Mitophagy deficiency increases NLRP3 to induce brown fat dysfunction in mice.

Mitophagy deficiency increases NLRP3 to induce brown fat dysfunction in mice. Autophagy. 2020 May 13;:1-17 Authors: Ko MS, Yun JY, Baek IJ, Jang JE, Hwang JJ, Lee SE, Heo SH, Bader DA, Lee CH, Han J, Moon JS, Lee JM, Hong EG, Lee IK, Kim SW, Park JY, Hartig SM, Kang UJ, Moore DD, Koh EH, Lee KU Abstract Although macroautophagy/autophagy deficiency causes degenerative diseases, the deletion of essential autophagy genes in adipocytes paradoxically reduces body weight. Brown adipose tissue (BAT) plays an important role in body weight regulation and metabolic control. However, the key cellular mechanisms that maintain BAT function remain poorly understood. in this study, we showed that global or brown adipocyte-specific deletion of pink1, a Parkinson disease-related gene involved in selective mitochondrial autophagy (mitophagy), induced BAT dysfunction, and obesity-prone type in mice. Defective mitochondrial function is among the upstream signals that activate the NLRP3 inflammasome. NLRP3 was induced in brown adipocyte precursors (BAPs) from pink1 knockout (KO) mice. Unexpectedly, NLRP3 induction did not induce canonical inflammasome activity. Instead, NLRP3 induction led to the differentiation of pink1 KO BAPs into white-like adipocytes by increasing the expression of white adipocyte-specific genes and repressing the expression of brown adipocyte-specific genes. nlrp3 deletion in pink1 knockout mice reversed BAT dysfunction. Conversely...
Source: Autophagy - Category: Cytology Authors: Tags: Autophagy Source Type: research