Obesity has recently become a major healthy concern in developed countries. This leads to intensive interest in the mechanism study of adipogenesis, in which epigenetic mechanisms are speculated to play an essential role. To explore the function of Dnmt1, its expression was first profiled during the course of adipocyte differentiation of 3T3-L1 cells. The results revealed a dynamic regulation of its expression at the initiation stage. Knockdown of Dnmt1 compromised the differentiation process and decreased lipid production within the cells. To the aspect of epigenetic regulation, promoter methylation of Cdkn1a was significantly increased at the initiation stage of the differentiation, accompanied by decreased Cdkn1a expression. Furthermore, knockdown of Dnmt1 led to an increased Cdkn1a expression, indicating that Dnmt1 inhibits Cdkn1a expression by promoter methylation. Furthermore, we found that knockdown of Cdkn1a up-regulated the expression of PPARγ and resulted in enhanced adipocyte differentiation. In summary, our results demonstrated that Dnmt1 regulated the process of adipogenesis by methylation of Cdkn1a promoter, suggesting that Cdkn1a played a fundamental role in the prevention of adipocyte hyperplasia.
