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Convertible Visceral Fat As a 515
Therapeutic Target to Curb Obesity

lates brown remodeling of WAT through a modula-
tion of autophagy

MR antagonists – Spiranolactone increase UCP1 in
visceral and inguinal fat depots, Induced up-regula-
tion of brown adipocyte-specific transcripts and Pre-
vents adipocyte dysfunction.

Obesity is the leading cause for metabolic disorders.
Definition of obesity and overweight for Indians is
more stringent than western counterparts. Over the
past few decades, substantial experimental evidence
shows that adipose organ, morbid obesity reflects a
massive increase in WAT, especially visceral WAT, at
the expense of BAT. Many drugs have been intro-
duced in the market and many got withdrawn due to
AE. Intense basic and pharmacological research work
is under way to discover targets and molecules that
can stimulate mature BAT and/or induce the brown
phenotype in differentiating adipocyte; which will
curb the burden of metabolic morbidity and mortality.
Abbreviations;
WAT: white adipose tissue

BAT: brown adipose tissue
UCP1 (uncoupling protein1)
PPARγ (peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor γ)
PRDM16, PR domain containing 16

References:
1. Turning WAT into BAT: a review on regulators controlling the browning of
white adipocytes Kinyui Alice LO*1 and Lei SUN†‡1 *Institute of Medi-
cal Biology, 8A Biomedical Grove, #06-06 Immunos, Singapore 138648,
Singapore, †Cardiovascular and Metabolic Disorders, Duke-NUS Graduate
Medical School, 8 College Road, Singapore 169857, Singapore, and ‡Insti-
tute of Molecular and Cell Biology, 61 Biopolis Drive, Proteos, Singapore
138673, Singapore
2. Convertible visceral fat as a therapeutic target to curb obesity Article in
Nature Reviews Drug Discovery · March 2016
3. Jean-Philippe Bastard • Bruno Fève Editors Physiology and Physiopathology
of Adipose Tissue

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