian virus ) or the e6 or e7 genes of hpv virus and the tert gene represents also an alternative method for human pre - adipocyte immortalization . in the subsequent step ( d ) a selection is made for cells positively immortalized , which may e . g . simply be performed by culturing cells obtained in step ( c ) for several passages or by testing the cells for genes of the vector used for the immortalization , such as for genes from the sv40 virus or genes from the hpv virus . this may be achieved by detecting the expression of the respective genes by means of antibodies or may involve an analysis via pcr - techniques . the expression of the telomerase reverse transcriptase genes is detected by measuring the telomerase activity determined by applying the telomerase repeat amplification protocol ( trap ). in the subsequent step ( e ) the cells shown to be positively immortalized by the introduction of the vector are tested for their ability to differentiate into mature white adipose cells . to this end , the cell lines obtained under step ( d ) are treated with common differentiating agents , such as detectable by intracellular lipids staining . lipids staining is commonly performed with the oil - red - o method which specifically stains lipids . the cell lines of the present invention may be used for different purposes , such as serving as a means to investigate the role of controlling the regulation of lipid uptake and release by white adipocytes , or the identification of substance controlling the differentiation of pre - adipocytes into mature adipocytes , or for screening for compounds capable to control the expression of targets for obesity , diabetes and cardio - vascular diseases . particularly , these cell lines may be helpful for the screening of factors able to regulate the release by adipocytes of compounds involved in the control energy metabolism such as leptin . the following examples will illustrate the invention without limiting it to the specific embodiments mentioned . after surgery the biopsy of subcutaneous adipose tissue from an obese patient was maintained at room temperature with a mixture of dulbecco &# 39 ; s modified eagle &# 39 ; s medium ( dmem ) and ham &# 39 ; s f12 media ( v / v ) ( gibco brl ) supplemented with 10 % fetal calf serum ( fcs ) ( gibco brl ), 100 μg / ml streptomycine / penicilline and 2 mm glutamine . this medium was termed basic medium . the adipose tissue was minced into small pieces and digested 20 min at 37 ° c . into 3 ml of digestion medium per gram of tissue . the digestion medium contained 2 mg / ml collagenase ( roche biomedical ) and 20 mg / ml bovine serum albumin ( sigma ) dissolved into dmem medium . digestion was stopped by the addition of an equivalent volume of fcs in order to get a 20 % fcs concentration . the digested fluid was filtered twice with filters of different porosity ( 250 , 100 μm ) and centrifuged 10 min at 1000 rpm . adipocyte fraction was obtained as a thin and white floating layer which was removed and put into 30 ml phosphate buffer at 37 ° c . the suspension was centrifuged ( 10 min at 1000 rpm ) in order to obtain an adipocyte fraction deprived of other contaminating cells . about 10 6 adipocytes were incubated in a 25 cm 2 flask completely filled with dmem mixed with ham &# 39 ; s f12 medium ( v / v ) supplemented with 20 % fcs , 10 mg / ml streptomy - cine / penicillin and 2 mm glutamine . the flask was turned upside down in order to allow adipocytes to adhere to the top inner surface . after 8 days of culture in the appropriate environment ( 37 ° c ., 90 % humidity ) cells had attached and started to de - differentiate spontaneously into pre - adipocytes and to proliferate . the flask was then turned in the proper orientation and the medium was removed . 5 ml of the above described basic medium was added in the flask . after 2 days under these conditions cells were infected . a recombinant retroviral vector carrying the large t antigen gene of sv40 virus ( simian virus ) or the e6 / e7 genes of hpv virus ( human papilloma virus ) or the human telomerase reverse transcriptase ( htert )) were constructed by insertion , with standard recombinant dna techniques , into the bamhi site of the plhxsd retroviral vector ( stockschlaeder et al ., hum gene ther ., 2 ( 1991 ), 33 - 39 ) containing the histidinol gene as selection marker . infectious recombinant virus particles were generated through transfection of the recombinant retroviral vector into the amphotropic packaging cell line phoenix ( clontech ), followed by co - culturing with the ecotropic packaging cell line , psi2 ( atcc ) to allow “ ping - pong ” infection to produce a high - titer virus ( lynch c , miller d . 1991 . “ production of high helper virus - free retroviral vectors by cocultivation of packaging cells with different host recipes .” j . virol ., 65 : 3887 - 3890 ). infectious recombinant virus particles as prepared above were used to infect primary human de - differentiated adipose cells obtained according to example 2 . the cells were incubated for 3 hours at 37 ° c . ( 90 % humidity ) with the recombinant virus in the presence of 20 μg / ml deae dextran . after the infection , the culture medium was changed with the basic medium . ten days after infection the first clones were picked up by aspiration and expanded separately . the expression of the sv40 t antigen or e7 genes in the different clones was determined by rt - pcr using and immuno - staining utilizing mouse monoclonal antibodies directed against the human sv40 t antigen ( oncogene ). the telomerase activity was determined by applying the telomerase repeat amplification protocol ( trap ) according to kim et al ., science 266 ( 1994 ), 2011 - 2015 . 7sv40 t antigen , e7 , tert or e7 and tert positive cells as obtained in example 3 were incubated in the basic medium , as defined in example 1 , to confluence at which stage an adipogenic cocktail was added to the medium which cocktail contained the basic medium and supplemented with 850 nm insulin ; 10 pg / ml transferrin ; 1 nm triiodothyronine ; 500 μm fetuin , 33 μm panthotenic acid , 1 mm hepes , 15 mm nahco 3 and 1 μm dexamethasone and 1 μm brl49653 , a pparγ agonist . incubation of the cells was continued . at day 10 after confluence cells started to exhibit an adipocytic phenotype with intracellular lipid droplets observed with a specific staining . this oil - red - o staining was performed on fixed cells with 10 % formaldehyde incubated 2 hours with the dye dissolved at in isopropanol . cells were then washed with water and observed under microscope . differentiated adipocytes appeared as cells filled with red cytoplasmic spots corresponding to the accumulation of lipid droplets . confluent immortalized human pre - adipose cells of the cell line cncm i - 2550 ( as obtained in the preceding examples ) were cultured in a serum - free chemically defined medium described in example 4 . at day 17 after confluence , cells were washed with hank &# 39 ; s balanced salt solution and rna was extracted using the rneasy total rna purification system ( qiagen ag , switzerland ). reverse transcription was performed with an input of 2 μg of total rna using the 1 st strand cdna synthesis kit for rt - pcr ( amv ; roche biomedical , switzerland ) with oligo d ( t ) 15 as primer . primers used for the amplification of cdna &# 39 ; s of interest are listed below in table 1 and were synthesized by mycrosynth ( windisch , switzerland ). the pcr reaction was heated for 2 cycles to 98 ° c . for 1 min , 60 ° c . for 2 min and 72 ° c . for 2 min and then cycled 28 times through a 1 min denaturation step at 94 ° c ., a 1 min annealing step at 60 ° c . and a 2 min extension step at 72 ° c . in a dna thermal cycler apparatus ( bioconcept , allschwil , switzerland ). actin primers were included in the reaction as an internal control . pcr products ( 10 μl ) were separated on a 2 % agarose gel and visualized by ethidium bromide staining . the results clearly indicate that the cell line investigated expresses the respective adipocyte &# 39 ; s markers in a manner essentially identical to normal human adipose tissue as such . essentially identical to normal white human adipose tissue shall mean a culture of a human pre - adipose cell line capable of maturing into a white adipose cell , wherein the adipose cell differentiated from the pre - adipose cell line exhibits identical metabolic functions that normal human white adipose overexpression of sv40 t - antigen ( sv40 t - ag ) has been widely used to overcome replicative senescence of human primary cells and to promote cell immortalization . however , in the case of certain cell types , such as pre - adipocytes , the differentiation process of immortalized cells is blocked by sv40 t - ag expression . in this study , human telomerase reverse transcriptase ( htert ) and papillomavirus e7 oncoprotein ( hpv - e7 ) genes were co - expressed in human pre - adipocytes to test whether this combination could maintain cell differentiation capacity after immortalization . we demonstrated that the hpv - e7 / htert expressing pre - adipocytes displayed an indefinite life span . interestingly , immortalized cells were diploid and presented no chromosomic alterations . these immortalized cells were able to accumulate and to hydrolyse intracellular triglycerides and to express adipocyte markers . these data demonstrate , for the first time , that co - expression of htert and hpv - e7 in human pre - adipocytes allows cells , not only to display an indefinite life span but also to retain their capacity to differentiate . proliferation of primary cells is limited a few population doublings ( pds ) before entering into a phase of growth arrest called replicative senescence . overexpression of viral oncogenes such as the sv40 t - antigen ( sv40 t - ag ) has been widely used to overcome senescence and to promote human cell immortalization ( 1 ). however , ectopic expression of viral oncogenes allows primary cells to overcome replicative senescence , only for a few pds before entering into a second non - replicative phase called “ crisis ” ( 2 ). in most cell types , rare cellular clones are able to escape from crisis and to proliferate indefinitely ( 3 ). this limitation in the immortalization process of human cells can be overcome by the reconstitution of the telomerase activity . indeed , it has been recently shown that overexpression of the human telomerase reverse transcriptase ( h - tert ) allows sv40 t - ag transformed cells , derived from different tissues , to bypass the crisis step and to promote indefinite life span ( 4 - 8 ). nevertheless , the differentiation process of certain cell types , such as pre - adipocytes , is clearly blocked by sv40 t - ag expression ( 9 , 10 ). differentiation of pre - adipocytes into adipocytes ( i . e . adipogenesis ) is a well - described system regulated by various factors . upon induction of differentiation , a cascade of gene transcription events occurs , leading to the expression of adipocyte - specific genes ( 11 ). this adipocyte differentiation cascade is controlled by two key transcritional factors the peroxisome proliferator - activated receptor gamma ( pparγ ) and the ccaat / enhancer binding protein alpha ( c / ebpα ). the camp - response element - binding protein - binding protein ( cebp ) and its highly related p300 protein have been recently shown to be necessary for the induction of both pparγ and c / ebpα ( 12 , 13 ). interestingly , sv40 t - ag interacts with both cbp and p300 , inhibiting their co - activation function ( 14 , 15 ). these observations could explain why a previous attempt to immortalize human pre - adipocytes derived from white adipose tissue with sv40 t - ag has failed to deliver permanent cell lines showing a preserved capacity for differentiation ( 16 ). the e7 oncoprotein from the human papillomavirus type 16 ( hpv - e7 ) has also been reported as a factor promoting human cell immortalization ( 17 ). however , immortalization by hpv - e7 alone is a rare event . coexpression of hpv - e7 and htert was shown to increase the frequency of immortalization of human keratinocytes ( kiyono , 1998 # 14 ). interestingly , unlike sv40 t - ag , hpv - e7 does not bind to cbp / p300 ( 18 ), shown that overexpression of hpv - e7 in human pre - adipocytes could preserve their adipogenic capacity . in this context , we tested whether ectopic expression of hpv - e7 combined with the reconstitution of telomerase activity would allow establishment of a human white preadipose cell line with an indefine life span and a preserved adipogenic capacity . for this purpose , human pre - adipocytes from subcutaneous white adipose tissue were successively infected with recombinant viruses carrying htert and hpv - e7 genes . we showed that these transformed cells were able to proliferate indefinitely and to differentiate into lipid filled cells expressing adipocyte markers . human primary pre - adipocytes were infected with a recombinant retrovirus carrying the htert gene . several clones were obtained after histidinol selection . these cells were able to divide until about passage 12 before entering to senescence and growth arrest ( not shown ). the ability of these clones to differentiate into lipid filled adipocytes was tested using the oil red - o staining , as described in material and methods . the clone presenting the best capacity to accumulate lipid was infected at passage 8 with retroviral particles containing the hpv - e7 gene . after infection , cells started to proliferate more rapidly than cells infected with htert alone . these cells were able to grow with a doubling time of 45 . 6 ± 0 . 8 h , without any modifications in cell proliferation , until at least 176 pds ( passage 46 ). this cell line considered as immortal was named chub - s7 . chub - s7 cells expressed hpv - e7 gene as detected by rt - pcr ( data not shown ) and presented a telomerase activity ( fig5 ) which was maintained until , at least , 145 pds ( passage 38 ; not shown ) to determine whether this cell line presented chromosomic alterations that may affect cell phenotype , the chromosome pattern of chub - s7 cells was analyzed at 81 and 157 pds ( passages 21 and 41 , respectively ). the karyotype analysis showed that chub - s7 cells were diploid with 46 , xx chromosomes ( fig6 ). chromosomes did not present any apparent abnormalities at low and high passages . adipocyte differentiation of chub - s7 cells was tested under serum - free culture conditions . to promote pre - adipocyte differentiation , confluent cells were incubated with a basal medium ( see material and methods ) supplemented with 500 μm ibmx and 1 μm dex for the first 3 days , and 1 μm of a pparγ agonist ( brl49653 ) and 1 μm dex from day 3 to 17 . this condition was compared to the basal medium alone or supplemented with dex plus ibmx from day 0 to 3 and dex alone from day 3 to 17 . to determine whether chub - s7 cells were able to differentiate , the expression of adipocyte markers was assessed , by real - time rt - pcr , at different time points during cellular maturation . these markers included i ) transcriptional factors involved in adipogenesis such as peroxisome proliferator - activated receptor γ ( pparγ ) and caat / enhancer binding protein α ( c / ebpα ), ii ) genes involved in lipid metabolism such as lipoprotein lipase ( lpl ) and adipocyte fatty acid binding protein ( ap2 ), and finally iii ) adipocyte secreted factors such as adipsin and leptin . under basal conditions , pparγ was increased by about 10 - fold at day 3 as compared to day 0 and remained constant until day 17 . after incubation with dex plus ibmx , pparγ mrna were increased by about 35 - fold at day 3 as compared to day 0 ( fig7 ). after ibmx removal , pparγ mrna fell to the basal level , but brl49653 was able to reinitiate pparγ expression at day 10 and 17 . in presence of brl49653 , c / ebpα mrna was slightly increased as early as day 6 after confluency and reached a plateau at day 13 ( fig7 ). basal medium supplemented or not with dex alone did not affect c / ebpα expression along the time course . cells cultured in presence of the pparγ agonist showed increased levels of ap2 and lpl mrna as early as day 3 and day 6 after confluency , respectively ( fig8 ). this expression continued to increase up to day 17 for both genes . dex alone was able to enhance significantly ap2 and lpl mrna expression at day 17 as compared to day 0 , but to a lesser extent to that observed in presence of the pparγ agonist ( 8 vs . 8372 fold - increase for ap2 and 16 vs 308 fold - increase for lpl ). adipsin mrna levels reached a plateau as early as at day 10 whereas the highest leptin mrna expression was observed only at day 17 ( fig9 ). before day 17 , the increase in leptin mrna was similar in presence or in absence of the pparγ agonist but was 2 fold higher at day 17 , in presence of brl49653 when compared to dex alone . the expression of the ribosomal protein large p0 used in this study for normalization , showed no changes in mrna levels during chub - s7 cell differentiation ( fig9 ). these results show that under conventional serum - free culture conditions , differentiated chub - s7 cells were able to acquire the main adipocyte markers . to study the ability of differentiated chub - s7 cells to accumulate intracellular lipids , cells cultured for 17 days in the absence or in the presence of brl49653 were fixed and stained with oil - red o . almost all the differentiated cells were able to accumulate at least one single lipid droplet and few of them presented large multilocular droplets ( fig1 b ). when oa ( 100 μm complexed with bsa ) was added from day 10 to 17 to the differentiation medium containing brl49653 , chub - s7 cells showed a dramatic increase in their triglyceride content with large multilocular lipid droplets ( fig1 a - 10b ). the presence of oa did not affect the expression of lpl , c / ebpα , ap2 , leptin and adipsin induced by brl49653 ( data not shown ). lipolytic capacity of differentiated cells was assessed by measuring glycerol release , after stimulation or not for 1 h with 1 μm isoproterenol ( iso ), a non - specific β - adrenergic agonist . cells were differentiated in the presence of brl49653 alone . iso significantly increased by 40 . 5 % lipolysis in cells cultured in the presence of the pparγ agonist ( fig1 a ). the glycerol - 3 - phosphate dehydrogenase ( gpdh ) is a key enzyme involved the glycerol phosphate shuttle pathway . its activity was measured in chub - s7 cells during differentiation . fig1 b shows that gpdh specific activity was slightly increased , at day 10 , in presence of brl49653 and reached a maximum level at day 17 . under basal conditions or with dex alone , gpdh specific activity was not increased along the time course . ( fig1 b ). sv40 t - ag , a well known immortalizing factor , has been shown to alter cell differentiation and especially to block the maturation of pre - adipocytes into adipocytes ( 9 , 10 ). this inhibitory effect of sv40 t - ag could explain the limited differentiation capacity of the sv40 t - ag - transformed human white pre - adipocytes previously described ( 16 ). we demonstrate , for the first time , that co - expression of htert and hpv - e7 in human pre - adipocytes allows cells , not only display an indefinite life span but also to retain normal metabolic expression of primary cells . we teach herein that pre - adipocytes derived from human white adipose tissue preserved their adipogenic capacity after immortalization by htert and hpv - e7 coexpression . this approach allowed , for the first time , the establishment of a human white preadipose cell line , which represents a useful model for studying pharmacological and nutritional regulations of adipocyte differentiation and metabolism . now turning to the figures for further illustration , in fig5 the telomerase activity in chub - s7 cells is shown . telomerase activity was measured in confluent chub - s7 cells at 73 , 76 and 80 population doublings ( pds ) using the trap assay . in the the first lane , the reaction was performed in the absence of cell lysates . telomeric repeat amplifications were observed on the other lanes . fig6 shows a karyotype analysis of chub - s7 cells . the cytogenetic analysis was performed on chub - s7 cells at 96 pds as indicated in material and methods below . fig7 shows the profile of pparg and c / ebpa gene expression during chub - s7 cell differentiation . chub - s7 cells were cultured from day 0 to 17 in the presence of the basal medium as defined in material and methods ( m ), or in the basal medium with 1 μm dex plus 500 μm ibmx from day 0 to 3 and dexamethasone from day 3 to 17 (●) or supplemented with 1 μm brl49653 (▪). the arrow indicates the day from which brl49653 was added to the medium . relative gene expression was quantified by real - time rt - pcr . data are the means ± sem of values obtained at least in four separate experiments . values significantly different from the basal conditions at defined days during the time - course are indicated by * ( p & lt ; 0 . 05 ) or ** ( p & lt ; 0 . 01 ). top panels show representative rt - pcrs performed at a number of cycle defined according to the linear amplification of the genes ( see material and methods ). fig8 shows the profile of lpl and ap2 gene expression during chub - s7 cell differentiation . see legend to fig7 above . fig9 shows the profile of adipsin , leptin and rpl - p0 gene expression during chub - s7 cell differentiation . see legend to fig7 above . fig1 shows the triglyceride accumulation in differentiated chub - s7 cells . chub - s7 cells were grown in the presence of the basal medium with 1 μm dexamethasone plus 500 μm ibmx from day 0 to 3 and dex from day 3 to 17 or supplemented with 1 μm brl49653 alone or in the presence of 100 μm oa from day 10 to 17 . at day 17 , cells were fixed and triglycerides were visualized using the oil - red o staining . a : staining of culture wells containing chub - s7 cells differentiated under the conditions described above . b : morphology of chub - s7 cells differentiated with dexamethasone and brl49653 or in the same medium supplemented with oleate ( magnitude 400 ×). data are representative of at least 3 independent experiments . fig1 shows the functionality of differentiated chub - s7 cells . a . chub - s7 cells were differentiated in the presence of 1 μm dex plus 500 μm ibmx from day 0 to 3 and dexamethasone plus 1 μm brl49653 from day 3 to 17 . glycerol released in the medium was measured in the presence or in the absence of 1 μm isoproterenol . data are the means of values obtained at least in four separate experiments . values significantly different from the basal condition of cells differentiated with brl49653 only are indicated by * ( p & lt ; 0 . 05 ). b . chub - s7 cells were cultured from day 0 to 17 in the presence of the basal medium ( m ), or in the basal medium with 1 μm dex plus 500 μm ibmx from day 0 to 3 and dex from day3 to 17 (●) or supplemented with 1 μm brl49653 (▪). data are the means ± sem of values obtained at least in four separate experiments . values significantly different from the basal condition at defined days during the time - course are indicated by ** ( p & lt ; 0 . 01 ). cell culture media , fetal bovine serum ( fbs ) and hepes buffer were purchased from gibco brl ( basel ; switzerland ). fetuin , transferrin , histidinol , insulin , triiodothyronin , dexamethasone , isobuthyl methyl xanthine ( ibmx ), biotin , d - panthotenic , oleic acid were purchased from sigma ( buchs ; switzerland ). nahco 3 was obtained from merck ( darmstadt ; germany ). infectious htert recombinant viral particles were generated as previously described ( 8 ). the packaging cell line pa317 transfected with a retroviral construct consisted of the plxsn vector containing the hpv - e7 gene ( 19 ) was kindly provided by dr c . c . harris ( nci , nih , bethesda ). viral particles were obtained through the ping - pong procedure as previously described ( 20 ). adipocyte precursors from subcutaneous abdominal adipose tissue of a 33 - year - old obese female , with a body mass index of 54 , were prepared as previously described ( 21 ) and cultivated in a mix of dmem / f 12 media ( v / v ) supplemented with 2 mm glutamine , 100 u / ml penicillin / streptamycin and 10 % fbs . at 70 - 80 % confluence , primary pre - adipocytes were incubated for 4 h at 37 ° c . and 5 % co 2 with recombinant retrovirus containing the htert gene in presence of 20 μg / ml deae dextran . after infection , the culture medium was changed to a mixture of dmem / f12 media supplemented with 10 % fbs , glutamine and penicillin / streptomycin . after 48 h , 5 mm histidinol was added to the culture medium and viable clones were isolated and expanded . their ability to differentiate into lipid filled cells was tested under differentiation conditions as described below . the clone presenting the highest lipid accumulation was grown until passage 8 and infected with a recombinant virus containing the hpv - e7 gene . cells were grown in a mixture of dmem / f12 media supplemented with 10 % fbs , 2 mm glutamine , 100 u / ml penicillin / streptamycin until confluency . for differentiation , cells were washed with pbs and cultured with a serum - free medium consisting of a mixture of dmem / f12 media supplemented with 15 mm nahco 3 , 17 μm d - panthotenic acid , 15 mm hepes , 33 μm biotin , 10 μg / ml transferrin , 1 nm triiodothyronin , 850 nm insulin and 500 μg / ml fetuin . this medium , referred to “ basal medium ” was supplemented with 1 μm dexamethasone ( dex ) and 500 μm ibmx from day 0 to 3 . dex was maintained alone or with 1 μm brl49653 from day 3 to 17 in order to promote differentiation . as stated in results , oleic acid ( oa ) complexed with bovine serum albumin ( bsa ; ratio oa - to - bsa : 5 : 1 ) was added to the medium containing brl49653 from day 10 to 17 . lipid accumulation in differentiated cells was visualized by oil red o staining as previously described ( 22 ). all the experiments on chub - s7 cell characterization were performed between passages 18 and 32 ( 69 to 122 population doublings ). ( iv ) glycerol - 3 - phosphate dehydrogenase activity and lipolysis measurements glycerol - 3 - phosphate dehydrogenase ( gpdh ) activity measured at different times during the differentiation process of chub - s7 cells was determined using the enzymatic assay previously described ( 23 ). lipolysis was determined at day 17 after confluency . cells were incubated 1 hour at 37 ° c . and 5 % co 2 with a krebs - ringer buffer ( 5 mm nah 2 po 4 ; 1 mm mgso 4 ; 1 mm cacl 2 ; 136 mm nacl ; 4 . 7 mm kcl ) supplemented with 20 mm hepes , 2 % bsa , 5 mm glucose and 1 μm isoproterenol as indicated in results . glycerol released in the medium was measured using the glycerokinase enzymatic radiometric assay described by bradley and kaslow ( 24 ). the trap protocol assay was performed on cell extracts as previously described ( 8 ) semi - confluent cultures were sent to the cell culture laboratory ( children &# 39 ; s hospital of michigan , michigan , u . s . a .) for karyotyping analysis performed as previously described ( 8 ). rnas from chub - s7 cells cultured from day 0 to 17 were extracted using the nucleospin ® total rna purification system ( macherey - nagel , oensingen switzerland ). reverse transcription was performed with an input of 10 μg of total rna using the 1 st strand cdna synthesis kit for rt - pcr ( amv ; roche biomedical , basel , switzerland ) with oligo d ( t ) 15 as primer . real - time reverse transcription - polymerase chain reaction analyses were performed in a fluorescent temperature cycler ( geneamp ® pcr 5700 sequence detection system ; applied biosystem ) according to the recommendations of the manufacturer . briefly , after initial denaturation at 50 ° c . for 2 min and 95 ° c . for 10 min , reactions were cycled 40 times using the following parameters for all genes studied : 95 ° c . for 15s , primer annealing and extension at 60 ° c . for 1 min . sybr green i fluorescence was detected at the end of each cycle to monitor the amount of pcr product formed during that cycle . primers used for the amplification of cdnas of interest were synthesized by mycrosynth ( windisch , switzerland ). the sequence of the forward and reverse primers are listed in table 2 below . cycle to cycle fluorescence emission was monitored and quantified using the genamp software provided by applied biosystem . relative mrna levels ( 2 δct ) were determined by comparing the pcr cycle threshold ( ct ) between cells at day 0 and cells at days 6 , 10 , 13 and 17 after confluency ( δct ). at day 0 , all the genes studied had a detectable amplification level before the 40 cycles of the real - time pcr , with ct values significantly lower than the ct obtained in the absence of cdna ( not shown ). the purity of the pcr products was checked by analyzing melting curves . the specificity of the amplification product was verified by performing a pcr under the conditions described above but during a number of cycle defined according to the linear amplification of the genes ( number of cycles for the amplification of adipsin : 23 ; 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