Abstract
The experiment was conducted to study the effects of water soluble vitamins and retinoic acid on the differentiation of preadipocyte from omental, subcutaneous, intermuscular and intramuscular adipose tissue of Hanwoo. Differentiation was assessed by the change in enzyme activity, glycerol-3 phosphate dehydrogenase in serum free cell culture system. Preadipocytes treated with biotin ($10{\mu}M$) and pantothenic acid ($100{\mu}M$) were significantly (p<0.05) less differentiated than those from the control in all adipose tissue depots except intramuscular tissue. Although there was no significance, vitamin C was shown to stimulate the adipocyte conversion in omental and subcutaneous, but not in intermuscular and intramuscular adipose tissues. Lower values of GPDH activity in intermuscular preadipocyte were interpreted to be caused by relatively higher amounts of protein. In this experiment vitamin C did not stimulate fat deposition in intramuscular adipose tissue but further experiments are needed on the role of vitamin C in preadipocyte differentiation. When treated with different levels of retinoic acids, differentiation of preadipocytes was significantly (p<0.05) reduced from the level of $0.5{\mu}g/ml$ in omental and intermuscular, from $50{\mu}g/ml$ in subcutaneous, and in intramuscular at $500{\mu}g/ml$, thus showing that intramuscular preadipocytes were least responsive to retinoic acid in differentiation. All-trans retinoic acid appeared to inhibit the differentiation in a dose dependent manner, regardless of adipose tissues type.