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Endocrinology and Metabolism |
1
Department of Pediatrics, Washington University School of Medicine, One Children's Place, St. Louis, MO 63110.
2
Linco Research, Inc., St. Charles, MO 63304.
3
Department of Nutrition, University of California-Davis,
Davis, CA 95616.
4
Divisions of Endocrinology and Research
Technology/Proteins, Lilly Research Laboratories, Eli Lilly and Co.,
Indianapolis, IN 46285.
a Author for correspondence. Fax 314-454-2274; e-mail landt{at}kids.wustl.edu.
| Abstract |
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| Introduction |
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Considerable effort has been directed at understanding the role of leptin in human obesity. Plasma concentrations of leptin are increased in obese humans and strongly correlate with the degree of adiposity as expressed by percentage of body fat or body mass index (6)(7)(8)(9). Leptin concentrations show a diurnal pattern, with nocturnal concentrations increased in comparison with daytime concentrations (10). The diurnal pattern is disrupted by fasting; leptin concentrations decrease dramatically in response to fasting beyond the overnight period (>12 h) (11)(12)(13). Insulin homeostasis appears to influence leptin metabolism, as evidenced by the increased leptin concentrations in insulin-resistant subjects (14), but acute changes in insulin concentrations during several-hours-long hyperinsulinemic clamps have minimal effect on leptin plasma concentrations (15)(16). The half-life of circulating leptin (~25 min) is constant over a range of adiposity (17). Several studies have shown that plasma leptin concentrations are appropriate for the degree of subjects' adiposity in anorexia nervosa (18), in the wasting syndrome of HIV infection (19), and in lean long-distance runners (20). Strenuous exercise of a few hours has little effect on plasma leptin concentrations, but prolonged exercise decreases plasma leptin concentrations (20)(21). Circulating leptin is bound to high-molecular-mass proteins to various degrees in human and rodent plasma (22)(23). Several potential physiological roles for leptin have been identified; some evidence exists that plasma leptin concentrations may influence energy expenditure in children (24) and predict weight gain in young women (25). Plasma leptin concentrations rose dramatically in hamsters receiving exogenous endotoxin or cytokines, suggesting a role for leptin in the anorexia of infection (26). Administration of exogenous leptin to mice hastened female reproductive maturity and may have triggered puberty (27). Leptin also blunted the neuroendocrine response to starvation, suggesting that leptin may modulate the physiological response to starvation (28).
The rapid accumulation of knowledge concerning leptin physiology has been importantly aided by the availability of a commercial RIA for human leptin (8). Rodents, particularly rats, are frequently used as models in endocrine and metabolic studies, but efforts to use these species for studies of leptin physiology have been hampered by the lack of a commercially available assay for rat leptin. Rat leptin cross-reacts <2% in the commercial assay for human leptin (Gingerich, unpublished findings) and, therefore, cannot be accurately measured with that method. The sequence of rat leptin has been predicted from the sequence of a cDNA (29), and rat leptin has been successfully cloned for recombinant production (30). These tools have allowed the generation of antibodies specific for rat leptin in guinea pigs, which has provided, along with recombinant rat leptin to formulate calibrators and for labeling to make tracer, the critical components of an RIA. This study examines the suitability of the newly developed RIA for rat leptin for use in studies of leptin physiology.
| Materials and Methods |
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Method for body fat measurement.
Rats were killed by
decapitation between 0700 and 0800 h, and trunk blood was
collected into 5-mL tubes containing 72 USP units of sodium heparin
(Vacutainer Tube; Becton Dickinson) that were placed on ice until
separation of plasma by centrifugation at 4 °C. Plasma was stored at
-20 °C for 3045 days before analysis. Carcasses were placed into
plastic bags and frozen at -20 °C for 115 days and then shipped
to Covance Laboratories for measurement of total body fat by Soxhlet
extraction (31). Briefly, the entire rat is ground into
fine particles and weighed into a cellulose thimble containing sodium
sulfate. The thimble is dried to remove excess moisture and pentane is
dripped through the sample to remove the fat. The extract is then
evaporated, dried, and weighed.
Adipocyte isolation and culture.
Epididymal fat deposits were
removed under aseptic conditions from adult male SpragueDawley rats
under halothane anesthesia. The adipocytes were isolated by collagenase
digestion according to the Rodbell procedure (32) with
minor modifications. Fat pads were minced with scissors in buffer, pH
7.4, containing 5 mmol/L D-glucose, 20 g/L bovine serum
albumin, 135 mmol/L NaCl, 2.2 mmol/L CaCl2, 1.25 mmol/L
MgSO4, 0.45 mmol/L KH2PO4, 2.17
mmol/L Na2HPO4, and 10 mmol/L HEPES and
digested in the same buffer in the presence of 2.5 mg/2 mL buffer per
gram of tissue type II collagenase (specific activity, 456 kU/g; Sigma
Chemical Co.) at 37 °C with gentle shaking at 60 cycles/min for 45
min. Isolated adipocytes were separated from undigested tissue by
filtration through a 400-µm nylon mesh and washed three times. The
adipocytes were resuspended in 5 mmol/L glucose culture medium (Life
Technologies, Inc.), supplemented with 50 mL/L fetal bovine serum, and
then incubated for 30 min at 37 °C before being plated in
Matrigel-coated (Becton Dickinson) culture plates (Fisher Scientific).
One hundred fifty microliters of the adipocyte suspension (2:1 ratio of
packed cells to media) was placed in each well with 2 mL of culture
medium supplemented with 50 mL/L fetal bovine serum. The cells were
maintained in an incubator at 37 °C in CO2-enriched (60
mL/L) air. Samples (300 µL) for leptin assay were collected after
2496 h in culture.
Measurement of plasma/serum leptin.
A new RIA was developed at
Linco Research that readily detected leptin concentrations in rat
plasma or serum. The assay is based on a polyclonal antibody raised
against recombinant rat leptin in guinea pigs and on calibrators and
I-labeled tracer prepared from recombinant rat leptin.
Calibrators (0.5, 1, 2, 5, 10, 20, and 50 µg/L) or specimens were
pipetted in duplicate into tubes at 100 µL each and mixed with
anti-leptin antibody (100 µL). After incubation for 1824 h at room
temperature (disequilibrium assay format), 100 µL of
I-tracer was added to each tube, and incubation
continued for another 1824 h. Cold precipitating antibody (1.0 mL;
anti-guinea pig IgG, raised in goats) was added to all tubes and
incubated for 20 min at 4 °C to precipitate the antibody/leptin
complex. Centrifugation for 20 min at 2500g at 4 °C
yielded visible pellets; the supernatants were decanted, and the
radioactivity in the pellets was counted. Log values of calibrators
were plotted vs the calibrator-bound counts/zero calibrator-bound
counts (B/Bo) to generate a curve for calculation
of unknowns. Leptin was measured in plasma and culture fluids with an
assay specific for mouse leptin (Linco Research), which has been
evaluated previously (33).
Statistics.
All quantitative results are reported as
means ± SD. Statistical significance was assessed in paired and
unpaired data by Student's t-test; P <0.05 was
considered significant. ANCOVA analysis was performed with STATA
software (Stata Corp.). Relationships between continuous variables were
evaluated by Spearman correlation.
| Results |
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Analytical recovery.
Various amounts of rat leptin were added
to a rat serum pool (endogenous leptin, 1.6 µg/L), and the leptin
concentration was determined in replicate (n = 4) assays. Recovery
ranged from 92% to 103% at added concentrations of 1.6 to 11.6 µg/L
(Fig. 1
).
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Comparison with mouse-specific leptin assay.
Leptin
concentrations were determined in plasma from 12 adult male
SpragueDawley rats (weight range, 391571 g) for comparison with
results determined with a homologous assay designed for measurement of
mouse leptin (calibrators and tracer made from recombinant mouse
leptin, antibody made to mouse leptin; Fig. 2
); this assay has been evaluated previously (33).
On average, mouse assay results (4.2 ± 2.0 µg/L) were 67% of
the rat assay values (6.3 ± 3.4 µg/L), but linear regression
analysis of the results (mouse leptin assay = 0.55 rat leptin
assay 0.7 µg/L) showed that the correlation of the two assays was
highly significant (r = 0.94, P <0.001).
Leptin concentrations were also determined in 39 samples of media
collected from primary cultures of rat adipocytes, by both assays (Fig. 3
). Mouse assay results (1.9 ± 1.2 g/L) were 86% of rat
assay values (2.1 ± 1.2 µg/L), and this difference was due
entirely to a set bias between the assays (mouse leptin assay =
1.028 rat leptin assay - 0.3 µg/L). As with plasma, the
correlation of the two methods was highly significant
(r = 0.97, P <0.0001).
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Linear dilution.
Recovery of rat leptin on dilution was
assessed with four pools of Zucker rat plasma with initial
concentrations of 15.8, 16.0, 15.1, and 14.6 µg/L. Dilution of these
pools with buffer (1.33-, 2-, and 4-fold) resulted in near 100%
recovery of leptin concentrations at all dilutions (Table 1
).
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Precision.
Within- and between-assay precision was assessed by
repeated analysis of four rat serum pools containing 1.611.6 µg/L
leptin. CVs ranged from 2.4% to 4.6% within runs and from 4.8% to
5.7% between runs (Table 2
).
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Stability.
Stability of leptin in plasma was assessed in two
pools, one of which had been supplemented with recombinant rat leptin
to raise the leptin concentration to ~6 µg/L. Leptin in both plasma
pools was very stable for up to 7 days at 4 °C or at room
temperature, but the pool that had been supplemented with recombinant
leptin lost marked amounts of leptin after 3 days at 37 °C (Table 3
). The other pool, with a lower concentration of entirely
endogenous leptin, was stable at 37 °C for 3 days. Five freezethaw
cycles had little effect on plasma leptin concentrations (starting
concentrations, 2.4 and 5.8 µg/L; ending concentrations, 2.3 and 5.7
µg/L, respectively). Two months of storage of six specimens, at
concentrations from 1.9 to 58.1 µg/L, at -20 °C was without
effect on measured leptin concentrations; the stored specimens had
105% ± 9% of the initial leptin concentrations.
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Correlation of plasma leptin with percentage of body fat.
Leptin concentrations were measured in the plasma of 44 male and 35
female SpragueDawley rats, ages 24 days to 3.5 months; after death,
the body fat content of the rats was determined by whole-body chemical
analysis. There was a significant correlation of plasma leptin values
with percentage of body fat for the combined population
(r = 0.636, P <0.001), and correlation
was improved by separating the results according to gender
(r = 0.796, P <0.001, and
r = 0.710, P <0.001, for males and
females, respectively; Fig. 4
). Interestingly, males generally had higher leptin
concentrations in relation to body fat content than females, with the
distinction much more apparent at a percentage of body fats >7% (Fig. 4
). Leptin plasma concentrations increased 0.60 µg/L for each
percentage of increase in body fat in males but only 0.22 µg/L
for each percentage of increase in body fat in females. By ANCOVA
the relationships of leptin concentration to percentage of body fat
were significantly different in males vs females (P
<0.0001).
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Plasma leptin and strain of rats.
Typical plasma leptin
concentrations varied widely in different strains of rats at age 2
months (Fig. 5
). Obese Zucker rats had the highest plasma leptin
concentrations, and SpragueDawley rats had the lowest. Where
comparative data were available, female rats tended to have lower
leptin concentrations than males, despite the fact that the females in
this comparison were older (males, 2 months; females, 3 months).
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| Discussion |
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Plasma leptin concentrations had been measured previously in only humans and mice, and measurements in mice sometimes used methods that generated semiquantitative results, such as immunostaining of Western blots (6)(7)(8)(33)(34)(35)(36). Nevertheless, the available data suggest that plasma leptin concentrations are very similar in humans and rats after the degree of adiposity of the subjects is taken into account. Reported plasma concentrations in lean humans (<15% body fat in men and <25% in women) (37) were 116 µg/L (6)(7)(8)(9). Plasma concentrations in the rats in this study were lower (0.56 µg/L) but appropriate for their low percentage of body fat compared with humans and were similar to concentrations in humans with a low percentage of body fat due to anorexia nervosa (18) or the wasting syndrome of HIV infection (19). Plasma leptin concentrations in mice are 211 µg/L, as determined by RIA (33)(34).
As in humans, male and female rats have different relationships of plasma leptin to percentage of body fat; but in contrast to humans, plasma leptin concentrations in females increase at a lower rate with increasing adiposity than in males. Several studies have shown that leptin concentrations rise 0.43 times as fast in women as in men, as the percentage of body fat increases (38)(39)(40)(41). The basis of the higher plasma leptin concentrations in women is not known, but evidence suggests that the dimorphism may be associated with puberty, because leptin concentrations in girls but not boys rise during puberty (42). However, leptin concentrations do not decrease with menopause, which suggests that reproductive hormone status is not responsible for the sexual dimorphism (38). Why rats and humans differ with respect to the effect of sexual dimorphism is not known, but the two species differ dramatically with respect to the sexual dimorphism of body fat content. Whereas human females have higher body fat content than males, the opposite is true for rats (43). The dichotomy in the sexual dimorphism of leptin in rats compared with humans may be related to differences in the distribution and extent of fat stores.
Leptin circulates in both rodents and humans in free and protein-bound forms (22)(23). The binding proteins have not been fully characterized, but they are heterogeneous, and a portion of the binding may involve disulfide linkages (22). The presence of multiple forms of leptin in plasma raises the possibility that an RIA may variably measure the forms present. The human leptin RIA appears to effectively measure all forms present in human plasma, based on comparison of RIA results with quantitation on Western blots, which likely detects all forms because of denaturation of all noncovalent binding and reduction of disulfide bonds (8). Comparable experiments to examine the efficacy of the rat leptin RIA to measure all circulating forms are not possible, because the very low concentrations of leptin in rat plasma defeat the sensitivity of the Western blot method. Characterization of the ability of the rat RIA to quantitate the various forms will depend on the development of methods for the physical separation of rat plasma leptin forms.
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