Table 2.

Differences between human and mouse adipocytes

	Human BAT	Murine BAT	Ref.
Distribution	Dispersed	The main BAT depots are in well-defined anatomic sites	Heaton (1972), Jespersen et al. (2013)
Cell composition	A mix of white, classical brown, and recruitable brite adipocytes	Homogeneously composed of brown adipocytes	Chen et al. (2013), Jespersen et al. (2013)
MicroRNA expression	145 miRNAs are expressed in BAT of both species while expression of at least 250 other miRNAs is exclusive to one species or the other		Guller et al. (2015)
Response to β3 adrenergic agonists	Weak	Strong	Feldmann et al. (2009), van Baak et al. (2002)
Changes with increasing age	Gradually decline	Stably exist	Heaton (1972), Smith and Roberts (1964)
Glucocorticoid effects	Acutely increase but chronically suppress BAT activity	Substantially suppress BAT activity	Ramage et al. (2016), Zilberfarb et al. (2001), Barclay et al. (2015)