PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Anantha, Pooja
AU  - Wu, Xiangdong
AU  - Elsaid, Salaheldeen
AU  - Raj, Piyush
AU  - Barman, Ishan
AU  - Tee, Sui Seng
TI  - Sweet science: Exploring the impact of fructose and glucose on brown adipocyte differentiation using optical diffraction tomography
AID  - 10.1101/2024.09.04.611269
DP  - 2024 Jan 01
TA  - bioRxiv
PG  - 2024.09.04.611269
4099  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2024/09/04/2024.09.04.611269.short
4100  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2024/09/04/2024.09.04.611269.full
AB  - The thermogenic capacity of brown adipose tissue (BAT) has garnered much attention for its potential to regulate systemic energy balance. BAT depot size and function need to be tightly to prevent loss of metabolic homeostasis due to energy dissipation via non-shivering thermogenesis. While adipocyte-intrinsic mechanisms controlling thermogenesis are critical, an increasing appreciation for the role of the BAT microenvironment is emerging. For example, changes in circulating hexoses due to dietary intake have shown to impact BAT function. Here, we show that murine BAT preadipocytes metabolism is impacted when fructose is used as the sole carbon source. Similarly, differentiation medium containing only fructose yield mature adipocytes with fewer lipid droplets, with a concomitant decrease in adipogenic genes. These deficiencies are also observed in human BAT preadipocytes, where cutting-edge optical imaging modalities show a decrease in total cell mass and lipid mass in fructose-only medium. Taken together, the metabolic microenvironment significantly impacts BAT growth and function, with implications for the role of diets potentially mitigating the efficacy of BAT-targeted therapies.Competing Interest StatementThe authors have declared no competing interest.