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Developmental biology

Neither fat nor flesh

Nature volume 454, pages 947–948 (2008)Cite this article

In mammals, white adipose tissue stores fat, whereas brown adipose tissue burns fat. Brown adipocytes have a common origin with muscle cells, which could help explain their unusual function.

In 1551, when the Swiss naturalist Konrad Gessner first described1 brown adipose tissue, he stated that it was “neither fat, nor flesh [nec pinguitudo, nec caro] — but something in between”. Some 450 years later, Tseng et al.2 and Seale et al.3, writing in this issue, provide compelling evidence that brown and white fat cells are indeed distinct and that, after all, Gessner had correctly guessed the origin of brown fat cells — they are not flesh (muscle), but they are much more flesh-like than previously suspected.

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Figure 1: A revised model of the origins of fat cells.

References

  1. Gessner, K. Conradi Gesneri medici Tigurine Historiae Animalium Lib. I de Quadripedibus uiuiparis 842 (1551).

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Affiliations

  1. Barbara Cannon and Jan Nedergaard are at the Wenner-Gren Institute, Arrhenius Laboratories F3, Stockholm University, SE-106 91 Stockholm, Sweden. barbara.cannon@wgi.su.se

    Barbara Cannon & Jan Nedergaard

Authors
  1. Barbara Cannon
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  2. Jan Nedergaard
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Cannon, B., Nedergaard, J. Neither fat nor flesh. Nature 454, 947–948 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1038/454947a

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