Highly efficient differentiation of embryonic stem cells into adipocytes by ascorbic acid

•Ascorbic acid greatly enhances adipocyte differentiation from mESCs.•These mESCs derived adipocytes resemble the in vivo isolated adipocytes.•The protocol allows genome-wide characterization of adipocyte differentiation.

Adipocyte differentiation and function have become the major research targets due to the increasing interest in obesity and related metabolic conditions. Although, late stages of adipogenesis have been extensively studied, the early phases remain poorly understood. Here we present that supplementing ascorbic acid (AsA) to the adipogenic differentiation cocktail enables the robust and efficient differentiation of mouse embryonic stem cells (mESCs) to mature adipocytes. Such ESC-derived adipocytes mimic the gene-expression profile of subcutaneous isolated adipocytes in vivo remarkably well, much closer than 3T3-L1 derived ones. Moreover, the differentiated cells are in a monolayer, allowing a broad range of genome-wide studies in early and late stages of adipocyte differentiation to be performed.