Obesity represents a major risk factor for the development of several of our most common medical conditions, including Type 2 diabetes, dyslipidaemia, non-alcoholic fatty liver, cardiovascular disease and even some cancers. Although increased fat mass is the main feature of obesity, not all fat depots are created equal. Adipocytes found in white adipose tissue contain a single large lipid dropl...

Brown adipose tissue activity dissipates energy as heat, and there is evidence that lack of the retinoblastoma protein (pRb) may favor the development of the brown adipocyte phenotype in adipose cells. In this work we assessed the impact of germ line haploinsufficiency of the pRb gene (Rb) on the response to high-fat diet feeding in mice. Rb(+/-) mice had body weight and adiposity indistinguish...

Plac8 belongs to an evolutionary conserved family of proteins, mostly abundant in plants where they control fruit weight through regulation of cell number. In mice, Plac8 is expressed both in white and brown adipose tissues and we previously showed that Plac8(-/-) mice develop late-onset obesity, with abnormal brown fat differentiation and reduced thermogenic capacity. We also showed that in br...

Hibernoma is a rare benign tumor considered to arise from remnants of fetal brown adipose tissue. It tends to occur in sites where brown fat persists beyond fetal life, such as the interscapular region, but can occur in sites where brown fat is usually absent in adults. Clinicallywell, hibernomas are slow-growing, asymptomatic tumors. However, unlike lipomas, MRI findings sometimes mislead clin...

An illusory goal in obesity therapeutics is to increase energy expenditure without provoking a compensatory rise in food intake. With the (re)discovery that functional and inducible brown fat exists in adult humans, studies aimed at understanding the physiology and activation of brown adipose tissue (BAT) have proliferated. Yet, intermittent cold exposure alone is often accompanied with an incr...

A dipose tissue can release a plethora of factors termed adipokines. The large family of adipokines includes chemokines, cytokines, lipid factors, and growth factors. Adiponectin, the first cloned protein hormone from adipose tissue, is a metabolically active and anti-inflammatory adipo-kine. Adiponectin mainly circulates in different oligomeric isoforms, including high molecular weight adipone...

An 18-year-old man was preoperatively assessed for a varicocele and found to be hypoxemic. A Tc-99m macroaggregated albumin lung perfusion scan showed right-to-left shunting, evidenced by increased radiotracer uptake in the brain, kidneys, thyroid gland, and bilateral supraclavicular areas, a typical location for brown adipose tissue. Chest computerized tomography angiogram study showed supracl...

The effects on energy balance and brown adipose tissue thermogenesis of feeding high fat diets of differing fatty acid composition have been investigated in lean and genetically obese (ob/ob) mice. Groups of mice were fed either a low fat diet or a high fat diet based on corn oil or beef tallow for 2 wk. Energy intake and body weight gain were higher in both lean and obese animals fed the high ...

Although insulin regulates metabolism in both brown and white adipocytes, the role of these tissues in energy storage and utilization is quite different. Recombination technology using the Cre-loxP approach allows inactivation of the insulin receptor in a tissue-specific manner. Mice lacking insulin receptors in brown adipocytes show an age-dependent loss of interscapular brown fat but increase...

Note Brown adipose tissue is rich in glycogen, cholesterol and phospholipids. In contrast to white adipose tissue, which stores energy, brown fat is involved in nonshivering thermogenesis. This ability is dependent on the expression of uncoupling protein 1 (UCP1), a mitochondrial proton transporter that uncouples electron transport from ATP production. In humans, brown adipose tissue typically ...