Quartey, Samuel S

Obesity is a risk factor for cardiovascular disease, hypertension and diabetes. Although a variety vasculogenic factors have been associated with adipose tissue, there is little information available concerning the 3‐dimensional vasculature architecture of adipose tissue. Ten Swiss mice were fed a high fat diet (11% fat content) and ten mice were fed a normal chow diet (4% fat content). After 40 weeks on the diet, the high fat mice (46.7 ± 3.8 gm; mean ± SEM) were significantly larger than the mice on the normal diet (34.5 ± 0.8 gm; mean ± SEM). The mice were anesthetized and the para‐uterine fat pads were infused via the abdominal aorta first with heparinized 0.9% saline, then with 10% buffered formalin and finally with radiopaque silicone rubber (Microfil 122). One para‐uterine fat pad from each mouse was prepared for histological evaluation and the remaining fat pad was prepared for 3‐dimensional micro‐computed tomography. The fat pads were significantly larger in the high fat mice (7.6 ± 1.2 gm; mean ± SEM) than in the normal mice (2.6 ± 0.3 gm; mean ±SEM). There was no difference between the two groups in vascular number density (number of vessels per μl) of the fat pads. However, because of the difference in tissue mass, there was a significant difference between groups in total vessel number. These results indicate that the vascular growth proportionally accompanies tissue growth in adipose tissue. Supported in part by a Faculty Research Grant, Minnesota State University, Mankato, and in part by NIH grant EB 000305.