Department of Infectology, The Scripps Research Institute-Florida Jupiter, FL, USA.
Front Endocrinol (Lausanne). 2012 Feb 2;3:13. doi: 10.3389/fendo.2012.00013. eCollection 2012.
The role of brown adipose tissue (BAT) in human metabolism and its potential as an anti-obesity target organ have recently received much renewed attention. Following radiological detection of substantial amounts of BAT in adults by several independent research groups, an increasing number of studies are now dedicated to uncover BAT's genetic, developmental, and environmental determinants. In contrast to murine BAT, human BAT is not present as a single major fat depot in a well-defined location. The distribution of BAT in several areas in the body significantly limits its availability to research. A human brown adipocyte cell line is therefore critical in broadening the options available to researchers in the field. The human BAT-cell line PAZ6 was created to address such a need and has been well characterized by several research groups around the world. In the present review, we discuss their findings and propose potential applications of the PAZ6 cells in addressing the relevant questions in the BAT field, namely for future use in therapeutic applications.
棕色脂肪组织(BAT)在人类新陈代谢中的作用及其作为抗肥胖靶器官的潜力最近引起了广泛关注。在几个独立的研究小组通过放射学检测到大量成人 BAT 之后,越来越多的研究致力于揭示 BAT 的遗传、发育和环境决定因素。与鼠类 BAT 不同,人类 BAT 并不作为一个单一的主要脂肪库存在于一个明确的位置。BAT 在身体多个部位的分布极大地限制了其在研究中的可用性。因此,人类棕色脂肪细胞系对于拓宽该领域研究人员的选择至关重要。人类 BAT 细胞系 PAZ6 的创建就是为了满足这一需求,并且已经被世界各地的多个研究小组进行了很好的描述。在本综述中,我们讨论了他们的发现,并提出了 PAZ6 细胞在解决 BAT 领域相关问题中的潜在应用,即未来在治疗应用中的潜在应用。