Abstract
During the first month of postnatal life, adipose tissue depots of mice go through a drastic, but transient, remodeling process. Between postnatal days 10 and 20, several white fat depots display a strong and sudden surge in beige adipocyte emergence that reverts until day 30. At the same time, brown fat depots appear to undergo an opposite phenomenon. We comprehensively describe these events, their depot specificity and known environmental and genetic interactions, such as maternal diet, housing temperature and mouse strain. We further discuss potential mechanisms and plausible purposes, including the tempting hypothesis that postnatal transient remodeling creates a lasting adaptive capacity still detectable in adult animals. Finally, we propose postnatal adipose tissue remodeling as a model process to investigate mechanisms of beige adipocyte recruitment advantageous to cold exposure or adrenergic stimulation in its entirely endogenous sequence of events without external manipulation.
Highlights
Mammalian adipose tissue is a plastic organ with the capacity to dramatically alter size and composition
White adipose tissue (WAT) represents the classical, fat-storing adipose tissue composed of large cells with a single lipid droplet
Beyond Brown adipose tissue (BAT), uncoupling protein 1 (UCP1) expressing multilocular cells with high thermogenic capacity are found interspersed within WAT depots, a cell population called beige or brite adipocytes [5–7]
Summary
Mammalian adipose tissue is a plastic organ with the capacity to dramatically alter size and composition. White adipose tissue (WAT) represents the classical, fat-storing adipose tissue composed of large cells with a single lipid droplet. It acts as an endocrine organ secreting hormones, such as adiponectin and leptin. Brown adipose tissue (BAT), on the other hand, provides a means of non-shivering thermogenesis in many mammals including adult humans [1–3]. It consists of multilocular cells equipped with many mitochondria featuring uncoupling protein 1 (UCP1), the functional core of heat generation. Beyond BAT, UCP1 expressing multilocular cells with high thermogenic capacity are found interspersed within WAT depots, a cell population called beige or brite adipocytes [5–7]. Beige and brown adipocyte overall thermogenic capacity is a bottleneck in the efficacy of brown fat targeting drugs in development for the treatment of metabolic disease [8–10]
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