Project description
Unlocking brown adipose tissue’s hidden power
In the animal kingdom, maintaining core temperature is essential for survival. Brown adipose tissue (BAT), known for its thermogenic abilities, plays a pivotal role in this process. But what remains a mystery is the mechanism that regulates BAT activity. In this context, the ERC-funded BATOFF project will shed light on this conundrum. Three groundbreaking discoveries are at the core of the project’s mission: phase separation-aided molecular events, a lipolysis-stimulated feedforward regulatory circuit with a negative feedback loop, and a purinergic nucleotides flux-based inhibitory mechanism. These mechanisms are believed to terminate heat production in BAT. BATOFF will address key related questions through cutting-edge techniques like in vitro and in vivo studies, mouse models, cellular respirometry, live cell imaging and omics technologies.
Objective
Free-ranging animals are continuously exposed to fluctuating ambient temperature, therefore rapid fine-tuning of thermogenesis to maintain core temperature homeostasis is critical for survival. Brown adipose tissue (BAT) evolves as a thermogenic organ, the rapid switching on and off is essential for thermal regulation. Of note, thermogenesis inevitably comes at high energetic cost and BAT ultimately is an energy-wasting organ. A constrained strategy that minimizes BAT activity unless obligate will have been favored during natural selection to safeguard metabolic thriftiness. However, this tenet and the molecular basis that constrain BAT activity remain unappreciated, unexplored and unexploited. Filling this fundamental knowledge gap will unlock endogenous constraints and allow efficiently and fully harness the energy-consuming potential of BAT for therapeutic interventions.
To this end, I identify that a phase separation-aided molecular event, a lipolysis-stimulated feedforward regulatory circuit with negative feedback loop, and a purinergic nucleotides flux-based inhibitory mechanism, are synergistically involved in rapidly terminating heat production. BATOFF aims to study: 1) how these previously unappreciated mechanisms allow mammals to effectively orchestrate dynamics of BAT activity; 2) whether these constraining brake systems are malfunction under pathophysiological conditions; and 3) the translational potential of targeting these brakes. I will address these questions using state-of-the-art gain and loss-of-function in vitro and in vivo studies, newly-generated mouse models, high-resolution cellular respirometry, live cell imaging, and cutting-edge 'omics'. Results of BATOFF will not only provide a transformative molecular understanding of the cellular processes enabling physiological adaptation to thermogenic demand, but also with translational potential for prevention and treatment of obesity and diabetes by harnessing the calorie-burning potential of BAT.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
- medical and health sciences clinical medicine endocrinology diabetes
- natural sciences biological sciences genetics nucleotides
- natural sciences biological sciences zoology mammalogy
- medical and health sciences basic medicine physiology homeostasis
- medical and health sciences health sciences nutrition obesity
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Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Programme(s)
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HORIZON.1.1 - European Research Council (ERC)
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(opens in new window) ERC-2022-STG
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53127 Bonn
Germany
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