Program in Molecular Medicine, University of Massachusetts Medical School, Worcester, MA, USA.
Nat Rev Endocrinol. 2019 Apr;15(4):207-225. doi: 10.1038/s41574-019-0165-y.
Adipose tissue comprises adipocytes and many other cell types that engage in dynamic crosstalk in a highly innervated and vascularized tissue matrix. Although adipose tissue has been studied for decades, it has been appreciated only in the past 5 years that extensive arborization of nerve fibres has a dominant role in regulating the function of adipose tissue. This Review summarizes the latest literature, which suggests that adipocytes signal to local sensory nerve fibres in response to perturbations in lipolysis and lipogenesis. Such adipocyte signalling to the central nervous system causes sympathetic output to distant adipose depots and potentially other metabolic tissues to regulate systemic glucose homeostasis. Paracrine factors identified in the past few years that mediate such adipocyte-neuron crosstalk are also reviewed. Similarly, immune cells and endothelial cells within adipose tissue communicate with local nerve fibres to modulate neurotransmitter tone, blood flow, adipocyte differentiation and energy expenditure, including adipose browning to produce heat. This understudied field of neurometabolism related to adipose tissue biology has great potential to reveal new mechanistic insights and potential therapeutic strategies for obesity and type 2 diabetes mellitus.
脂肪组织由脂肪细胞和许多其他细胞类型组成，这些细胞在高度神经支配和血管化的组织基质中进行动态相互作用。尽管脂肪组织已经研究了几十年，但直到过去 5 年，人们才意识到神经纤维的广泛分支在调节脂肪组织功能方面起着主导作用。本综述总结了最新的文献，这些文献表明脂肪细胞在脂肪分解和脂肪生成受到干扰时向局部感觉神经纤维发出信号。这种脂肪细胞向中枢神经系统的信号传导导致交感神经输出到远处的脂肪储存库，并可能影响其他代谢组织，以调节全身葡萄糖稳态。过去几年中确定的介导电这样的脂肪细胞-神经元相互作用的旁分泌因子也进行了综述。同样，脂肪组织内的免疫细胞和内皮细胞与局部神经纤维相互作用，调节神经递质的张力、血流、脂肪细胞分化和能量消耗，包括脂肪褐变以产生热量。与脂肪组织生物学相关的这个研究较少的神经代谢领域具有揭示肥胖和 2 型糖尿病新的机制见解和潜在治疗策略的巨大潜力。
