3T3-L1 (ATCC, CL-173) or human white adipocyte (hWAT, provided by Prof. Yu-Hua Tseng, PhD at Harvard Medical School, Joslin Diabetes Center, Boston, MA 02215, USA; Xue et al., 2015) cells were maintained in Dulbecco's Modified Eagle's Medium (DMEM) with glucose, containing L-glutamine and supplemented with 10% NBCS or FBS and 1% Penicillin-streptomycin mixture (Life Technologies) at 37°C, 5% CO2. Cells were checked for mycoplasma and were negative. Cells at different passage were used as replicates. To induce adipogenesis in 3T3-L1 preadipocytes, differentiation medium containing DMEM (Thermo Fisher Scientific, CAT. No. 31966021) supplemented with 10% FBS, 1% Penicillin-streptomycin mixture (Life Technologies), 500 µmol/l IBMX, 1 µmol/l dexamethasone, 10 µmol/l insulin was added to 2-day post-confluent 3T3-L1 preadipocytes and cultured for 4 days. Cells were further cultured in maintenance medium containing DMEM supplemented with 10% Tet-Approved FBS, 10 µmol/l insulin (Merck, CAT. No. I9278) until harvest for analysis. Adipogenesis induction in hWAT cells was adapted from Xue et al. with modifications (Xue et al., 2011). In brief, differentiation medium containing DMEM (Thermo Fisher Scientific) supplemented with 2% FBS, 1% Penicillin-streptomycin mixture (Life Technologies), 2 nmol/l T3, 33 µmol/l biotin, 17 µmol/l pantothenate, 30 µmol/l indomethacin, 0.5 mmol/l IBMX, 0.1 µmol/l dexamethasone and 0.5 µmol/l insulin was added to post-confluent hWAT preadipocytes and cultured until harvest for analysis.