Leptin is an adipocyte-derived hormone that plays an important role in the regulation of energy homeostasis through its action in the central nervous system. Leptin decreases body weight by promoting satiety and increasing thermogenesis via increasing sympathetic nerve activity (SNA) to brown adipose tissue. Leptin also increases renal SNA and arterial pressure. The arcuate nucleus is considere...

Effects of dietary fats consisting of different fatty acids on lipoprotein lipase activities in the interscapular brown adipose tissue, heart, and soleus muscle, and on body fat accumulation were studied in rats. Sprague-Dawley male rats were meal-fed an isoenergetic diet based on either beef tallow or safflower oil for 8 weeks. Lipoprotein lipase activities in the interscapular brown adipose t...

The transcription factor Tbx15 is expressed predominantly in brown adipose tissue and in those white adipose depots that are capable of giving rise to brown-in-white ("brite"/"beige") adipocytes. Therefore, we have investigated a possible role here of Tbx15 in brown and brite adipocyte differentiation in vitro. Adipocyte precursors were isolated from interscapular and axilliary brown adipose ti...

Heat production in brown adipose tissue contributes to cold defense, to stress-induced increases in body temperature, and to energy balance. Elucidating the functional organization of the central network controlling the sympathetic outflow to brown adipose tissue could provide a framework for understanding how dysregulation of thermogenesis contributes to hyperthermia and to obesity.

Cold acclimation of hamsters was found to result in an increase in cytochrome concentration relative to ATPase activity in brown adipose tissue mitochondria, but not in liver mitochondria. These data lend support to the hypothesis that the uncoupled respiration characteristic of non-shivering thermogenesis is the result of an adaptive change in the composition of brown adipose tissue mitochondr...

White-adipose-tissue lipogenesis showed a similar response to that of brown fat after glucose and insulin treatment in the three conditions, though the rates were severalfold lower in white adipose tissue. The differences in the basal lipogenesis in brown fat in the virgin, lactating and weaned states may be related to the plasma insulin concentration. Plasma insulin decreases during lactation ...

Cold-acclimation of rats (3 weeks, 4 degrees C) had no effect on basal rates of glucose production or utilization. Under euglycaemic-clamp conditions, in which the circulating insulin concentration was increased by approx. 50 microunits/ml, cold-acclimated rats showed a greater increase in glucose utilization and a greater suppression of endogenous glucose production. Tissue sites of glucose ut...

The ob gene product leptin is secreted from adipose tissue. Leptin has dramatic effects on food intake and energy expenditure in rodents. Brown adipose tissue is the first form of adipose tissue to appear during development, and is present at birth in most species. The development of a leptin feedback system in early life and the relative role of the brown and white adipose tissues have not yet...

Cytochrome oxidase activity and mitochondrial GDP binding were decreased in brown adipose tissue of mice treated chronically with corticosterone. These changes occurred both in corticosterone-treated mice fed ad libitum and in treated mice pair-fed to control animals. Although the dietary stimulation of brown-adipose-tissue thermogenesis was suppressed by corticosterone, the acute response to c...

Adipose tissue is a highly insulin-responsive organ that contributes to metabolic regulation. Insulin resistance in the adipose tissue affects systemic lipid and glucose homeostasis. Phosphoinositide 3-kinase (PI3K) mediates downstream insulin signaling in adipose tissue, but its physiological role in vivo remains unclear. Using Cre recombinase driven by the aP2 promoter, we created mice that l...