Mitochondrial biogenesis in brown adipose tissue is associated with differential expression of transcription regulatory factors.

The differentiation of brown adipocytes during late fetal development or in cell culture is associated with enhanced mitochondrial biogenesis and increased gene expression for components of the respiratory chain/oxidative phosphorylation system. We have shown that this is due to a rise in mitochondrial DNA abundance and the corresponding increase in mitochondrial genome transcripts and gene products, as well as to the coordinate induction of nuclear-encoded genes for mitochondrial proteins. We studied how the expression of key components of the transcriptional regulation of mitochondrial biogenesis is regulated during this process. Changes in the expression of nuclear respiratory factor-2/GA-binding protein a and peroxisome proliferator-activated-receptor gamma coactivator-1 (increase) were opposite to those of nuclear respiratory factor-1 and Sp1 (decrease) during the developmental and differentiation-dependent induction of mitochondrial biogenesis in brown fat. These results indicate that the relative roles of transcription factors and coactivators in mediating mitochondrial biogenesis 'in vivo' are highly specific according to the cell type and stimulus that mediate the mitochondriogenic process.