Skip to main content
. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2017 Oct 4.
Published in final edited form as: Nat Rev Mol Cell Biol. 2016 Aug 24;17(11):691–702. doi: 10.1038/nrm.2016.96

Fig. 2. Development of brown adipocytes.

Fig. 2

Brown adipocytes are derived from a multipotent progenitor population in the dermomyotome that expresses En1, Pax7 and Myf5. During embryogenesis, these progenitors undergo commitment into brown fat preadipocytes and subsequently differentiate into mature brown adipocytes. Several transcription factors and signalling pathways have been implicated in regulating the development of brown adipose tissue (BAT): (1) EBF2 marks committed brown preadipocytes and might regulate brown adipose lineage specification; EWS interacts with YBX1 to regulate the transcription of BMP7, which promotes BAT development; (3) PRDM16 drives brown adipocyte differentiation through interactions with adipogenic transcription factors c/EBPβ and PPARγ; ZFP516 and EHMT1; (4) EBF2 cooperates with PPARγ to activate the brown fat-selective program.