PITX2 is enriched in highly adipogenic brown preadipocytes.

Abstract

Brown adipose tissue (BAT) serves as a key heat-producing organ required to maintain body temperature and homeothermy in mammals. BAT recruitment and activation deeply impacts metabolic homeostasis in both mice and humans. Despite recent advances, the nature of the factors that functionally characterize brown adipose precursors are still incompletely characterized. Here, we provide a comprehensive transcriptomic analysis of brown preadipocyte cell lines with low or high adipogenic potential. Using this resource, we report the identification of paired-like homeodomain 2 (PITX2) as a transcription factor highly enriched in committed brown preadipocytes.