Long-term administration of rapamycin reduces adiposity, but impairs glucose tolerance in high-fat diet-fed KK/HlJ mice.

Rapamycin is an immunosuppressant drug used to prevent organ rejection in transplant patients. In this study, we investigated the metabolic effects of rapamycin in an obese animal model, KK/HlJ mice. Mice were treated with a daily intraperitoneal injection of rapamycin at 2 mg/kg or vehicle for 42 days on a high-fat diet. Treated mice lost body weight and adiposity, reduced weight gain and retroperitoneal and epididymal fat pads/body weight, decreased serum leptin and plasma triglyceride levels and had lower liver fat concentration. However, treated mice had higher serum insulin levels and food intake. Dissection of rapamycin-treated mice revealed a marked reduction in fatty liver scores and fat cell size in retroperitoneal and epididymal adipocytes. Moreover, Western blot analysis revealed that rapamycin treatment resulted in decreasing adipophilin expression, as a marker of lipid accumulation, and reducing phosphorylation of mTOR downstream targets S6K1 compared to control group. Unfortunately, rapamycin-treated animals showed a marked decline in glucose tolerance as judged by the 180-min. area under the curve for plasma glucose levels, paralleled by increased generation of plasma reactive oxygen species. These results suggest that continual rapamycin administration may help to prevent diet-induced obesity, while prolonged use of rapamycin may exacerbate glucose intolerance.