Department of Human Biology, Maastricht University, PO Box 616, 6200 MD Maastricht, the Netherlands.
J Clin Endocrinol Metab. 2013 Jul;98(7):E1230-4. doi: 10.1210/jc.2013-1348. Epub 2013 Jun 19.
Since the discovery of functional brown adipose tissue (BAT) in adult humans, there has been a renewed interest in the physiology of human BAT. Imaging studies from our laboratory and others have shown increased glucose uptake in adipose tissue regions assumed to be BAT in humans. We have also shown that human BAT from the supraclavicular (SCV) region is positive for uncoupling protein-1. To date, however, the oxidative capacity of this adipose tissue (AT) depot has not been characterized in humans.
We hypothesize that oxidative capacity is increased in the AT of the SCV region known to contain human BAT.
This was an observational prospective cohort study.
The study was conducted at a referral center.
Participants were 13 patients for whom thyroid gland surgery was indicated.
Basal cellular oxygen consumption in human AT biopsy samples from the SCV region, known to be [¹⁸F]fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography-computed tomography-positive, was compared with the cellular oxygen consumption in subcutaneous white adipose tissue (WAT) from the same region of the same subject.
We show for the first time that AT from the human BAT region displays increased oxygen consumption (P < .05), on average 300% higher, than subcutaneous WAT of the same individual. The contribution of the proton leak to maximal respiration increased with age in the WAT but not in the AT from the BAT region.
These results suggest that human adipose tissue from the BAT region can be distinguished from subcutaneous WAT by a higher basal oxidative capacity. Additional studies are warranted to further elucidate the metabolic and bioenergetic characteristics of this AT depot in humans.
自发现功能性棕色脂肪组织（BAT）存在于成年人体内以来，人们对人类 BAT 的生理学产生了新的兴趣。我们实验室和其他实验室的影像学研究表明，在人们认为是 BAT 的脂肪组织区域，葡萄糖摄取增加。我们还表明，来自锁骨上（SCV）区域的人类 BAT 对解偶联蛋白-1呈阳性。然而，迄今为止，尚未对该脂肪组织（AT）库的氧化能力进行人体特征描述。
我们假设在已知含有人类 BAT 的 SCV 区域的 AT 中，氧化能力增加。
这是一项观察性前瞻性队列研究。
该研究在一个转诊中心进行。
研究对象为 13 名甲状腺手术指征的患者。
已知[¹⁸F]氟脱氧葡萄糖正电子发射断层扫描-计算机断层扫描阳性的 SCV 区域人类 AT 活检样本的基础细胞耗氧量与同一区域同一受试者的皮下白色脂肪组织（WAT）的细胞耗氧量进行比较。
我们首次表明，来自人类 BAT 区域的 AT 的耗氧量（P<0.05）平均增加 300%，高于同一个体的皮下 WAT。质子泄漏对最大呼吸的贡献在 WAT 中随年龄增长而增加，但在 BAT 区域的 AT 中则没有。
这些结果表明，来自 BAT 区域的人类脂肪组织可以通过更高的基础氧化能力与皮下 WAT 区分开来。需要进一步的研究来进一步阐明该人体 AT 库的代谢和生物能量特征。
