Key events leading to terminal differentiation of preadipocytes into adipocytes have been characterized in the recent years. However, master genes that commit progression from multipotent mesenchymal stem cell to the adipoblast stage of development have not yet been identified. The use of embryonic stem (ES) cells as a route to study early events in adipogenesis and to characterize factors involved in the decision of stem cells to follow the adipogenic pathway is described in this paper. The capacity of lif–/– and lifr–/– ES cells to undergo adipocyte differentiation is reported as an application of mutant ES cells to study gene function during the development of adipose cells.

Keywords:
Embryonic stem cells, Adipocytes
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1999
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