BACKGROUND AND AIMS Some studies have pointed to a role of UCP3 in the regulation of biochemical and fat parameters in overweight patients. The aim of our study was to investigate the influence of -55CT polymorphism of UCP3 gene (rs1800849) on histological changes and insulin resistance in patients with non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD). MATERIAL AND METHODS A population of 39 patient...

Investigations of variations in metabolic efficiency and thermogenesis have a short and turbulent history. In small animals, non-shivering thermogenesis and diet-induced thermogenesis have a great impact on overall body weight, and the question is whether mechanisms to waste energy have evolved also in human energy metabolism. The candidate molecules for this adaptive thermogenesis are the unco...

Variability of the uncoupling protein 3 (UCP3) promoter has been associated with increased body mass index (BMI) and altered lipid profiles. Here we tested the hypothesis that variation of the UCP3 promoter is associated with either juvenile or maturity-onset obesity or body weight change over a 26-yr follow-up among Danish subjects. Mutation screening of approximately 1 kb 5' upstream of the U...

Nonshivering thermogenesis in brown adipose tissue (BAT) provides heat through activation of a mitochondrial uncoupling protein (UCP1), which causes futile electron transport cycles without the production of ATP. Recent discovery of two molecular homologues, UCP2, expressed in multiple tissues, and UCP3, expressed in muscle, has resulted in investigation of their roles in thermoregulatory physi...

Uncoupling protein-2 and -3 (UCP2 and UCP3) are mitochondrial proteins that show high sequence homology with the brown adipocyte-specific UCP1. UCP1 induces heat production by uncoupling respiration from ATP synthesis. UCP2 is widely expressed in human tissues, whereas UCP3 expression seems restricted to skeletal muscle, an important site of thermogenesis in humans. We have investigated the reg...

Mice deficient in mitochondrial uncoupling protein (UCP) 1 are cold sensitive, despite abundant expression of the homologues, Ucp2 and Ucp3 (S. Enerbäck, A. Jacobsson, E. M. Simpson, C. Guerra, H. Yamashita, M.-E. Harper, and L. P. Kozak. Nature 387: 90-94, 1997). We have analyzed characteristics of mitochondrial proton leak from brown adipose tissue (BAT) of Ucp1-deficient mice and normal cont...

OBJECTIVE Whether the polymorphisms in the UCP3 gene have an influence on plasma homocysteine levels during youth is not known, and to elucidate the putative modifying role of fitness is also of clinical interest. We analysed the association between polymorphisms in the UCP3 gene and plasma homocysteine in youth and to examine whether fitness modifies this association. METHODS The study popul...

This study was performed to determine whether or not uncoupling protein 2 (UCP2) and UCP3 expression in porcine subcutaneous adipose tissue are hormonally regulated in vitro and whether their expression is correlated with changes in metabolic activity. Tissue slices (approximately 100 mg) were placed in 12-well plates containing 1 mL of DMEM/F12 with 25 mM Hepes, 0.5% BSA, pH 7.4. Triplicate sl...

The effects of a 3-d peripheral administration of an alpha-MSH agonist, MTII, on body weight and the expression of uncoupling proteins (UCPs) and carnitine palmitoyltransferase-1 were determined in lean and genetically obese fa/fa rats by comparing MTII-treated animals with two different control groups, one being ad libitum fed, the other pair-fed to the amount of food consumed by MTII-treated ...

INTRODUCTION Gene expression analyses from peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) and white adipose tissue are conflicting. It seems that results from single tissue are not enough to explain how changes affect humans as a complex biological system. OBJECTIVE The aim of this study was to compare, from obesity subjects, PBMC and white adipose tissue gene expression that regulates adipogenesi...