1 Our lab is focused on establishing2 supraclavicular brown adipose tissue 3 or SCBAT as a valuable depot 4 for brown fat analysis due to its anatomical similarities 5 to human brown adipose tissue. 6 This protocol is aimed at increasing accessibility7 of SCBAT research. 8 This depot may be intimidating due to its small size 9 and proximity to large veins in the neck, 10 so it is imperative to provide 11 a simple method of extracting and processing SCBAT.
12 Our methodology stands out13 firstly by the use of a dissecting microscope 14 when extracting SCBAT. 15 This increases the precision 16 and extracting efficiency, 17 which are both critical when working 18 with such a small tissue depot. 19 Secondly, we homogenized the frozen SCBAT samples 20 before doing gene expression analysis 21 to increase the RNA yield to compensate 22 for such a low quantity of available tissue.
23 We are currently focus on defining24 the genetic lining edge of SCBAT, 25 identifying the transfiguration networks 26 regulating its development, 27 and developing a cerebral model 28 for exploring its physiological function in humans.