SAT662 Bone Morphogenetic Protein 7 Induces Transdifferentiation Of Human White Preadipocytes Into Thermogenic Beige Adipocytes

Abstract Disclosure: S.L. Ali: None. J. Katz: None. A.M. Cypess: None. Chronic treatment of women with mirabegron, which activates the β3-adrenergic receptor, increases the mass and energy expenditure of thermogenic adipocytes and leads to metabolic benefits including improvement of glucose and lipid homeostasis. In humans, thermogenic adipose tissue is composed of brown and beige/brite (from “brown-in-white”) cells that have different lineages and potentially different functions. Beige cells are of therapeutic interest because they are derived from white adipose tissue, which is present at a considerably higher volume compared to brown adipose tissue. Identifying processes that can transdifferentiate white into beige cells could lead to treatments for obesity-related metabolic disease. We hypothesized that short-term treatment with bone morphogenetic protein 7 (BMP7), a member of the transforming growth factor-β (TGF-β) family of cell regulatory proteins, prior to differentiation could be sufficient to induce white to beige transition in human white preadipocytes. We established paired clonal immortalized human white and brown preadipocyte lines and differentiated the white adipocytes ± BMP7 (3.3 nM) for 7 days prior to differentiation. Cells were collected at d0 (undifferentiated) and d30 (fully mature adipocytes) for gene expression analyses. Short-term exposure to BMP7 in white preadipocytes significantly decreased the expression of white-specific markers TCF21 and HOXC8. The beige-specific markers TBX1 and TMEM26, and the thermogenic marker UCP1 were significantly higher in BMP7-treated white adipocytes. However, long term, 30-day exposure to BMP7 treatment reversed the thermogenic transdifferentiation both human white and brown adipocytes. Basal and drug-induced maximal respiration measured via Seahorse XFe96 Analyzer were significantly higher in short-term BMP7-treated white adipocytes. Our data indicate that BMP7 is capable of transdifferentiating human white preadipocytes into thermogenic beige adipocytes. Given that extended treatment reduced the impact of BMP7 indicates that precise timing of interventions will be needed to utilize white-to-beige transdifferentiation to treat obesity-associated metabolic disease. Presentation: Saturday, June 17, 2023