New research from the lab of Nutritional Science and Toxicology professor Andreas Stahl appeared on the cover of a January issue of The EMBO Journal, a semi-monthly peer-scientific journal focusing on molecular biology and related areas.
Their study found that deficiencies of Coenzyme Q (CoQ), an important component of brown adipose tissue (BAT) which plays a key role in regulating metabolism and body weight, trigger a molecular stress response resulting in the browning of white adipose tissue and enhanced whole-body respiration. The study was co-led by former postdoctoral researcher Ching-Fang Chang and PhD student Amanda Gunawan, with Stahl serving as the study’s senior author.
The researchers used a Zeiss LSM 710 confocal microscope in Rausser College's Biological Imaging Facility to image brown adipose tissue from PDSS2 knockout mice. UCP1, a protein found in brown adipose tissue, is shown in red while lipid droplets are shown in green, and nuclei in blue.
Additional UC Berkeley co-authors include postdoctoral researcher Irene Liparulo; Stahl Lab alum Peter-James Zushin, PhD ’22 Metabolic Biology; PhD student Kaitlyn Vitangcol; and faculty members Kaoru Saijo, Güneş Parlakgül, and Ana Paula Arruda.
Read the full study online in The EMBO Journal.