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# Can fat cells (adipocytes) really proliferate via mitosis?

In general, adipocytes, or fat cells, do not proliferate via mitosis once they have reached maturity. Instead, they can increase in size (hypertrophy) as they accumulate more lipids, leading to the expansion of adipose tissue.

However, there is evidence to suggest that under certain circumstances, such as extreme obesity or in response to injury or toxin accumulation, adipocytes may undergo a process called dedifferentiation or transdifferentiation, where they lose their characteristic features of mature adipocytes and regain the ability to divide and proliferate. This process involves the reactivation of genes involved in cell division and the transition to a more stem-cell-like state.

Once dedifferentiated, adipocytes may undergo mitosis to produce new preadipocytes or other cell types. These new preadipocytes can then undergo adipogenesis to become mature adipocytes, leading to further expansion of adipose tissue.

However, it's important to note that this process of dedifferentiation and mitosis in adipocytes is not well understood and is still an area of active research in obesity and toxicology. Cell division not only prevents the cells from becoming too large, but it is also a way the cells repair and heal certain injuries such as toxin accumulation.

In case you want to learn more about this topic in detail, you may explore the scientific papers below:
* [__The biology of white adipocyte proliferation__](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12119995/)
* [__The Role of Cellular Proliferation in Adipogenic Differentiation of Human Adipose Tissue-Derived Mesenchymal Stem Ce__](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5662072/)

More on the general process of mitosis: During the cell cycle, cells reproduce by a cycle of growing and dividing. Once a cell reaches its size limit, cell division occurs, or it splits to form two cells. This happens during one of the stages of the cell cycle called mitosis. Mitosis is a type of cell division in which one cell divides to produce two new cells that are genetically identical to itself. In the context of the cell cycle, mitosis is the part of the division process in which the DNA of the cell's nucleus is split into two equal sets of chromosomes.