Project description:Mice expressing Cas9 were administered AAV8-UCP1 sgRNA to the brown adipose tissue for inducible knockout. Mice were housed at 22ºC for two weeks and then were sacrificed. Brown adipose tissue (BAT) was harvested and RNAseq was performed to determine transcriptional changes stemming from inducible UCP1 knockout.
Project description:Various physiological stimuli, such as cold environment, diet, and hormones, trigger brown adipose tissue (BAT) to produce heat through sympathetic nervous system (SNS)- and -adrenergic receptors (ARs). The AR stimulation increases intracellular cAMP levels through heterotrimeric G proteins and adenylate cyclases, but the processes by which cAMP modulates brown adipocyte function are not fully understood. Here we described that specific ablation of cAMP production in brown adipocytes led to reduced lipolysis, mitochondrial biogenesis, uncoupling protein 1 (Ucp1) expression, and consequently defective adaptive thermogenesis. Elevated cAMP signaling by sympathetic activation inhibited Salt-inducible kinase 2 (Sik2) through protein kinase A (PKA)-mediated phosphorylation in brown adipose tissue. Inhibition of SIKs enhanced Ucp1 expression in differentiated brown adipocytes and Sik2 knockout mice exhibited enhanced adaptive thermogenesis at thermoneutrality in an Ucp1-dependent manner. Taken together, our data indicate that suppressing Sik2 by PKA-mediated phosphorylation is a requisite for SNS-induced Ucp1 expression and adaptive thermogenesis in BAT, and targeting Sik2 may present a novel therapeutic strategy to ramp up BAT thermogenic activity in humans.
Project description:Since brown adipose tissue (BAT) dissipates energy through UCP1, BAT has garnered attention as a therapeutic intervention for obesity and metabolic diseases including type 2 diabetes. As we better understand the roles of classical brown and beige adipocytes, increased beige fat mass in response to a variety of external/internal cues is associated with significant improvements in glucose and lipid homeostasis that may not be entirely mediated by UCP1. We aim to analyze transcriptome of wild type and UCP1-null beige adipocyte to identify the UCP1-independent function.
Project description:Non-shivering thermogenesis in adipocytes is mediated by brown adipose tissue, purportedly through the sole action of uncoupling protein 1 (UCP1). The physiological relevance of UCP1-dependent thermogenesis has primarily been inferred from the attenuation of thermogenic output of mice genetically lacking Ucp1 from birth (germline Ucp1-/-). However, germline Ucp1-/- mice harbor secondary changes within brown adipose tissue beyond UCP1, such as reduced electron transport chain abundance. We show here that these secondary changes also encompass reduced expression of genes regulating fuel liberation, changes that would attenuate the capacity of any thermogenic pathway. Therefore, the quantitative contribution of UCP1-dependent and -independent thermogenesis is not fully understood. To mitigate the potentially confounding ancillary changes to brown adipose tissue of germline Ucp1-/- mice, we constructed mice with inducible adipocyte-selective disruption of Ucp1. We find that, while germline Ucp1-/- mice succumb to cold-induced hypothermia with complete penetrance, most mice with inducible deletion of Ucp1 maintain homeothermy in the cold. However, inducible adipocyte-selective co-deletion of Ucp1 and creatine kinase B (Ckb, an effector of UCP1-independent thermogenesis) exacerbates cold-intolerance, indicative of a negative genetic interaction and thus a parallel thermogenic function. We find no evidence for impairments in insulation or non-shivering thermogenesis in skeletal muscle that would drive this phenotype. Furthermore, following UCP1 deletion or UCP1/CKB co-deletion from mature adipocytes, moderate cold exposure triggers the regeneration of mature adipocytes that coordinately restore UCP1 and CKB to brown adipose tissue, providing further evidence of their parallel thermogenic relationship. Our findings suggest that thermogenic adipocytes utilize non-paralogous protein redundancy – through UCP1 and CKB – to promote cold-induced energy dissipation.
Project description:We analyzed coding transcript abundance in fully differentiated, primary brown adipocytes from murine, interscapular brown adipose tissue of wildtype and UCP1-KO mice.
Project description:Brown fat generates heat via the mitochondrial uncoupling protein UCP1, defending against hypothermia and obesity. Recent data suggest that there are two distinct types of brown fat: classical brown fat derived from a myf-5 cellular lineage and UCP1-positive cells that emerge in white fat from a non-myf-5 lineage. Here, we report the isolation of “beige” cells from murine white fat depots.
Project description:Interest in human brown fat as a novel therapeutic target to tackle the growing obesity and diabetes epidemic has increased dramatically in recent years. While much insight into brown fat biology has been gained from murine cell lines and models, few resources are available to study human brown fat in-vitro. In this study, we detail the derivation and characterization of a novel human ES UCP1 reporter cell line that marks UCP1 positive adipocytes in-vitro. We targeted a mCherry reporter to the UCP1 stop codon via CRISPR-Cas9 and demonstrated that when differentiated to brown adipocytes, reporter cells express UCP1, display high mitochondrial content and multi-locular lipid morphology, and exhibit functional properties such as lipolysis in the presence of isoproterenol and forskolin. Isolation and purification of mCherry positive cells demonstrated elevated expression of brown fat marker genes and a high similarity to isolated human brown fat versus white fat via RNA-seq. This reporter cell line thus presents new opportunities to study human brown fat biology by enabling future work to understand early human brown fat development, performing disease modeling, and enabling drug screening applications.
Project description:Brown fat generates heat via the mitochondrial uncoupling protein UCP1, defending against hypothermia and obesity. Recent data suggest that there are two distinct types of brown fat: classical brown fat derived from a myf-5 cellular lineage and UCP1-positive cells that emerge in white fat from a non-myf-5 lineage. Here, we report the isolation of “beige” cells from murine white fat depots. Microarray analysis of the differentiated clonal inguinal and interscapular adipocytes in the presence of forskolin (10mM). These samples were profiled using Affymetrix mouse 430 2.0 arrays, 26 samples in total.
Project description:In our investigation of age-related changes in brown adipose tissue, we have identified two distinct populations of brown adipocytes characterized by high and low expression of uncoupling protein 1 (UCP1). We observed that with aging, the proportion of UCP1-low adipocytes increases, and these cells notably express genes associated with pyroptosis, an inflammatory form of programmed cell death.