Abstract
White adipose tissue (WAT) is present in different depots throughout the body. Although all depots are exposed to systemic humoral signals, they are not functionally identical. Studies in clock gene knockout animals and in shift workers suggest that daily rhythmicity may play an important role in lipid metabolism. Differences in rhythmicity between fat depots might explain differences in depot function; therefore, we measured mRNA expression of clock genes and metabolic genes on a 3-h interval over a 24-h period in the subcutaneous inguinal depot and in the intra-abdominal perirenal, epididymal, and mesenteric depots of male Wistar rats. We analyzed rhythmicity using CircWave software. Additionally, we measured plasma concentrations of glucose, insulin, corticosterone, and leptin. The clock genes (Bmal1/Per2/Cry1/Cry2/RevErbα/DBP) showed robust daily gene expression rhythms, which did not vary between WAT depots. Metabolic gene expression rhythms (SREBP1c/PPARα/PPARγ/FAS/LPL/Glut4/HSL/CPT1b/leptin/visfatin/resistin) were more variable between depots. However, no distinct differences between intra-abdominal and subcutaneous rhythms were found. Concluding, specific fat depots are not associated with differences in clock gene expression rhythms and, therefore, do not provide a likely explanation for the differences in metabolic function between different fat depots.