SECREPEDIA.ORG

In addition to their bioenergetic properties, white, brown, and beige adipocytes secrete distinct signaling molecules that maintain homeostasis by crosstalk with tissues such as the pancreas, liver, skeletal muscle, and brain. While a number of these white and brown adipocyte-derived endocrine factors have been demonstrated to have important physiological functions, adipocytes are thought to secrete over 1,000 unique polypeptides and microproteins and an even greater number of metabolites. Thus, we hypothesize that white and brown adipocytes may exert many of their effects on systemic metabolism via secreted mediators, a large number of which have yet to be characterized. To date, this vast, undefined adipocyte secretome represents a major opportunity for discovering new biology with therapeutic potential for obesity, type 2 diabetes, and metabolic diseases. However, a central obstacle in this area has been the lack of suitable technologies to quantitatively identify low abundance..