Endothelial FABP4 constitutes the majority of basal circulating hormone levels and regulates lipolysis-driven insulin secretion

Abstract

AbstractFatty acid binding protein 4 (FABP4) is a lipid chaperone secreted from adipocytes upon stimulation of lipolysis. Circulating FABP4 levels strongly correlate with body mass index and obesity-related pathologies in experimental models and humans. While adipocytes have been presumed to be the major source of hormonal FABP4, this question has not been addressed definitivelyin vivo. We generated mice with FABP4 deletion in cells known to express the gene; adipocytes (Adipo-KO), endothelial cells (Endo-KO), myeloid cells (Myeloid-KO), and the whole body (Total-KO) to examine the contribution of these cell types to basal and stimulated plasma FABP4 levels. Unexpectedly, baseline plasma FABP4 was only reduced by ∼25% in Adipo-KO mice, whereas Endo-KO mice showed ∼75% decreases compared to wildtype controls. In contrast, Adipo-KO mice exhibited ∼62% reduction in FABP4 responses to lipolysis, while there was minimal reduction in Endo-KO mice, indicating that adipocytes are the main FABP4 source in lipolysis. We did not detect any myeloid cell contribution to circulating FABP4. Surprisingly, despite the nearly intact FABP4 responses, Endo-KO mice showed blunted lipolysis-induced insulin secretion, identical to Total-KO mice. We conclude that the endothelium is the major source of baseline hormonal FABP4 and is required for the insulin response to lipolysis.