In the adipose tissue, besides fatty acid synthesis (FA-S) from glucose, which includes several mitochondrial steps, FA-S from glutamate has been demonstrated. FA-S from glutamate takes place in the cytosol through the backward pathway of Krebs cycle (BPKC) and is due to the sequential action of (1) alanine aminotransferase (ALT, EC 2.6.1.2), which is presence of pyruvate converts glutamate to oxoglutarate; (2) isocitrate dehydrogenase (NADP) (ICDH, EC 1.1.1.42), which converts oxoglutarate to isocitrate; (3) aconitate hydratase (ACO, EC 4.2.1.3), which transforms isocitrate to citrate: and (4) ATP citrate-lyase (ATP-CL, EC 4.1.3.8), which splits citrate to yield the acetyl-CoA needed for FA-S. We studied the enzymes involved in BPKC in homogenates of human adipose tissue. In normal subjects, the cytosolic activity (mumol/min/g protein) was: ALT = 10.3 +/- 1.1, ICDH = 29.5 +/- 2.8, ACO = 2.05 +/- 0.23, and ATP-CL = 1.2 +/- 0.2. Mitochondria contained less or no activity, values being 20, 9, 11, and 0% of total for ATL, ICDH, ACO, and ATP-CL, respectively. BPKC enzymes are more active than the enzymes limiting FA-S from glucose, i.e., phosphofructokinase (EC 2.7.1.11), pyruvate carboxylase (EC 6.4.1.1), and pyruvate dehydrogenase (EC 1.2.4.1). In the obese patients, cytosolic ALT and ATP-CL were increased (12.9 +/- 0.7, P < 0.05, and 2.28 +/- 0.27, P < 0.01, respectively) compared to normal, while ICDH was not changed (ACO could not be studied). Similar changes were obtained by expressing enzyme activity per fat cell number.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)