A purinergic call to arms from dying brown adipocytes

Authors:

Mohammed K. Hankir1
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Affiliations:

1Department of Experimental Surgery, University Hospital Wuerzburg, Wuerzburg, 97080, Germany.

Keywords: 

Apoptosis, Obesity, Inosine, Adipose tissue thermogenesis, ENT1.

Corresponding Author(s):

Mohammed K. Hankir, Center of Operative Medicine, Oberduerrbacherstrasse 6, 97080 Wuerzburg, Germany; Phone: +49 931 201 31728; E-mail: hankir_m@ukw.de

Conflict of interest statement:

The author has no conflict of interest to declare.

Please cite this article as:

Mohammed K. Hankir (2022). A purinergic call to arms from dying brown adipocytes. Cell Stress: 6(7): 68-71. doi: 10.15698/cst2022.07.269

© 2022 Hankir. This is an open-access article released under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license, which allows the unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are acknowledged.

Abstract:

Brown adipocytes react to temperature and nutritional challenges by ramping up their metabolism and generating heat. This adaptation to changes in the environment is crucial for defending organismal homeostasis, but is impaired in obesity and during aging. Writing in Nature, Niemann et al. show that brown adipocytes become apoptotic under thermoneutral conditions and release ATP, which in turn is converted extracellularly into inosine. They further present evidence that pharmacological and genetic manipulations that enhance signalling of this purine metabolite stimulates thermo-genesis in brown adipocytes and promotes metabolic health.