Isolation and Characterization of Clonal Adult Human Brown Adipocytes

Brown adipose tissue (BAT) evolved in mammals as a natural defence system against hypothermia and obesity. While existence of BAT in adult humans has been recently appreciated, its cellular origin and molecular identity remain elusive due in large to high cellular heterogeneity within adipose tissues. Here we isolated clonal adipocytes from adult human BAT as well as WAT (control) and critically analyzed their transcriptome to identify bona fide BAT markers and its new functions.