PAP/HIP protein is an obesogenic factor

In this article we report the obesogenic role of the acute phase protein PAP/HIP. We found that the transgenic TgPAP/HIP mice develop spontaneous obesity under standard nutritional conditions, with high levels of glucose, leptin, and LDL and low levels of triglycerides and HDL in blood. Accordingly, PAP/HIP-deficient mice are skinny under standard nutritional conditions. We also found that expression of PAP/HIP is induced in intestinal epithelial cells in response to gavage with olive oil and this induction is AG490 sensitive. We demonstrated that incubation of 3T3-L1 preadipocytes with a low concentration as 1ng/ml of recombinant PAP/HIP results in accelerated BrdU incorporation in vitro. …