ABSTRACT
Changes in gene expression can be studied as a physiological response to altered conditions, notably to cold exposure, and the response pathway can be partly analysed in the intact animal. Especially the development of systems for growth and differentiation of brown-fat cells in culture has enabled more detailed analysis of the regulation of gene expression. This chapter explores what is known about the regulation of gene expression in brown adipose tissue (BAT), based on a classification of the genes studied, from the very specific one(s) which are only expressed in BAT, to those genes which are expressed practically in all cell types. It discusses genes, the expression of which has been examined at the mRNA level, and for each of these genes, we discuss the physiological regulation of expression, the "hormonal" regulation and the second messengers involved–to the extent such information exists.
