Adipose tissue metabolism in the postprandial period: microdialysis
and arteriovenous techniques compared.
Summers, Lucinda K. M., Peter Arner, Vera Ilic, Mo L. Clark, Sandy M.
Humphreys, and Keith N. Frayn.
Oxford Lipid Metabolism Group, Nuffield Department of Clinical
Medicine, Radcliffe Infirmary, Oxford OX2 6HE, UK. Department of
Medicine, Huddinge University Hospital, Karolinska Institute, S-141
86 Huddinge, Sweden
APStracts 4:0280E, 1997.
We investigated whether two different methods of studying metabolism
in adipose tissue, microdialysis and the arteriovenous technique,
produced comparable results during the postprandial period.
Interstitial glycerol concentrations measured by microdialysis are
usually used as an index of intracellular lipolysis and it is not
known whether they also reflect the intravascular action of
lipoprotein lipase in the postprandial period. The two techniques
were compared in ten healthy subjects fed mixed meals. Interstitial
glycerol concentrations reflected those measured in adipose tissue
venous plasma. However, the calculation of the rate of glycerol
release from adipose tissue using the microdialysis data differed
systematically from that using arteriovenous difference measurement.
The former method gave on average 40% lower values than the latter
one. The difference is probably due to the assumptions that had to be
made for the calculation of glycerol release. The two techniques have
complementary places in the study of postprandial adipose tissue
metabolism, with microdialysis reflecting intracellular hormone
sensitive lipase action rather than intravascular lipoprotein lipase.
Received 2 Ocotber 1997; accepted in final form 12 December 1997.
APS Manuscript Number E464-7.
Article publication pending Am. J. Physiol. (Endocrinol. Metab.).
ISSN 1080-4757 Copyright 1997 The American Physiological Society.
Published in APStracts on 7 January 1998