Inorganic nitrate promotes the browning of white adipose tissue through the nitrate-nitrite-nitric oxide pathway.

ABSTRACT: Inorganic nitrate was once considered an oxidation end product of nitric oxide metabolism with little biological activity. However, recent studies have demonstrated that dietary nitrate can modulate mitochondrial function in man and is effective in reversing features of the metabolic syndrome in mice. Using a combined histological, metabolomics, and transcriptional and protein analysis approach, we mechanistically defined that nitrate not only increases the expression of thermogenic genes in brown adipose tissue but also induces the expression of brown adipocyte-specific genes and proteins in white adipose tissue, substantially increasing oxygen consumption and fatty acid β-oxidation in adipocytes. Nitrate induces these phenotypic changes through a mechanism distinct from known physiologic

SUBMITTER: Roberts LD 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4351918 | biostudies-literature | 2015 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature