Fat cell lipolysis, the cleavage of triglycerides and release of fatty acids and glycerol, evolved to enable survival during prolonged food deprivation but is paradoxically increased in obesity, in which a surfeit of all energy metabolites is found. Essential, previously-unsuspected components have been discovered in the lipolytic machinery, at the protective interface of the lipid droplet surface and in the signaling pathways that control lipolysis. At least two adipocyte lipases are important for controlling lipolysis, hormone-sensitive lipase (HSL) and adipocyte triglyceride lipase (ATGL). Perilipin (PLIN) and possibly other proteins of the lipid droplet surface are master regulators of lipolysis, protecting or exposing the triglyceride core of the droplet to lipases. The prototypes for hormonal lipolytic control are beta adrenergic stimulation and suppression by insulin, both of which affect cyclic AMP levels and hence the protein kinase A-mediated phosphorylation of HSL and PLIN. Newly-recognized mediators of lipolysis include atrial natriuretic peptide, cyclic GMP, the ketone body 3-hydroxybutyrate, AMP kinase and mitogen-activated kinases. Lipolysis must be interpreted in its physiological context since similar rates of basal or stimulated lipolysis occur under different conditions and by different mechanisms. Age, sex, anatomical site, genotype and species differences are each important variables. Manipulation of lipolysis has therapeutic potential in several inborn errors and in the metabolic syndrome that frequently complicates obesity.

The 84-kDa hormone-sensitive lipase (gene designation Lipe; EC 3.1.1.3) is a cholesterol esterase and triglyceride hydrolase that functions in the release of fatty acids from adipocytes. The role of hormone-sensitive lipase in other tissues such as the testis, where a specific 120-kDa testis-specific isoform is expressed, is unknown. To study this, we examined the fertility and testicular histology of gene-targeted hormone-sensitive lipase-deficient mice. Homozygous hormone-sensitive lipase-deficient male mice are infertile and have decreased testis weights; female homozygotes are fertile. Testicular abnormalities, detected at the light and electron microscopic levels, included the presence of multinucleated round and elongating spermatids, vacuolization of the seminiferous epithelium, asynchronization of the spermatogenic cycle, sloughing of postmeiotic germ cells from the seminiferous epithelium into the lumen, and a marked reduction in the numbers of late spermatids. Extensive nuclear head deformation was noted in late spermatids as well as the sharing of a common acrosome in multinucleated cells. In some multinucleated cells, nuclei were separated from their acrosomes, with the acrosomes remaining attached to areas of ectoplasmic specializations, suggesting defects in intercellular cytoplasmic bridge integrity. Although the lumen of the epididymis was essentially devoid of spermatozoa and filled instead with spherical degenerating cells, the epididymal epithelial cells appeared normal. The few late spermatids present in the epididymis were abnormal. There was no morphological evidence, as judged by the absence of lipid droplets of triacylglycerol or cholesteryl ester accumulation in the testis. Together, the data suggest that hormone-sensitive lipase deficiency results in abnormalities in spermiogenesis that are incompatible with normal fertility. We speculate that a metabolite downstream from the hormone-sensitive lipase reaction may be essential for membrane stabilization and integrity in the seminiferous epithelium and, in particular, may play an important role in the maintenance of intercellular cytoplasmic bridges between postmeiotic germ cells.