Brown fat has a tremendous capacity to oxidize fatty acids and generate heat, owing to the presence of an 'uncoupling protein', UCP1. The fatty acids themselves are understood to activate UCP1, but Chouchani et al. now propose that oxidation of a critical cysteine residue on UCP1 is additionally required to sensitize the protein to fatty acids.
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Nicholls, D., Rial, E. A novel regulatory mechanism for the brown-fat uncoupling protein?. Nat Struct Mol Biol 23, 364–365 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1038/nsmb.3221
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nsmb.3221
