ABSTRACT: Analysis of tissues of DBA/2 mice fed a standard breeding diet (SBD) and high fat diet (HFD) revealed tissue specific roles in inflammation and disease, and altered communication between tissues. The tissues surveyed incuded adipose tissues (brown, inguinal, mesenteric, retro-peritoneal, subcutaneious and gonadal), muscle and liver. After the 6 weeks feeding period with different diets, individual blood and tissues were collected from 12 weeks old mice for the determination of serum factors, gene expression analyses and the determination of fatty acid profiles. Mice were individually fasted for two hours prior to dissection that was carried out between 1 PM and 3 PM on three successive days. After the fasting period, blood was withdrawn from the retroorbital plexus of each mouse through a heparin-coated hematocrit tube into a 1.5 ml tube and placed on room temperature until all samples were centrifuged at 600 x g for 10-15 min to obtain serum for the analysis of lipids, glucose, insulin and leptin. Subsequently, animals were sacrificed by cervical dislocation. After bleeding, the subcutaneous fat pads (mainly inguinal fat pads), the gluteal fat pads (between legs left and right to the after), the quadriceps (musculus rectus femulus, m. vastus intermedius, m. vastus lateralis, m. vastus medialis), the gonadal fat pads (surrounding gonads), the retroperitoneal fat pads (below the kidney), the liver, the mesenteric fat pad (hanging at the intestine), and the brown adipose tissues (surrounded by white adipose tissue) were carefully dissected in the given order and immediately collected in RNAlater (Ambion, Austin, TX). The sampling protocol lasted no longer than 15 min per animal.
