Abstract
There are two types of adipose cells in the mammalian body. White fat, the most common type of fat cell, is specialized for the storage of energy. White adipose tissue makes up 15% or more of the total body weight in healthy individuals, and this number can be very much higher in obese individuals. White adipocytes take up glucose or lipid from the blood and use them to synthesize triglycerides. These can then be released into blood as free fatty acids when the animal is fasting. Brown fat cells play a very different role in the body. These cells function to dissipate chemical energy in the form of heat, in response to cold or certain high-calorie diets. Physiologically, it is clear that brown fat serves as a very important defense against hypothermia and obesity. Brown fat plays its thermogenic function through the expression of UCP-1, a mitochondrial protein that catalyzes a proton leak across the inner membrane of the mitochondrion. Importantly, mice with a genetic reduction in either brown fat tissue or the UCP-1 gene have a greater tendency to develop obesity (Lowell et al. 1993; Feldmann et al. 2009). These data have increased the urgency to determine the transcriptional pathways by which these two types of fat cells develop.
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Spiegelman, B.M. (2010). Transcriptional Regulation of Brown and White Adipogenesis. In: Christen, Y., Clément, K., Spiegelman, B. (eds) Novel Insights into Adipose Cell Functions. Research and Perspectives in Endocrine Interactions. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-13517-0_8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-13517-0_8
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