Leptin Gene Expression in Human Preadipocytes Is Switched on by Maturation-induced Demethylation of Distinct CpGs in Its Proximal Promoter

The peptide hormone leptin plays a major role in the regulation of energy intake and expenditure and is predominantly expressed in mature adipocytes but not in preadipocytes. Using bisulfite genomic sequencing, we found that 32 CpGs, distributed within a 317-bp sequence of the proximal leptin promoter, were highly methylated in human preadipocytes (73.4% ± 9.0%). During maturation toward terminally differentiated adipocytes, this promoter region...