Unlike white adipose tissue which primarily stores energy in form of triglycerides, brown adipose tissue (BAT) serves to expend energy to generate heat. Since BAT was firstly described in 1551, it has long been conceived that BAT only exists in small mammals and human infants that are in high thermoregulatory demands. Until recently, with CT scan combined with fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography (FDG-PET), functional BAT has been demonstrated to be present in adult human and inversely correlated with body-mass index, illuminating a fascinating new potential therapeutic target for obesity and its related diseases. However, no evidence has been reported that BAT could directly be involved in metabolism of organisms for almost 500 years. 

Prof. Wanzhu Jin and his colleagues developed an innovative strategy to investigate the function of BAT in body metabolism. By BAT transplantation, they found that transplanted mice could be protected against high fat diet (HFD) induced body weight gain. Total fat mass was decreased following BAT transplantation, accompanied with increased whole body oxygen consumption and thermogenesis. BAT transplantation also significantly improved HFD induced insulin resistance and hepatic steatosis. These results thus demonstrated that BAT could directly regulate whole body energy metabolism, highlighting BAT as a powerful target for both prevention and treatment of obesity.

Their work was published in Cell Research on May 7, 2013