[Brown, white, beige: the color of fat and new therapeutic perspectives for obesity...].

Three articles published in the NEJM in 2009 have renewed the interest for brown adipose tissue (BAT) in humans. This review reports interesting new findings on adipocyte cell types that have been presented at the last meeting of the Endocrine Society in Houston, TX, in June 2012. Many studies have focused on identifying factors involved in brown adipocyte lineage, the site of adaptive thermogenesis. Indeed, the role of the transcription factors, such as PRDM16, in brown adipocyte differentiation has been unambiguously established. Very recently, the concept of "beigeing", defined as the occurrence of thermogenic brown adipocytes in white adipose tissue, has emerged, leading to the identification, by Bruce Spiegelman's group, of a new muscular hormone, called irisin, which is able to stimulate the "beigeing". This finding should convey toward the discovery of new mutations involved in the pathogenesis of obesity and lipodystrophies, and should be translated into innovative therapeutic perspectives. Finally, the nature of BAT innervation has been clarified and the presence of an autoregulatory loop between BAT and notably hypothalamic paraventricular nuclei via the sensory and sympathetic nervous systems has been delineated. These feedback circuits appear to be crucial to control BAT thermogenic activity.