Pericytes induced by cold exposure in different adipose tissues of mice

Abstract

Adipose tissue remodeling, which includes phenotypic alterations and changes in vascular density, is promoted by cold exposure, which results in browning of white adipose tissue (Saito et al.), increased brown adipose tissue, and increased brown adipose tissue. Pericytes (PCs), present in the perivascular region, have been shown to be multipotent and essential for the growth and preservation of blood vessel integrity. In view of this, we aimed for this study to review the advances made in the literature to understand the plasticity of PCs in adipose tissue. To compare NG2+/Nestin+ cells in adipose tissue from mice exposed to cold. For analysis, we used NG2-DsRed/Nestin-GFP mice, which could allow the identification of pericyte subtypes. We observed the presence of two subsets of PCs in various WAT and BAT depots, the NG2+/Nestin- (type-1) and the NG2+/Nestin+ (type-2). After 2-week cold exposure at 8°C, we observed a significant increase in type 1 cells in all adipose tissues and an increase in type 2 cells in the adipose tissues most susceptible to the phenotypic changes of cold exposure. We also found that among the markers, several cells expressed only the Nestin+ marker, and that some of them appeared to be associated with blood vessels, but a small amount were not associated with blood vessels. In order to evaluate and understand if the unassociated cells could migrate to adipose tissues, we performed a parabiosis with WT and NG2-DsRed/Nestin-GFP mice and repeated the 2-week cold exposure protocol, in which we observed that there was a possible migration of NG2+/Nestin+ cells due to tissue-to-tissue contact and hypothesized that Nestin+ cells from the circulation reached more distant adipose tissues. Here, different subsets of perivascular NG2+/Nestin+ cells in adipose tissue (WAT and BAT) were revealed, which increased significantly after two weeks of cold exposure (8°C). These Perspectives discuss recent understanding of PCs in adipose tissue and their possible potential as targets for new approaches in therapeutic treatments for metabolic diseases.