Investigadors del IBUB crean una nueva técnica para medir la actividad del tejido adiposo marrón

Understanding the activity of the adipose tissue is important due its involvement in the physiopathology of obesity. While the white adipose tissue is the main organ storing energy in triglycerides, brown adipose tissue is rich in mitochondria, which produces energy in the cell. Mitochondria burn fatty acids and glucose to turn them into useful energy, taking oxygen in the process. Also, brown adipose tissue has a high concentration of uncoupling protein 1 (UCP-1). This protein does not go through the respiratory chain so instead of creating useful energy, it dissipates energy as heat. This function, known as nonshivering thermogenesis is essential in newborns in order to keep their body temperature.

The new technique published in the scientific journal Advanced Science is based on Seahorse technology and it allows researchers to study the parameters of mitochondrial bioenergetics in the adipose tissue as well as the amount of oxygen dedicated to produce energy and the maximum respiratory capacity of the tissue.

“So far, cellular respiration had been analysed in cultured cells or isolated mitochondria which were bound to break during the separation process. Considering the whole tissue and not only cellular populations is a direct approach that provides a more realistic view on physiological respiration” explains Dolors Serra, main researcher of the Regulation of Lipid Metabolism in Obesity and Diabetes UB Group,

According to the researchers, the applications of this method include the analysis of how different factors –such as the diet, ageing or genotypes- can alter the functionality of the brown adipose tissue. Moreover, they show how to adapt this method in order to test potential drugs to activate the thermogenesis as an anti-obesity strategy.

The study has been led by Dolors Serra, Laura Herrero and María Calderon-Dominguez, from the Faculty of Pharmacy and Food Sciences, IBUB and the Physiopathology of Obesity and Nutrition Networking Biomedical Research Centre (CIBERobn). The study also counts with the participation of David Sebastián and Antonio Zorzano, from the Faculty of Biology of the University of Barcelona, the Institute for Research in Biomedicine (IRB Barcelona) and the Diabetes and Associated Metabolic Diseases Networking Biomedical Research Centre (CIBERdem), and Martín Alcalá and Marta Viana, from CEU San Pablo University.

►More information on UB website [+]

► Reference article:
M. Calderón Domínguez, M. Alcalá, A. Zorzano, M. Viana, D. Serra i L. Herero. «Brown adipose tissue bioenergetics: a new methodological approach». Advanced Science, abril de 2017. Doi: 10.1002/advs.201770017