Ablation of and beige fat causes vascular remodeling and elevated blood pressure.

While excess adiposity is a major risk factor for hypertension and cardiovascular disease, brown fat is associated with protection from these pathologies. Whether brown fat has a causal role in this process and the underlying molecular mechanisms remain unknown. Here we investigate the role of murine beige fat, as a model of inducible brown fat in humans, in adipocyte-vascular crosstalk. Using mice with an adipocyte-specific deletion of PRDM16, resulting in a loss of beige adipocyte identity, we discover a dramatic remodeling of perivascular adipose tissue, increased vascular reactivity and elevated blood pressure. We further show that the circulating enzyme is de-repressed in -deficient adipocytes, and deletion of in PRDM16cKO mice rescues vascular fibrosis and reactivity. These results demonstrate a key new role for beige adipocytes in blood pressure regulation and identify as an important mediator of adipocyte-vascular crosstalk.