DLK proteins modulate NOTCH signaling to influence a brown or white 3T3-L1 adipocyte fate

The role of NOTCH signaling in adipogenesis is highly controversial, with data indicating null, positive or negative effects on this differentiation process. We hypothesize that these contradictory results could be due to the different global NOTCH signaling levels obtained in different experimental settings, because of a specific modulation of NOTCH receptors’ activity by their ligands. We have previously demonstrated that DLK1 and DLK2, two non-canonical NOTCH1 ligands that inhibit NOTCH1 signaling in a dose-dependent manner, modulate the adipogenesis process of 3T3-L1 preadipocytes. In this work, we show that over-expression of any of the four NOTCH receptors enhanced adipogenesis of 3T3-L1 preadipocytes. We also determine that DLK proteins inhibit not only the activity of NOTCH1, but also the activity of NOTCH2, 3 and 4 receptors to different degrees. Interestingly, we have observed, by different approaches, that NOTCH1 over-expression seems to stimulate the differentiation of 3T3-L1 cells towards a brown-like adipocyte phenotype, whereas cells over-expressing NOTCH2, 3 or 4 receptors or DLK proteins would rather differentiate towards a white-like adipocyte phenotype. Finally, our data also demonstrate a complex feed-back mechanism involving Notch and Dlk genes in the regulation of their expression, which suggest that a precise level of global NOTCH expression and NOTCH-dependent transcriptional activity of specific targets could be necessary to determine the final phenotype of 3T3-L1 adipocytes.