Aims] The differences in regional distribution of white adipose tissue (WAT) has been related to both cardiovascular and diabetes risk profile. Recently, the homeobox superfamily is attracting a great deal of attention as plausible candidate genes involved in the regulation of fat distribution. We hypothesized that the expressions of the Hox genes might increase depending on the growth of the WATs and that exercise training might blunt a possible growth-dependent increases in the Hox genes

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... ssions. [Methods] Wistar rats were divided into two groups: a sedentary control (CR) and the exercisetraining (TR) group. The CR rats were sacrificed at 4, 6, 10 and 13 week age. The TR rats were subjected to exercise on a treadmill for 9 weeks. Epididymal, mesentric and inguinal WAT were rapidly removed under anesthesia at the indicated time points. The mRNA expression levels of 10 developmental genes and 6 other genes were determined. [Results] The fat depot-specific differences in mRNA expression levels of developmental and BMP family genes were observed during the growth of each WAT. TR specifically induced the changes in the expression levels of some of the genes tested, i.e., Hoxa5, Hoxc8, and Hoxc10 etc., but these effects of TR were different among three fat depots. [Conclusion] The data indicate that the mRNA expressions of most of Hox genes were increased in a growth-dependent manner but that TR alters those expressions in a depot-specific manner.