The Regulation of Lipolysis in Adipose Tissue

Knowledge regarding lipid catabolism has been of great interest in the field of animal sciences. In the livestock industry, excess fat accretion in meat is costly to the producer and undesirable to the consumer. However, intramuscular fat (marbling) is desirable to enhance carcass and product quality. The manipulation of lipid content to meet the goals of animal production requires an understanding of the detailed mechanisms of lipid catabolism to help meticulously design nutritional, pharmacological, and physiological approaches to regulate fat accretion. The concept of a basic system of lipases and their co-regulators has been identified. The major lipases cleave triacylglycerol (TAG) stored in lipid droplets in a sequential manner. In adipose tissue, adipose triglyceride lipase (ATGL) performs the first and rate-limiting step of TAG breakdown through hydrolysis at the sn-1 position of TAG to release a non-esterified fatty acid (NEFA) and diacylglycerol (DAG). Subsequently, cleavage of DAG occurs via the rate-limiting enzyme hormone-sensitive lipase (HSL) for DAG catabolism, which is followed by monoglyceride lipase (MGL) for monoacylglycerol (MAG) hydrolysis. Recent identification of the co-activator (Comparative Gene Identification-58) and inhibitor [G(0)/G(1) Switch Gene 2] of ATGL have helped elucidate this important initial step of TAG breakdown, while also generating more questions. Additionally, the roles of these lipolysis-related enzymes in muscle, liver and skin tissue have also been found to be of great importance for the investigation of systemic lipolytic regulation.