• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
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• v.45 no.1
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• pp.43-48
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• 2024

The prevalence of obesity and its complications is steadily increasing worldwide. It is essential to understand cellular level metabolism and microenvironment to treat diseases related to lipid metabolism. Mechanical loading can activate signaling pathway by stimulating cells, especially vibration loading known to inhibit adipogenesis, so it has been studied as a treatment for obesity. Also, vibration loading can affect the inside of the human body non-invasively. Another clue to reducing adipose tissue is browning, which means that white adipocytes changes to brown adipocyte. In this study, we design and developed a device that that can control cell-cell contact, and vibration simulation device. Using these two devices, we investigated responses of cells to vibration loading. Protein expression associated with browning and adipogenesis were analyzed. In conclusion, vibration loading can be transmitted through cell contact and loading applied to the cells can induce browning and inhibit adipogenesis of preadipocytes. These results suggest the possibility that vibrations could be a treatment for obesity.