Expression of brown, beige and white adipocyte markers in adipose tissue samples of children and adults.

<p>A: <i>UCP1</i> mRNA expression was significantly increased in UCP1^{histological+} samples compared to lean and obese children as well as adult UCP1^{histological-} samples with the exception of a single outlier from an UCP1^{histological-} subcutaneous sample (indicated as black box). B: <i>PRDM16</i> was also increased in UCP1^{histological+} compared to all other UCP1^{histological-} samples. C, D, E and F: mRNA expression of <i>PAT2</i>, <i>P2RX5</i>, <i>ZIC1</i> and <i>LHX8</i> were not different in UCP1^{histological+} samples, although, one UCP1^{histological+} and one UCP1^{histological-} sample presented exceedingly high <i>PAT2</i> expression values, marked with black squares. G,H and I: mRNA expression of the beige adipocyte markers <i>TMEM26</i> and <i>HOXC9</i> was not different in UCP1^{histological+} samples, although, two UCP1^{histological+} samples (from different donors) presented exceedingly high <i>HOXC9</i> values, marked with black squares. These samples showed only islets of UCP1 positive adipocytes. <i>TBX1</i> mRNA expression was slightly increased in UCP1^{histological-} samples of lean children and obese adults compared to UCP1^{histological+} samples. J and K: The WAT marker <i>LEP</i> was significantly decreased in UCP1^{histological+} samples compared to UCP1^{histological-} samples in contrast to <i>ASC1</i>, another white specific marker. L: <i>ADIPOQ</i>, a general marker for AT was not different between UCP1^{histological+} and UCP1^{histological-} samples. Target gene expression was normalized to the mean of the three housekeeping genes: <i>ACTB</i>, <i>TBP</i> and <i>HPRT1</i>. Statistical significance was assessed by one-way ANOVA and post-hoc Dunnett’s test and was compared to UCP1^{histological+} samples and marked with *<i>P</i><0.05; **<i>P</i>< 0.01; **<i>*P</i><0.001.