Skip to main content
. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2020 Oct 1.
Published in final edited form as: Trends Endocrinol Metab. 2019 Aug 16;30(10):710–723. doi: 10.1016/j.tem.2019.07.020

Figure 1. Inter-organ communication regulating brown fat-mediated thermogenesis.

Figure 1.

Cold promotes lipolysis in WAT resulting in the release of free fatty acids (FFA) that directly serve as substrates for BAT-mediated thermogenesis or are delivered to the liver, where they undergo conversion to acylcarnitines due to an increased CPT1 gene expression mediated by HNF4α activation. Liver-derived acylcarnitines are an alternative fuel source for BAT-mediated thermogenesis. Cold exposure also activates the alternative pathway of bile acid synthesis in the liver. Bile acids induce changes in the gut microbiome, resulting in production of microbial metabolites with thermogenic activity. This figure was created using  BioRender (https://biorender.com/).