Proteome imbalance of mitochondrial electron transport chain in brown adipocytes leads to metabolic benefits

Adaptive thermogenesis of brown adipose tissue (BAT) is critical for thermoregulation and contributes to total energy expenditure. However, whether BAT has non-thermogenic functions is largely unknown. Here, we describe that mice with a BAT-specific Liver kinase b1 deletion (Lkb1BKO mice) exhibited impaired mitochondrial respiration and thermogenesis in BAT, but reduced adiposity and liver triglyceride accumulation under high-fat-diet feeding at room temperature. Importantly, these metabolic benefits were also present in Lkb1BKO mice at thermoneutrality, where BAT thermogenesis was not required. Mechanistically, decreased mRNA levels of mtDNA-encoded electron transport chain (ETC) subunits and ETC proteome imbalance led to impaired mitochondrial respiration in BAT of Lkb1BKO mice. Furthermore, reducing mtDNA gene expression directly in BAT by removing mitochondrial transcription factor A (Tfam) in BAT also showed ETC proteome imbalance and the tradeoff between BAT thermogenesis and systemic metabolism at both room temperature and thermoneutrality. Collectively, our data demonstrates that ETC proteome imbalance in BAT regulates systemic metabolism independently of BAT thermogenic capacity.