[Abstract] Objective Visfatin(also known as nicotinamide phosphoribosyltransferase or Nampt)is an adipokine associated with obesity ,but the relationship is unclear. The aim of the present study was to determine whether fat accumulation was related to visfatin level. Methods The expression levels of visfatin were detected with western blot from the adipose tissues of visfatin transgenic mice, wild type mice and knockout visfatin( /-) mice. The female mice were feed a high fat diet from 2 to 9 months of age. The body weight was recorded at 2, 4, 6, 8, 9 months of age. Then the mice were sacrificed at 9 months of age and the total weight of subcutaneous and visceral adipose tissue was scaled. The histopathology of visceral adipose tissue was observated under light microscope. Results The expression of visfatin in transgenic mice increased by 37% compared with that of wild type mice due to the transgenic expression of visfatin, while the expression level of visfatin in visfaitn( /-) mice decreased by 55% compared with that of wild type mice due to the one copy gene knockout of visfatin. After high fat diet for 7 months, the average body weight of visfatin transgenic mice was 27.8?.8g, wild type mice was 33.6?.1g and the konckout visfatin( /-) mice was 37.6g?.9g. The total weight of subcutaneous and visceral adipose tissue in visfatin transgenic mice decreased by 40% compared with that of wild type mice while knockout visfatin( /-) mice increased by 37% compared with that of wild type mice. Histopathology observation showed that visfatin transgenic mice had smallest size of visceral adipose cell and knockout visfatin( /-) mice had biggest size of visceral adipose cell. Our results indicated that the visfatin level in mice exhibited a negative effect on body weight, the total weight of subcutaneous and visceral adipose tissue, the size of visceral adipose cell. Conclusions our resulted suggested that the accumulation of adipose tissue was restrained by visfatin when mice were fed a high fat diet.