# Regulation of thermogenesis by the novel brown adipose-specific protein BASIC

> **NIH NIH F30** · UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES · 2022 · $51,752

## Abstract

PROJECT SUMMARY
Failure to maintain systemic energy homeostasis—a balance between energy intake and energy expenditure
at the organismal level—is the root cause of obesity and its associated comorbidities. As a result, physiological
processes that regulate energy intake and/or expenditure are the subject of intense study and hold great
promise as therapeutic targets for obesity. Stimulation of nonshivering thermogenesis (NST)—the generation
of heat by futile metabolic cycling in brown (BAT) and beige adipose tissue—has garnered considerable
interest as a potential means of increasing energy expenditure in humans to protect against obesity and the
metabolic syndrome. However, NST-based therapeutic strategies are limited by the adverse effects of inducing
futile cycling in non-BAT tissues. Thus, identifying and characterizing novel BAT-specific proteins could provide
opportunities for the development of improved obesity interventions targeting NST. Preliminary studies
employing next-generation sequencing, molecular biology, genome editing, and proteomic approaches have
led to the discovery of a novel BAT-specific protein of unknown function named BASIC. Basic expression is
highly induced by environmental and pharmacological activators of NST in mice, and knockdown of BASIC
appears to upregulate the thermogenic gene program in cultured adipocytes, implicating BASIC as a cell-
intrinsic negative regulator of adipose thermogenesis. The proposed research plan will first use physiologic and
molecular approaches to characterize a newly generated BASIC knockout mouse model and thereby
determine the consequence of loss of BASIC function on NST in vivo (Aim 1). Further studies will elucidate
BASIC's mechanism of action by defining its subcellular localization and examining its effect on thermogenic
signaling pathways in primary brown adipocytes (Aim 2). Completion of the proposed aims will shed light on
the function of a hitherto undiscovered BAT-specific protein, which may provide insight into new pathways
involved in adipose thermogenesis and reveal a potential target for NST-based therapeutic interventions.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10308019
- **Project number:** 5F30DK123986-03
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES
- **Principal Investigator:** Kevin Qian
- **Activity code:** F30 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2022
- **Award amount:** $51,752
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2019-12-01 → 2023-11-30

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10308019

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10308019, Regulation of thermogenesis by the novel brown adipose-specific protein BASIC (5F30DK123986-03). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-24 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10308019. Licensed CC0.

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