Summary Brown fat can increase energy expenditure and protect against obesity through a specialized program of uncoupled respiration. We show here by in vivo fate mapping that brown but not white fat cells arise from precursors that express myf5, a gene previously thought to be expressed only in the myogenic lineage. Notably, the transcriptional regulator, PRDM16 controls a bidirectional cell fate switch between skeletal myoblasts and brown fat cells. Loss of PRDM16 from brown fat precursors causes a loss of brown fat characteristics and promotes muscle differentiation. Conversely, ectopic expression of PRDM16 in myoblasts induces their differentiation into brown fat cells. PRDM16 stimulates brown adipogenesis by binding to PPARγ and activating its transcriptional function. Finally, PRDM16-deficient brown fat displays an abnormal morphology, reduced thermogenic gene expression and elevated expression of muscle-specific genes. Taken together, these data indicate that PRDM16 specifies the brown fat lineage from a progenitor that expresses myoblast markers and is not involved in white adipogenesis.

The nuclear receptor FXR is the sensor of physiological levels of enterohepatic bile acids, the end products of cholesterol catabolism. Here we report crystal structures of the FXR ligand binding domain in complex with coactivator peptide and two different bile acids. An unusual A/B ring juncture, a feature associated with bile acids and no other steroids, provides ligand discrimination and triggers a pi-cation switch that activates FXR. Helix 12, the activation function 2 of the receptor, adopts the agonist conformation and stabilizes coactivator peptide binding. FXR is able to interact simultaneously with two coactivator motifs, providing a mechanism for enhanced binding of coactivators through intermolecular contacts between their LXXLL sequences. These FXR complexes provide direct insights into the design of therapeutic bile acids for treatment of hyperlipidemia and cholestasis.

No abstract

PGC-1a is a transcriptional coactivator that powerfully regulates many pathways linked to energy homeostasis. Specifically, PGC-1a controls mitochondrial biogenesis in most tissues but also initiates important tissue-specific functions, including fiber type switching in skeletal muscle and gluconeogenesis and fatty acid oxidation in the liver. We show here that S6 kinase, activated in the liver upon feeding, can phosphorylate PGC-1a directly on two sites within its arginine/serine-rich (RS) domain. This phosphorylation significantly attenuates the ability of PGC1a to turn on genes of gluconeogenesis in cultured hepatocytes and in vivo, while leaving the functions of PGC-1a as an activator of mitochondrial and fatty acid oxidation genes completely intact. These phosphorylations interfere with the ability of PGC-1a to bind to HNF4a, a transcription factor required for gluconeogenesis, while leaving undisturbed the interactions of PGC-1a with ERRa and PPARa, factors important for mitochondrial biogenesis and fatty acid oxidation. These data illustrate that S6 kinase can modify PGC-1a and thus allow molecular dissection of its functions, providing metabolic flexibility needed for dietary adaptation.

Ecdysteroids initiate molting and metamorphosis in insects via a heterodimeric receptor consisting of the ecdysone receptor (EcR) and ultraspiracle (USP). The EcR±USP heterodimer preferentially mediates transcription through highly degenerate pseudo-palindromic response elements, resembling inverted repeats of 5¢-AGGTCA-3¢ separated by 1 bp (IR-1). The requirement for a heterodimeric arrangement of EcR±USP subunits to bind to a symmetric DNA is unusual within the nuclear receptor superfamily. We describe the 2.24 A Ê structure of the EcR±USP DNA-binding domain (DBD) heterodimer bound to an idealized IR-1 element. EcR and USP use similar surfaces, and rely on the deformed minor groove of the DNA to establish protein±protein contacts. As retinoid X receptor (RXR) is the mammalian homolog of USP, we also solved the 2.60 A Ê crystal structure of the EcR±RXR DBD heterodimer on IR-1 and found the dimerization and DNA-binding interfaces to be the same as in the EcR±USP complex. Sequence alignments indicate that the EcR±RXR heterodimer is an important model for understanding how the FXR±RXR heterodimer binds to IR-1 sites.

No abstract

Application of typical HDX methods to examine intrinsically disordered proteins (IDP), proteins that are natively unstructured and highly dynamic at physiological pH, is limited due to the rapid exchange of unprotected amide hydrogens with solvent. The exchange rates of these fast exchanging amides are usually faster than the shortest time scale (10s) employed in typical automated HDX-MS experiments. Considering the functional importance of IDPs and their association with many diseases, it is valuable to develop methods that allow the study of solution dynamics of these proteins as well as the ability to probe the interaction of IDPs with their wide range of binding partners. Here, we report the application of time window expansion to the millisecond range by altering the on-exchange pH of the HDX experiment to study a well characterized IDP; the activation domain of the nuclear receptor coactivator, peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor gamma coactivator-1 alpha (PGC-1α). This method enabled mapping the regions of PGC-1α that are stabilized upon binding the ligand binding domain (LBD) of the nuclear receptor peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor gamma (PPARγ). We further demonstrate the method’s applicability to other binding partners of the IDP PGC-1α and pave the way for characterizing many other biologically important ID proteins.

Peroxisome proliferator activated receptor (PPAR) γ coactivator-1α (PGC-1α) is a potent transcriptional coactivator of oxidative metabolism and is induced in response to a variety of environmental cues. It regulates a broad array of target genes by coactivating a whole host of transcription factors. The estrogen-related receptor (ERR) family of nuclear receptors are key PGC-1α partners in the regulation of mitochondrial and tissue-specific oxidative metabolic pathways; these receptors also demonstrate strong physical and functional interactions with this coactivator. Here we perform comprehensive biochemical, biophysical, and structural analyses of the complex formed between PGC-1α and ERRγ. PGC-1α activation domain (PGC-1 α 2–220 ) is intrinsically disordered with limited secondary and no defined tertiary structure. Complex formation with ERRγ induces significant changes in the conformational mobility of both partners, highlighted by significant stabilization of the ligand binding domain (ERRγLBD) as determined by HDX (hydrogen/deuterium exchange) and an observed disorder-to-order transition in PGC-1 α 2–220 . Small-angle X-ray scattering studies allow for modeling of the solution structure of the activation domain in the absence and presence of ERRγLBD, revealing a stable and compact binary complex. These data show that PGC-1 α 2–220 undergoes a large-scale conformational change when binding to the ERRγLBD, leading to substantial compaction of the activation domain. This change results in stable positioning of the N-terminal part of the activation domain of PGC-1α, favorable for assembly of an active transcriptional complex. These data also provide structural insight into the versatile coactivation profile of PGC-1α and can readily be extended to understand other transcriptional coregulators.