CIDEA interacts with liver X receptors in white fat cells.

Cell death-inducing DNA fragmentation factor alpha-like effector A (CIDEA) is endogenously expressed in human but not rodent white adipocytes. We performed a bioinformatic analysis of the human CIDEA sequence and found conserved amino-acid motifs involved in binding to nuclear receptors. Protein-protein binding experiments and transactivation assays confirmed that CIDEA binds to liver X receptors and regulates their activity in vitro. Cell fractionation demonstrated that CIDEA localizes to both the cytoplasm and the nucleus in human white adipocytes. The interaction between CIDEA and nuclear receptors could therefore be of importance for the regulation of metabolic processes in human adipose tissue.