BMP8 and activated brown adipose tissue in human newborns

Abstract

Tejido adiposo marrón; Neonatología; Proteina morfogenética ósea

Teixit adipós marró; Pes neonatal; Proteïna morfogenètica òssia

Brown adipose tissue; Birth weight; Bone morphogenetic proteins

The classical dogma states that brown adipose tissue (BAT) plays a major role in the regulation of temperature in neonates. However, although BAT has been studied in infants for more than a century, the knowledge about its physiological features at this stage of life is rather limited. This has been mainly due to the lack of appropriate investigation methods, ethically suitable for neonates. Here, we have applied non-invasive infrared thermography (IRT) to investigate neonatal BAT activity. Our data show that BAT temperature correlates with body temperature and that mild cold stimulus promotes BAT activation in newborns. Notably, a single short-term cold stimulus during the first day of life improves the body temperature adaption to a subsequent cold event. Finally, we identify that bone morphogenic protein 8B (BMP8B) is associated with the BAT thermogenic response in neonates. Overall, our data uncover key features of the setup of BAT thermogenesis in newborns

The research leading to these results hasreceived funding from the Xunta de Galicia (R.N.: 2016-PG057; M.L.: 2016-PG068);Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad (MINECO) co-funded by the FEDER Pro-gram of EU (R.N.: RTI2018-099413-B-I00; C.D.: BFU2017-87721-P; F.V.: SAF2017-85722-R; M.L.: RTI2018-101840-B-I00: F.V., J.M.F.-R., and M.L.: BFU2017-90578-REDT/Adipoplast); Instituto de Salud Carlos III (J.M.F.-R.: PI15-01934); AtresmediaCorporación (R.N. and M.L.); Fundación BBVA (R.N.); la Caixa Foundation (ID100010434), under the agreement LCF/PR/HR19/52160022 (M.L.); European Founda-tion for the Study of Diabetes (R.N.) and ERC Synergy Grant-2019-WATCH- 810331(R.N.) and Research Grant SOPEGA 2016 (A.U. and M.L.C.). F.V. is an ICREA Aca-demia researcher (Generalitat de Catalunya). I.G.-G. is the recipient of a fellowship fromthe European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under the MarieSklodowska-Curie actions. The CiMUS is supported by the Xunta de Galicia (2016-2019,ED431G/05). CIBER de Fisiopatología de la Obesidad y Nutrición is an initiative ofISCIII. The funders had no role in study design, data collection, and analysis, decision topublish, or preparation of the paper.