Obesity is a chronic disease which affects over one third of Australians. Targeting pathways which promote energy expenditure, such as the activation of thermogenic beige fat, may provide an effective method of driving weight loss and restoring metabolic health in people living with obesity. Beige fat is activated by cold exposure, yet the molecular mechanism underpinning this process is incompletely understood.
The improved understanding that we will generate in this project may uncover new therapeutic targets to treat obesity.
The adipose tissue contains a large and varied population of immune cells, which have been found to be essential for the activation of beige fat. We have found that adipose immune cells, when exposed to cold ex vivo, secrete factors which can upregulate thermogenesis in cultured adipocytes. Given this result, we are interested in understanding which adipose immune cells respond to cold exposure at a cellular level and how this response is mediated. We are looking to employ single cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq) to capture the transcriptional response of adipose immune cells to cold exposure, with a downstream pipeline of identifying and testing therapeutic candidates which have the potential to activate beige fat and promote weight loss in people with obesity