Relationship Between the Expression of Visfatin in Visceral Fat Tissue and Insulin Resistance Induced by High Fat Diet in Rats

Objective: To explore the effect of the high fat diet(HFD) induced insulin resistance(IR) on the expression of visfatin in the visceral fat tissue of SD rats.Methods: Twenty-four SD rats were randomly divided into HFD and control group equally.After one week's adaptive feeding,fasting blood glucose(FBG) and plasma insulin(pINS) were measured,then rats in control group were fed with regular diet and rats in HFD group were fed with self-made HFD to induce IR models.Both groups were fed 12 weeks before the measurement of FBG and pINS,meanwhile the HOMA insulin resistance index(HOMA-IR) was also evaluated.Then all the rats were killed and fat of epididymis,mesentery,folded peritoneum and the fat pad of kidney were isolated as visceral fat,which would be weighed as visceral fat mass.Expression level of visfatin mRNA of visceral fat were measured by RT-PCR separately in each group.Results: IR was successfully induced by HFD;rats in high fat diet group had a great increase in visceral fat mass(P0.01) and displayed obvious visceral obesity.Their FBG increased slightly(P0.05),while pINS and HOMA-IR increased significantly(both P0.01),which showed that the rats with HFD had developed obvious IR.Compared with control group,the visfatin expression of visceral fat tissue in HFD group were significantly higher(P0.05).HOMA-IR and visceral fat mass had a positive correlation with visfatin/β-actin respectively.Conclusion: Rats with IR that induced by HFD have significantly higher levels of visfatin mRNA in the visceral fat tissues,and visfatin mRNA expression levels have a positive correlation with HOMA-IR and visceral fat mass,which suggests the possible role visfatin performed in the occurrence and development of IR.