Obesity and aging have divergent genomic fingerprints.

Aging is associated with increased visceral fat, and recent studies suggested that in turn, visceral fat could influence longevity. We therefore tested whether obesity could be a condition of premature aging. Whole-genome microarray analysis of gene expression between obese mice, aged mice and their respective controls, revealed that long-term adaptations in gene expression in visceral fat upon aging are different from those occurring during fat accretion in young adult animals, suggesting specific, divergent and non overlapping pathways of regulation.