Summary
Low chronic doses of a variety of female sex hormones and long photoperiod reduce the weight of the peritoneal fat body in female lizards indicating that fat mobilization from this organ can be induced by steroids. Comparison of the fat body tissue of estrone-treated animals with controls under the light and electron microscopes reveals a number of profound changes in cellular structure that appear to be associated with lipolysis. Fat droplets become subdivided. The nuclei decrease in size by about one half and nuclear chromatin increases. A dense fibrous lamina appears adjacent to the inner nuclear envelope and a mass of particles 200–300 Å in diameter appears in the nucleoplasm. The mitochondria increase in size and number. Lipomicrons appear in the cytoplasm and there is a marked increase in the number of exocytotic vesicles. Perhaps most noteworthy is the proliferation of a dense system of microtubules, approximately 80 Å in diameter, over the surface of the lipid droplet connecting it with the nucleus and mitochondria. These organelles are thought to be specifically associated with the process of lipolysis in this tissue.
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Supported in part by a Public Health Service fellowship, 1 FZ HD 32, 949 REP from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development.
The authors wish to thank Prof. H. Heller for his constant interest and constructive criticism, Prof. L. M. Napolitano for his thoughtful comments on the manuscript, and the officers and men of the U.S. Naval Undersea Research and Development Center, San Clemente Island, California, for their help in obtaining animals for this study.
Fellow of the Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas de la Republica Argentina.
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LaPointe, J.L., Rodríguez, E.M. Fat mobilization and ultrastructural changes in the peritoneal fat body of the lizard, Klauberina riversiana, in response to long photoperiod and exogenous estrone or progesterone. Cell Tissue Res. 155, 181–192 (1974). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00221352
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00221352