Department of Nutrition, Food Science and Physiology/Centre for Nutrition Research, Faculty of Pharmacy and Nutrition, University of Navarra, 31008 Pamplona, Spain.
Navarra Institute for Health Research, Navarra Institute for Health Research, 31008 Pamplona, Spain.
Int J Mol Sci. 2019 Nov 28;20(23):5998. doi: 10.3390/ijms20235998.
Obesity prevalence is rapidly increasing worldwide. With the discovery of brown adipose tissue (BAT) in adult humans, BAT activation has emerged as a potential strategy for increasing energy expenditure. Recently, the presence of a third type of fat, referred to as beige or brite (brown in white), has been recognized to be present in certain kinds of white adipose tissue (WAT) depots. It has been suggested that WAT can undergo the process of browning in response to stimuli that induce and enhance the expression of thermogenesis: a metabolic feature typically associated with BAT. MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are small transcriptional regulators that control gene expression in a variety of tissues, including WAT and BAT. Likewise, it was shown that several food compounds could influence miRNAs associated with browning, thus, potentially contributing to the management of excessive adipose tissue accumulation (obesity) through specific nutritional and dietetic approaches. Therefore, this has created significant excitement towards the development of a promising dietary strategy to promote browning/beiging in WAT to potentially contribute to combat the growing epidemic of obesity. For this reason, we summarize the current knowledge about miRNAs and food compounds that could be applied in promoting adipose browning, as well as the cellular mechanisms involved.
肥胖症在全球范围内迅速蔓延。随着棕色脂肪组织（BAT）在成年人体内的发现，BAT 的激活已成为增加能量消耗的一种潜在策略。最近，人们发现了第三种脂肪，称为米色或米色（白色中的棕色），存在于某些白色脂肪组织（WAT）储库中。有人认为，WAT 可以通过诱导和增强产热的表达来经历褐变过程：这是一种与 BAT 相关的代谢特征。microRNAs（miRNAs）是一种小的转录调节因子，可以在包括 WAT 和 BAT 在内的多种组织中控制基因表达。同样，已经表明几种食物化合物可以影响与褐变相关的 miRNAs，从而通过特定的营养和饮食方法潜在地有助于管理过多的脂肪组织积累（肥胖症）。因此，这为开发一种有前途的饮食策略来促进 WAT 的褐变/米色化创造了巨大的兴奋，从而可能有助于对抗日益严重的肥胖症流行。基于此，我们总结了关于 miRNAs 和食物化合物的最新知识，这些知识可以应用于促进脂肪褐变，并涉及相关的细胞机制。
