肥胖是一种能量代谢失衡的生理状态，严重威胁着人类的健康。最近研究表明，促进体内米色脂肪组织棕色化可将体内多余的能量以热能的形式散发出去，从而缓解肥胖及其引起的代谢综合征。在本项目中，利用高通量芯片筛选结合生物信息学分析方法，我们在小鼠腹股沟白色脂肪组织（一种米色脂肪组织）中发现了一种受低温诱导表达的长链非编码RNA，LncRNA-WATB。初步研究结果发现，过表达LncRNA-WATB可促进前体脂肪细胞向棕色脂肪细胞分化，而干扰其表达则抑制这种分化。并且，我们发现LncRNA-WATB主要表达于细胞核部位。在接下来的实验中，我们拟从细胞及动物活体水平就LncRNA-WATB促进米色脂肪组织棕色化开展系列研究，并阐明其作用机制。本项目的开展有望揭示一条以LncRNA-WATB为关键分子的信号通路，其作用为促进米色脂肪组织棕色化，消耗多余能量，从而达到治疗或缓解肥胖症的目的。

Obesity is a systemic energy imbalance induced abnormal physiological condition, which greatly threats human health. Recently studies showed that the promotion of beige adipose tissue browning will increase energy expenditure via heat production. Therefore, beige adipose browning is likely a useful strategy for dealing with obesity and its related metabolic syndromes. In the present project, based upon high-throughput screening and bioinformatic analysis, we found a cold-inducible long noncoding RNA, LncRNA-WATB (white adipose tissue browning) in mouse inguinal WAT (a kind of beige adipose tissue). Our preliminary results showed that over-expression of LncRNA-WATB promotes the differentiation from precursor adipocytes into mature brown adipocytes. On the contrary, knockdown its expression impairs this differentiation. Moreover, we found that LncRNA-WATB was mainly expressed in nucleus. In the following experiments, we will carry out a series of experiments regarding effects of LncRNA-WATB on beige adipose browning and try to explore the involved molecular mechanisms. This project will reveal a LncRNA-WATB dependent signaling pathway for stimulating beige adipose browning, which will consume excessive energy and finally cure or alleviate obesity.