Research group Group Nedergaard & Cannon

Thermogenesis is the use of energy with the purpose of only producing heat, a wasteful process that Nature would normally avoid. Nonetheless, through developing the unique process of nonshivering thermogenesis, mammals gained in evolutionary terms. Nonshivering thermogenesis emanates from the activity of the mitochondrial protein UC P1 in brown adipose tissue. We use novel model systems to advance the understanding of mammalian thermogenesis, at three levels of organization:

• At the organism level, through new mouse models, we study the relative significance of two adipose tissues, brown and brite/beige, for both classical cold-induced nonshivering thermogenesis and for diet-induced thermogenesis – the latter a process that, due to its potential significance for energy balance, has gained much interest.
• At the cellular level, from new transcriptome data sets, we study novel molecular actors regulating brown adipocyte differentiation.
• At the molecular level, through a newly developed flexible model of ectopically expressed UCP1, we are characterizing regulation of the activity of UCP1 in a mitochondrial environment.

The studies have a broad interest in that brown adipose tissue, in addition to being important for survival of small mammals (including human newborns) exposed to cold, is now known to be active in a significant fraction of adult humans and may thus affect human energy balance.