AJP - Endocrinology and Metabolism, Vol 247, Issue 6 793-E799, Copyright © 1984 by American Physiological Society
Trophic response of hamster brown adipose tissue: roles of norepinephrine and pineal gland
J. Triandafillou, W. Hellenbrand and J. Himms-Hagen
The objective was to find out whether the reduced amount of brown adipose
tissue in myopathic hamsters [Am. J. Physiol. 239 (Cell Physiol. 8):
C18-C22, 1980] was secondary to a refractoriness to the trophic influence
of norepinephrine. However, no evidence for any trophic influence of
norepinephrine on brown adipose tissue of either normal or myopathic
hamsters could be detected under experimental conditions that have
demonstrated such an influence in rats. A mediator other than
norepinephrine, melatonin, secreted by the pineal gland, is known to
mediate the control of brown adipose tissue growth induced in hamsters by
short photoperiod. Further studies of intact or pinealectomized hamsters
showed that the pineal gland was not required for either cold- or
diet-induced growth of brown adipose tissue. It is concluded that the
defect in control of brown adipose tissue size in the hamster with muscular
dystrophy is not due either to abnormal control by norepinephrine or to the
pineal gland since neither of these appears to participate in the normal
regulation of brown adipose tissue size in relation to environmental
temperature or to diet.
