Adiposity and the development of diabetes in mouse genetic models.

While it is certain from the analysis of transgenic models of lipodystrophy that a critical mass of adipose tissue is necessary to prevent the development of diabetes, the reasons why diabetes develops in one obese individual and not in another need to be further investigated. This is also one of the major questions associated with the current obesity epidemic and the development of the metabolic syndrome. The severe lipodystrophic models do not really address this big problem. In this presentation, we point out that models exist among inbred strains of mice that can contribute towards finding answers to the diabetes found in the metabolic syndrome. The differences responsible for the phenotypic variations are undoubtedly multifactorial and involve many genes, but there are powerful genetic resources to investigate these problems.