DICER expression in preadipocytes and subcutaneous inguinal adipose tissue is controlled by sulfur amino acid levels. A = Expression of Dicer mRNA in 3T3-F442A preadipocytes incubated for 48 h with 40% methionine (MetR, N = 10), cysteine (CysR, N = 7), lysine (LysR, N = 9), leucine (LeuR, N = 8), arginine (ArgR, N = 6), glutamine (GlutR, N = 9), glucose (GlucR, N = 14), or pyruvate (PyrR, N = 6) restricted medium or complete medium (N = 14). At least two independent experiments were performed. B–D = Mice were subjected to 4 weeks of ad libitum diet (AL, N = 3), dietary restriction (DR, N = 5) or DR plus 40% of methionine (DR + Met, N = 6), cysteine (DR + Cys, N = 6) or casein (DR + Cas, N = 6). B = protein abundance in inguinal adipose tissue as measured by western blotting. C = band densitometry. Membrane staining with Ponceau S Red was used as loading control. D = Dicer mRNA expression. Results are presented as mean ± SEM. p < 0.05: a, compared to the AL group; b, compared to the DR group. One-way ANOVA test with Tukey's post-test.