The alarming rise in the incidence of obesity found throughout the world has precipitated a need to look for novel methods to increase energy expenditure to counter weight gain. Recently it was discovered that adult humans possess a substantial mass of brown adipose tissue (BAT), a tissue that consumes stored lipid to produce heat. Although the primary physiologic role for BAT is to protect mam...

Prdm16 determines the bidirectional fate switch of skeletal muscle/brown adipose tissue (BAT) and regulates the thermogenic gene program of subcutaneous white adipose tissue (SAT) in mice. Here we show that miR-133a, a microRNA that is expressed in both BAT and SATs, directly targets the 3' UTR of Prdm16. The expression of miR-133a dramatically decreases along the commitment and differentiation...

Epicardial adipose tissue has been proposed to participate in the pathogenesis of heart failure. The aim of our study was to assess the expression of thermogenic genes (Uncoupling protein 1 (UCP1), peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor gamma coactivator 1-alpha (PGC1α), and PR-domain-missing 16 (PRDM16) in epicardial adipose tissue in patients with heart failure, stablishing the difference...

Brown adipocytes (BAs) play important roles in body temperature regulation, energy balance, and carbohydrate and lipid metabolism. Activities of BAs are remarkably diminished in obese and diabetic patients, providing possibilities of transplanting functional BAs resulting in therapeutic benefit. Here, we show generation of functional BAs by cellular reprogramming procedures. Transduction of the...

How the nuclear receptor PPARγ regulates the development of two functionally distinct types of adipose tissue, brown and white fat, as well as the browning of white fat, remains unclear. Our previous studies suggest that PexRAP, a peroxisomal lipid synthetic enzyme, regulates PPARγ signaling and white adipogenesis. Here, we show that PexRAP is an inhibitor of brown adipocyte gene expression. Pe...

Overexpression of HOXB4 in hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) leads to increased self-renewal without causing hematopoietic malignancies in transplanted mice. The molecular basis of HOXB4-mediated benign HSC expansion in vivo is not well understood. To gain further insight into the molecular events underlying HOXB4-mediated HSC expansion, we analyzed gene expression changes at multiple time points...

Recent studies suggested the persistence of brown adipocytes in adult humans, as opposed to being exclusively present in infancy. In this study, we investigated the presence of brown-like adipocytes in adipose tissue (AT) samples of children and adolescents aged 0 to 18 years and evaluated the association with age, location, and obesity. For this, we analysed AT samples from 131 children and 23...