Project description:White adipose tissue (WAT), once regarded as morphologically and functionally bland, is now recognized to be dynamic, plastic, heterogenous, and involved in a wide array of biological processes including energy homeostasis, glucose and lipid handling, blood pressure control, and host defense. High fat feeding and other metabolic stressors cause dramatic changes in adipose morphology, physiology, and cellular composition, and alterations in adiposity are associated with insulin resistance, dyslipidemia, and Type 2 diabetes (T2D). Here we provide detailed cellular atlases of human and murine subcutaneous and visceral white fat at single cell resolution across a range of body weight. We identify subpopulations of adipocytes, adipose stem and progenitor cells (ASPCs), vascular, and immune cells and demonstrate commonalities and differences across species and dietary conditions. We link specific cell types to increased risk of metabolic disease, and we provide an initial blueprint for a comprehensive set of interactions between individual cell types in the adipose niche in leanness and obesity. These data comprise an extensive resource for the exploration of genes, traits, and cell types in the function of WAT across species, depots, and nutritional conditions.
Project description:Heterogeneity in brown adipocyte populations was observed. Until recently, thermogenic adipocytes have been considered a homogeneous population. However, studies have pointed to the existence of multiple subtypes, which are distinct in developmental origin, substrate usage and transcriptome. Our current incomplete understanding of cell types in brown and beige adipose tissue and the lack of specific markers constitute a critical barrier to studying their biological functions. Our goal is to use the advances in single-cell genomics to determine subtypes that constitute adipose tissue under various thermogenic stimuli at the single cell resolution.