Adipocyte
differentiation is a general physiological process that is also critical
for metabolic syndrome. In spite of extensive study in the past two
decades, adipogenesis is a still complex cellular process that is
accompanied by complicated molecular mechanisms. Here, we performed
SILAC-based quantitative global proteomic profiling of 3T3-L1 adipocyte
differentiation. We report protein changes to the proteome profiles,
with 354 proteins exhibiting significant increase and 56 proteins
showing decrease in our statistical analysis. Our results show that
adipocyte differentiation is involved not only in metabolic processes
by increasing TCA cycle, fatty acid synthesis, lipolysis, acetyl-CoA
production, antioxidants, and electron transport, but also in nicotinamide
metabolism, cristae formation, mitochondrial protein import, and Ca2+ transport into mitochondria and ER. A search for Chromosome-Centric
Human Proteome Project (C-HPP) using neXtprot highlighted one protein
with a protein existence uncertain (PE5) and 17 proteins as functionally
uncharacterized protein existence 1 (uPE1). This study provides quantitative
information on proteome changes in adipogenic differentiation, which
is helpful in improving our understanding of the processes of adipogenesis.