New source of fat tissue stem cells discovered
Monday, May 5, 2014 - 08:12
in Biology & Nature
A new source of stem cells that produce fat tissue has been found, researchers say. This unique in vitro human stem cell model of brown fat tissue could aid studies into how fat tissue develops and the development of new anti-obesity drugs. There are two types of fat tissue found in humans: white adipose tissue (WAT) that accumulates lipids, and brown adipose tissue (BAT) that can burn lipids to produce heat. Using gene expression analysis, immunophenotyping and differentiation tools, they found the two cell types had different properties, in particular in their potential to differentiate into BAT cells, thus indicating a different developmental pathway for the two types of fat cell.