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Evidence for two types of brown adipose tissue in humans

Nature Medicine volume 19, pages 631–634 (2013)Cite this article

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Abstract

The previously observed supraclavicular depot of brown adipose tissue (BAT) in adult humans was commonly believed to be the equivalent of the interscapular thermogenic organ of small mammals. This view was recently disputed1 on the basis of the demonstration that this depot consists of beige (also called brite) brown adipocytes, a newly identified type of brown adipocyte that is distinct from the classical brown adipocytes that make up the interscapular thermogenic organs of other mammals. A combination of high-resolution imaging techniques and histological and biochemical analyses showed evidence for an anatomically distinguishable interscapular BAT (iBAT) depot in human infants that consists of classical brown adipocytes, a cell type that has so far not been shown to exist in humans. On the basis of these findings, we conclude that infants, similarly to rodents, have the bona fide iBAT thermogenic organ consisting of classical brown adipocytes that is essential for the survival of small mammals in a cold environment.

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Figure 1: Three-dimensional reconstruction of iBAT in a human infant.
Figure 2: BAT depots identified by MRI represent bona fide BAT containing classical brown adipocytes.
Figure 3: Gene expression profiling of human BAT depots.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by grants to S.E. from the Swedish Research Council (grant numbers 2009-2590 and 2010-3281), The Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation, Sahlgrenska's University Hospital (LUA-ALF), EU grants (HEALTH-F2-2011-278373; DIABAT), The IngaBritt and Arne Lundgren Foundation, The Söderberg Foundation, The King Gustaf V and Queen Victoria Freemason Foundation and the Swedish Foundation for Strategic Research through the Center for Cardiovascular and Metabolic Research. M.J.B. was supported by a postdoctoral fellowship from the Fritz Thyssen Stiftung. We thank B. Mauracher (Medizinische Klinik und Poliklinik IV, Klinikum der LMU) for excellent technical assistance and acknowledge the Centre for Cellular Imaging and the Genomics Core Facility at Sahlgrenska Academy for technical assistance and use of equipment. We also acknowledge assistance from J. Kilberg and P. Quick (radiology technicians at CMIV) and J. Berge, E. Edston and H. Bengtsson (forensic pathologists) at the National Board of Forensic Medicine, Linköping Division, Department of Forensic Medicine, Linköping.

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Author notes

  1. Martin E Lidell and Matthias J Betz: These authors contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Medical and Clinical Genetics, Institute of Biomedicine, The Sahlgrenska Academy, University of Gothenburg, Gothenburg, Sweden

    Martin E Lidell, Matthias J Betz, Mikael Heglind, Daniel Nilsson & Sven Enerbäck

  2. Endocrine Research Unit, Medizinische Klinik und Poliklinik IV, Klinikum der Ludwig Maximilians University (LMU), Munich, Germany

    Matthias J Betz, Marc Slawik & Felix Beuschlein

  3. Center for Medical Image Science and Visualization (CMIV), Linköping University, Linköping, Sweden

    Olof Dahlqvist Leinhard, Louise Elander, Thobias Romu, Anders Persson & Magnus Borga

  4. Department of Medical and Health Sciences, Linköping University, Linköping, Sweden

    Olof Dahlqvist Leinhard

  5. University Hospital, County Council of Östergötland, Linköping, Sweden

    Louise Elander & Anders Persson

  6. Department of Surgery Innenstadt, Klinikum der LMU, Munich, Germany

    Thomas Mussack

  7. Department of Biomedical Engineering, IMT, Linköping University, Linköping, Sweden

    Thobias Romu & Magnus Borga

  8. Turku PET Center, University of Turku, Turku, Finland

    Pirjo Nuutila & Kirsi A Virtanen

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  1. Martin E Lidell
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  15. Sven Enerbäck
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Contributions

A.P., M.B., M.E.L., M.J.B. and S.E. conceived and designed the experiments. D.N., L.E., M.E.L., M.H., M.J.B., O.D.L. and T.R. performed the experiments. A.P., D.N., L.E., M.B., M.E.L., M.H., M.J.B., O.D.L., S.E. and T.R. analyzed the data. F.B., K.A.V., M.S., T.M. and P.N. provided samples. M.E.L., M.J.B. and S.E. wrote the manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Sven Enerbäck.

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Competing interests

S.E. is shareholder and consultant to Ember Therapeutics.

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Supplementary Figure 1 and Supplementary Table 1 (PDF 558 kb)

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Lidell, M., Betz, M., Leinhard, O. et al. Evidence for two types of brown adipose tissue in humans. Nat Med 19, 631–634 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1038/nm.3017

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