The Effect of Obesity on Satellite Cell Differentiation in Mice

Obesity is a chronic condition with rapidly increasing prevalence rates, issuing great concern among the health and medical communities. Obesity not only increases the risk of many medical conditions, but also significantly impacts skeletal muscle structure and function, which can lead to increased recovery time after skeletal muscle damage. Satellite cells (SC) are a type of adult stem cell that function to replace and repair damaged muscle tissue. This study aims to investigate the effect of obesity on SC function. We hypothesize that obesity will have a negative effect on SC differentiation. Therefore, 8-week-old mice were randomly assigned to two groups, and fed control, low-fat diet (LFD) or obesogenic, or a high fat diet (HFD), for another 16 weeks. SC from both groups were extracted, isolated, cultured, and harvested. Harvested SC were then seeded on plates containing differentiation medium, and the differentiation process was analyzed via microscopic pictures and immunostaining. The results indicated that HFD SC presented significantly faster differentiation rates, as well as significantly increased viability when compared to LFD SC. These results indicate that isolated SC are resilient to obesity and that environmental factors found in muscles of obese patients are likely the cause for decreased SC functionality. Further research should be conducted regarding SC function in the presence of those external stimuli.