Project description:Analysis of brown adipose tissue from Yin Yang 1 (YY1) brown fat specific knockout mice fed a high fat diet for 3 months. YY1 deficiency in brown adipose tissue leads to strong thermogenic deficiency. The goal was to identify the genes controlled by YY1 responsible of brown fat defective function.
Project description:Analysis of brown adipose tissue from Yin Yang 1 (YY1) brown fat specific knockout mice fed a high fat diet for 3 months. YY1 deficiency in brown adipose tissue leads to strong thermogenic deficiency. The goal was to identify the genes controlled by YY1 responsible of brown fat defective function. Control mice YY1flox/flox versus YY1flox/flox; Ucp1Cre were fed a high fat diet for 3 months
Project description:Abdominal aortic aneurysm (AAA) is a life-threatening vascular disease without effective medical therapies. Emerging evidences have suggested a crosstalk between adipose tissue and vascular cells and brown adipose tissue is beneficial for cardiovascular health. Nevertheless, whether brown remodeling of white adipose tissue would protect against AAA remains unclear. Here we showed that patients with AAA had a decreased browning level of adipose tissue and induction of adipose tissue browning significantly reduced AAA incidence and attenuated AAA development in mice. Using LC-MS/MS and proteomic analysis, we further identified Follistatin-like 1 (FSTL1) as a novel vessel-protective adipokine secreted by browning adipocytes. Mechanistically, FSTL1 inhibited VSMC apoptosis through DIP2A/AKT signaling. Furthermore, we demonstrated that adipocyte-specific deficiency of FSTL1 abrogated the protective effect of browning induction. Moreover, supplementation of FSTL1 either systemically or patched into hydrogel placing around abdominal aorta markedly limited aortic dilation and AAA progression. Our data suggest a protective role of adipose tissue browning and a novel batokine FSTL1 in the development of AAA, which may represent a novel intervention strategy for AAA.
Project description:Steap4, a highly expressed protein in adipose tissue, has been implicated in metabolic homeostasis. In this study, we generated adipocyte-specific Steap4-deficient mice and observed that Steap4 deficiency led to increased fat mass and severe insulin resistance in a high-fat diet model. Mass spectrometry analysis revealed two classes of Steap4 interactomes: mitochondrial proteins and proteins involved in spliceosome. RNA-seq analysis of white adipose tissue demonstrated that Steap4 deficiency altered RNA splicing patterns with enriched functions in mitochondria. While interactome and transcriptome data implicate a role of Steap4 in mitochondria, Steap4 deficiency indeed impaired mitochondrial respiratory chain complex activity resulting in mitochondrial dysfunction in white adipose tissue. Consistently, brown adipocyte-specific Steap4-deficient mice also showed impaired mitochondrial function, increased whitening of brown adipose tissue, reduced energy expenditure, and exacerbated insulin resistance under HFD conditions. Overall, our findings elucidate the critical role of Steap4 in regulating adipocyte thermogenesis and energy expenditure by modulating mitochondrial function.
Project description:Histones were isolated from brown adipose tissue and liver from mice housed at 28, 22, or 8 C. Quantitative top- or middle-down approaches were used to quantitate histone H4 and H3.2 proteoforms. See published article for complimentary RNA-seq and RRBS datasets.