Cell biology

Biology

Endocrinology

Brown adipose tissue

Biochemistry

Hypoxia (environmental)

Organic chemistry

Oxygen

Thermogenesis

Internal medicine

Mitochondrion

Medicine

Chemistry

Thermogenin

Mole

Adipose tissue

Nature Communications

Naked mole-rats are among the most hypoxia-tolerant mammals. During hypoxia, their body temperature ( T b ) decreases via unknown mechanisms to conserve energy. In small mammals, non-shivering thermogenesis in brown adipose tissue (BAT) is critical to T b regulation; therefore, we hypothesize that hypoxia decreases naked mole-rat BAT thermogenesis. To test this, we measure changes in T b during normoxia and hypoxia (7% O 2 ; 1–3 h). We report that interscapular thermogenesis is high in normoxia but ceases during hypoxia, and T b decreases. Furthermore, in BAT from animals treated in hypoxia, UCP1 and mitochondrial complexes I-V protein expression rapidly decrease, while mitochondria undergo fission, and apoptosis and mitophagy are inhibited. Finally, UCP1 expression decreases in hypoxia in three other social African mole-rat species, but not a solitary species. These findings suggest that the ability to rapidly down-regulate thermogenesis to conserve oxygen in hypoxia may have evolved preferentially in social species.

Naked mole-rat brown fat thermogenesis is diminished during hypoxia through a rapid decrease in UCP1