Warm brown fat

Huddling: Brown Fat, Genomic Imprinting and the Warm Inner Glow

Heat generated by huddling animals is a public good with a private cost and thus vulnerable to exploitation, as illustrated by recent work on rabbits and penguins. Effects of imprinted genes on brown adipose tissue suggest that non-shivering thermogenesis is an arena for intragenomic conflict.

Huddling: Brown Fat, Genomic Imprinting and the Warm Inner Glow

Whither brown fat?

In 1551 Gessner described a lobular fatty tissue which we now know as brown adipose tissue (BAT). Apart from a few descriptions of the tissue in hibernators, it was then virtually ignored by scientists for the next four hundred years until its involvement in the thermoregulation of non-hibernating mammals was suggested (Smith, 1961). However, even after this work in the early 1960s, doubts over...

Brown fat and thermogenesis.

Historical Background. ..................................................... 330 PhylogeneticDistribution .................................................. 332 AnatomyandTopology ................................................... 333 Vasculature of Brown Adipose Tissue. ...................................... 338 Microcirculation and vascularity .......................................... 338 G...

Dietary fat overload reprograms brown fat mitochondria

Chronic nutrient overload accelerates the onset of several aging-related diseases reducing life expectancy. Although the mechanisms by which overnutrition affects metabolic processes in many tissues are known, its role on BAT physiology is still unclear. Herein, we investigated the mitochondrial responses in BAT of female mice exposed to high fat diet (HFD) at different steps of life. Although ...